baking class

Recently I was asked by Violet, the wife of the pastor of the local Reformed Baptist church if I would be willing to teach a baking class for some of the ladies in the church.  They wanted to learn how to bake some 'goodies' so that they can have a bake sale and earn money for the church, which is trying to build its own building.

I was more than happy too, but it meant I had to do some homework.  I had to find recipes that would work with ingredients that could be found locally -- i.e., no special ingredients that I had to bring from Lusaka.  This meant that I couldn't use recipes calling for baking soda or vanilla extract, or special spices like cinnamon!  In the end I decided on 8 recipes.

Our baking classes were scheduled for the first two Saturday mornings in March, starting at 8am.  The first week the ladies were on time -- 6 came along, which wasn't quite as many as the 10 I had been expecting, but a few of them had been too late to catch a ride that morning.  Violet had asked me to lead a short Bible study, so we began the morning by reading and talking about the story of Hannah at the beginning of 1st Samuel, and the importance of prayer.  Then we moved on to baking class!

The first Saturday morning we started by making 2 loaves of banana bread.  While it was baking we made a batch of flour tortillas (which are more commonly known in Africa as 'chipatis' - chipatis are very similar to tortillas but they are thicker and usually cooked in oil).  While waiting for things to finish baking we enjoyed a cup of tea together in the living room and chatted.  We ended the morning by making a 13x9 pan of brownies.  Everyone got to taste what we made and then each woman got to take home a sampling of 'goodies' to share with her family.

The following Saturday morning we met again. This time only 2 women were the same from the group that came the week before -- and there were only 5 women total.  But everyone got a copy of all the recipes we learned whether they were there both weeks or not.  This time we got straight to baking because our time had gone too quickly the week before.  We started by making 2 loaves of lemon tea bread.  Then we made the dough for sugar cookies and put it in the fridge to chill.  Meanwhile we made a batch of buttermilk pancakes.  The ladies also worked together to cleverly construct their own set of 'measuring cups' cut from the bottom of different size plastic bottles!  It is amazing how resourceful they are!  When the bread finished baking then we made a double batch of buttermilk scones (more commonly known in the States as buttermilk biscuits).  Again everyone got to taste what we made, and then each woman took some 'samples' home. I was hoping to have a chance to make some oatmeal cookies but we ran out of time.  However, I gave them the recipe (which is really easy) and some of the ladies had tasted them the week before because we had some with our tea. 

So, in all, the ladies were sent home with 8 new recipes to try and a whole bunch of new ideas for ways to raise money for their church!  It was an enjoyable chance to visit with these women and be able to teach them something that I felt marginally qualified to teach.  I genuinely hope that these baking classes will be of great use to them and that they will be able to use these skills to benefit others.  Also, the conversations we had were really interesting - ranging from how long do Zambian women typically breastfeed their babies, to when do babies first eat 'nshima' (the staple Zambian food), to one older woman asking me how can she help her children learn if she herself does not know how to read or write?  Can you imagine?  I encouraged her that it is never too late to learn, and that she should try to find someone in her village who can teach her how to read!  It was a really lovely opportunity to visit with these women!