By BRITT COPELAND, guest columnist
Around the holiday season, there is a lot of interest in baking, as cookies, cakes and pies come center stage.
On Friday, Dec. 20, Purdue Extension Brown County will be offering a new 4-H Spark Club. We are calling it the Great Brown County Bake Off, which is a play on words of the popular PBS show, “The Great British Baking Show.”
The bake-off will be an all-day learning experience and baking competition. Participants will be led through three baking challenges over the course of the day that require increasing skill development, from a breakfast bake, to a pretzel, to a holiday baking showstopper recipe of their choosing.
As are all 4-H Spark Clubs, this event will be led by local volunteers who lend their expertise to the 4-H program. Our baking coaches, the Brown County Extension Homemakers, will be volunteering their talents and some of their own time-tested recipes/techniques to bake-off participants.
The day will also be broken up to include crafts, games that promote physical activity, and a food science guest speaker. Our aim is that the topics presented will not only give participants skills they can use every day, but introduce them to potential careers as well.
Our food science guest speaker for the day will be Ashlyn Burns. Ashlyn has a degree in entomology and a master’s in public health from Purdue University. She will be introducing bake-off participants to an ingredient not commonly associated with holiday baking: mealworms.
Entomophagy is the rearing and consumption of insects, like mealworms, for food. While entomophagy is not a new topic, it is a topic that continues gaining worldwide attention and popularity in recent years as agriculturists, scientists and world leaders struggle to solve the question of how we will feed future growing populations.
Raising insects for food is environmentally conscious, surprisingly healthy, and a potential solution to global food security issues. Ashlyn will be sharing her recipe for mealworm flour and doing a live cooking demonstration with samples for those brave enough to partake. Mealworm flour can be used in a variety of ways and packs a real protein-filled punch of nutritional value.
I invite you to sign your youth up for our upcoming Spark Club to experience the fourth “H” in 4-H, health. The 4-H program is meant to develop youth and equip them with practical life skills and cooking for themselves is one of those skills.
The bake-off is designed for Grades 3 to 8, but we can adjust if older youth groups are interested.
The goal of a 4-H Spark Club is to interest new audiences in 4-H, so non-4-H members are encouraged to attend to find out what goes on year-round in the Brown County 4-H program. If participants have fun, they can continue to participating in camps, contests and projects like foods, because the cost of admission includes a 4-H membership.
Participants need only bring themselves, a $30 program fee, and containers if they would like to take home their creations. This fee includes membership to 4-H, lunch, baking ingredients, crafts, a day of fun and educational programing. Current 4-H members need only pay $10. The state program fee after the third child in one family is discounted when joining 4-H, meaning the fourth child in the family need only pay $10 for this event.
The Spark Club will last from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Dec. 20 — a Friday and the first day of winter break for Brown County Schools — so, parents, if your break hasn’t started yet, take note!
Because we have a finite number of ovens on the fairgrounds, space is limited. Call the Extension office 812-988-5495 or email [email protected] to reserve your space today!
Interested in getting involved with 4-H as a volunteer or homemaker yourself? Contact us!
For everyone else; on your marks, get set, BAKE!
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What: 4-H Spark Club, The Great Brown County Bake Off
Who: Grades 3-8, open to all
When: Friday, Dec. 20 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: Brown County Fairgrounds Exhibit Building, 802 Memorial Drive, Nashville
How much: $30 program fee which includes 4-H membership, lunch, day of fun activities, take-home baked creations, crafts, and lessons on how to bake and cook for yourself from experienced bakers
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