Hearty Pancake Ice Cream Session!

Wholesome Pancakes and Low Fat Ice-cream in a Bag Class

What a fruitful Saturday it was last week! To hear the laughter and conversation of both parent and children who attended our pancake and ice-cream class brings a warmth of satisfaction that will definitely continue to steer us to the path of nutrition education that is bespoke and innovative!

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Wholemeal pancakes came first, mixing in various ingredients, adding the acceptable wholemeal flour amount so that it remains palatable for both children and adults. There was sharing of whisking methods for egg white and use of lower fat option ingredients available to make the pancake fluffy, yet maintaining the recipe a healthier version one. We observed that the interaction and bonding during the session between parent and child was clearly evident. This is one of the goals that we are aiming to achieve for bring nutrition, healthy eating and family time closer together, hopefully these are baby steps towards achieving this on a longer continual time.

IMG-20160830-WA0002Next was the ice-cream making in a bag. This generated a lot of noise and squealing, children getting excited from the coldness of shaking the bags with ice and salt. We looked at the usual ice cream making with readily available half-half mixture. Then we tried making the ice-cream with making the half and half mixture of thickened cream and low fat milk or full cream milk. This allows us to visually observe the ice cream in terms of texture, shaking in the bag time and taste as compared to the readily half-half mixture.

Definitely the readily available half-half mixture was the easiest and quickest to thickened, followed by the thickened cream with full cream milk and last to thickened was the thickened cream with low fat milk. Own made ice cream creaminess is definitely determine by the fat content and also the time taken to shake the bag in ice become an important factor for this activity as well.

In preparation of making the ice cream in a bag, we needed to make sure adequate small cube ice was mixed well with coarse salt. This allowed the temperature to be maintained low when shaking the ice cream. What is the reasoning behind this? When we mix salt, ice, and water together and this is packed around in a bag with the ice cream mix, the temperature can be lowered tremendously due to energy in the hydrogen bonds that holds the ice together. This method was what traditional ice cream makers used in the old times.

Besides making wholesome pancakes and ice cream in a bag, we will explore further in the near future of making healthy pancakes with fruits and vegetables and also ice cream making in a different method. Do join us for more fun filled nutrition cooking/baking classes!

We would like to take this opportunity as well to thank our Temasek Polytechnic Students in 2015 for their collaborative effort in developing the wholesome pancakes to just the correct ratio and texture!