baking+math=love

I love to bake! I especially love making fun, themed cakes for Buddy and the Goose's birthdays. Buddy requested a Batman cake for his last birthday in keeping with his Superhero Sleepover theme.

Goosey turned four this summer. She wanted an "Aurora cake" like in the movie Sleeping Beauty. Remember when the fairies host a sweet sixteen for Briar Rose before they take her back to her parents' castle? In the movie it looks like this...

(image: www.babble.com)




So, this is what Goosey and I made together. It had four chocolate layers, one for each of her sweet years! She loved it--she said it was exactly what she wanted! And, it was delicious! (Glad she is easy to please!)

Goosey couldn't wait to lick the batter off the beaters!

Did you know that baking and cooking have a lot to do with math? It isn't just about doubling or halving a recipe, although that's all most math teachers (myself included!) have asked students to do in the past. It is also about learning WHY we do certain things and learning to be flexible to create something new. Let me explain...





Human beings have to eat to live. Period. Food is a requirement for life! But there is a wide spectrum of how people get their food. Some of us prefer to let someone else do the food preparation, whether that be a parent at home, a frozen dinner from the grocery, or take out from a favorite restaurant. Other people like to make their own dinners, but may only go as far as opening a jar of pasta sauce and boiling noodles. (But, don't get me wrong, spaghetti is a favorite in our house!)

If you like to cook, you may be a recipe follower. This is how I cooked for a long time. If I didn't follow the recipe, I didn't know what to do. I was afraid to venture beyond what someone told me to do. But, I kinda got bored. I wanted to start exploring ingredients and methods and make up my own meals. So I began to play in the kitchen. I had enough practice to understand what flavors worked well together. I understood how to make sure my meat was cooked correctly and what ingredient would thicken a sauce or what spice would add the perfect flavor. (I like to pretend I'm a chef on TV and sometimes talk to my "viewers" as I cook. I'm so weird, I know!)





Here's the math connection: we have to do math to live. Period. Math is a requirement for life! Some of us may like to get someone or something to do our math--the computer, the bank, the kid next to us on the bus. Just like ordering a pizza, we "outsource" our math. We trust that the other guy did it right and we really don't know (or care) how it got done, but we enjoy the cheesy, pepperoni goodness...or the balanced checkbook.





Some of us are good at following the recipes in math. Those fractions you see in recipes? If you have to add two fractions, you might always remember to first get a common denominator. You remember the steps, you follow the steps, you get the answer. But sometimes you need to do a little more than follow the steps, because the ingredients in the problem don't quite work with the procedures you've always used. Or sometimes you can't remember the steps at all! That's where learning to be flexible in math is important! We need to extend our learning to focus on why we use certain rules, specific steps, particular processes, so that when the problem is a new challenge, we feel capable and excited to take it on! You can learn to make sense of what the problem is asking and reason your way to a solution. That's when math gets fun! I promise! : )





This post was inspired by a new book I've been reading, How to Bake Pi by Eugenia Cheng.

Check it out, it's super interesting!

So, the moral of my story? Get ready to explore math this year. To learn WHY we do the things we do to numbers. To learn HOW to apply ideas to lots of different real-life situations. And maybe there will be a treat from my kitchen for you every now and then along the way...Bon appetit!