September 13, 2018 Jenny Ridgwell

Sugar in cakes – how to do a star profile NEA 1

For NEA 1 you need to evaluate and annotate your results. Here’s how to do it using the Nutrition Program.

The Task – To discover what happens if you reduce the sugar in a sponge cake recipe.

We made cakes with full amount of 60g sugar and then did a batch with 50g, 40g, 30g.

You can evaluate the Functional properties of sugar in cakes – the purpose for which the ingredient is being used and can be linked to – its structure, nutritional value, taste, texture, appearance, shelf life.

Star profile to show evaluation of results of reducing sugar in cakes.

How to do this

Create a recipe for your sponge cake in My Recipes.
Bake and compare your cakes and then click Star Profile
Name the recipe ‘Star profile sponge cakes’.
Choose descriptors – how the cake should look and taste. The descriptors we chose were – golden, yellow sponge, open texture, moist, dry.
The Control cake was marked golden (5), yellow sponge (4), open texture (4), moist (4), dry (1) – this was our perfect cake.
Taste the cakes and mark them on the chart – tip in the +Add Taster put the name of the cake – for example, full sugar, 50g sugar.
The Nutrition Program Star Profile fills in – now you need to Evaluate the results under Evaluation – see our chart.
To get extra exam marks you can annotate the Star profile.

This shows an example of annotating a Star Profile to show what the results mean.

Task

Compare the nutrition of sweeteners for cakes and desserts – use for experiments changing the types of sweetener used in cakes and desserts.

We are told to reduce the amount of ‘free sugars’ in our food, especially cakes and desserts.

But how easy is this to do and how much sugar is found in ingredients used for sweetening?

Compare the sugar content of different ingredients

To do

Use the Nutrition Program for this investigation.

Click My Recipes, +New Recipe and call it Sugar Investigation.

You want to find ingredients that you can use to sweeten cakes and the amount of sugar they contain in 100g

Find Ingredient

Type sugar and see the list. Tip – put a comma after sugar, then more appear. Some are lower sugar products.

Also choose fruits and vegetables which can be used to sweeten such as prunes and figs.

My choice

Sugar

Sugar, half spoon

Hermesetas, granulated sweetener

Banana

These are the results from the Nutrition Program

Nutrition of sugar

Nutrition of half spoon

Nutrition of Hermesetas

Nutrition of banana

Sweetening ingredient	Sugar in 100g
Sugar	105 g
Sugar, half spoon	99 g
Hermesetas, granulated sweetener	14 g
Banana	21 g

For Investigations, you need to make the cakes and find out how the results look and taste.

Then you can decide which sweeteners are the best.

Star profile of sugar in cakes with annotation

August 8, 2018 Jenny Ridgwell

NEA 1 10 tasks

NEA 1 10 Tasks

Ten Tasks explore how to carry out Research, Investigation, Analysis and Evaluation for each Task for all exam boards.

Tasks – thickening sauces, raising agents, fats in pastry, flours in pastry, bread, pasta, cakes, changing sugars in cakes, eggs for setting and foams

All linked to science.

Shortcrust pastry changing the fats

NEA1 Ridgwell Press

Great resource! “I have used this to teach my students about Food Science. The book is very easy to follow and the experiments very accessible to students, it ideal for my GCSE classes.”

Make a star profile to compare results

April 23, 2018 Jenny Ridgwell

How to show RI Reference Intake for recipes for GCSE

Step by step on how to use Nutrition Program to show nutritional value of recipes for different age groups.

I’ve chosen Fish cakes made with salmon and potato and served with tartar sauce.

First create the recipe in My Recipes. The Nutrition Program shows the nutrition for 100g and a portion. You can get this image by clicking Print.

You may want the cost of the recipe – just click Costs and do a screen grab.

Nutrition Program shows Costs for 100g, per portion and for the recipe

If you want to look at RI Reference Intake, go to Nutrition, scroll to bottom of screen and the bar chart pops up for RI woman, RI man and RI 5-10 year old.

Reference Intake bar chart

If you are making the dish for a child, teenager or adult, and you need the nutrition for that age group, go to My Meals.

Create a new meal – you could call it Fish Cakes – My example is for 11-14 year olds, Male, Lunch

Nutrition analysis teenager

In Find Recipe, add Fish cakes with tartar sauce which you saved in My Recipes.

Click Nutrition and you will see how the Fish cakes meet the needs of a meal. In this cake they provide 63% of meal intake which is good as you would serve other vegetables and a dessert or starter.

You can see from the traffic lights that this dish is a bit high in fat, so you can change the recipe.

December 2, 2017 Jenny Ridgwell

Portion sizes for NEA 2

Portion sizes are needed for NEA 2 and you must show how your choice of dishes has the right portion control. But how do you know?
An average man needs 2,500kcal a day for a healthy body weight.

An average woman needs 2,000kcal a day for a healthy body weight.

Our video link shows how to use The Nutrition Program for portion sizes