Alexa Molinari presented on her senior project of creating a dessert cookbook. She chose this project because she enjoys baking desserts and wanted to organize her favorite recipes. She researched and tested recipes, compiling them into a printed cookbook. As part of her presentation, Alexa discussed making a mint chocolate chip cheesecake, though it did not turn out as planned. Overall, Alexa learned that baking takes patience and time, which she lacks, so it will remain a hobby rather than a career path for her.

1. Alexa Molinari
3/15/2012
Senior Project speech
(Hand out desserts) Hello, my name is Alexa Molinari I am a senior here at
Creekviewand will be attending college in the fall, majoring in international business
which at least for now feels like I will have the most success in in the future.However, for
my senior project I decided to challenge myself to step outside of my comfort zone and
do something I’ve always liked but never had the time or energy to pursue.I composed a
cookbook with my favorite thing to eat, desserts. Not only did I put time and energy into
researching the many recipes, I also made some of the desserts from the book. I watched
my mom cook dinner for my family every night when I was younger and I loved how one
delicious meal could capped of with such simple desserts like chocolate chip cookies or
brownies. As I am about to head off to college I want to be able to inspire people with my
cooking and bring them the same satisfaction my mom’s desserts brought me.
I didn’t have a research paper because I transferred school in the middle of the
year and it was already too late for me to write it. If I did have to write it then I probably
would have written about some of the famous bakers from our time or what some of the
most famous desserts were.
I decided to do a cookbook because I thought it would be an easy way to organize
the recipes and allow me to make my own changes to help make the desserts with my
own twist. I could put the finished book on my parent’s bookshelf and be proud of my
effort and work. I started by researching desserts that consisted of things I knew I already

2. enjoy like chocolate, ice cream, and cakes. I also decided to try some things I didn’t
know if I would like. My process was pretty simple. I had to research a lot of recipes and
think about which ones I would want to eat and which ones I would want to make for
others. I went to a website where I was allowed to put all of my recipes in a book and
add pictures to know what the end product would look like. When I was finished I just
picked how I wanted the book to look and ordered it.
In this video (play video) I picked a challenging dessert to create that would put
my creativity to the test. I decided to make a mint chocolate chip cheesecake. First I
preheated my oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. While the oven was preheating I grabbed
all of the utensils I would need like: a 9 inch pan, a mixing bowl, a measuring cup, a
mixer, a spoon, and a whisk. After that I got all of the necessary ingredients I would need
such as: a bag of Oreos, butter, cream cheese, condensed milk, eggs, peppermint extract,
green food dye, chocolate chips, and flour. My first step was to mash the Oreos in a
measuring cup until I got 1-½ cups. I used this as the crust and base of my cheesecake.
After that a put 3 cases of cream cheese in a large mixing bowl. In that same bowl I
added the condensed milk and mixed it together with an electric mixer. Next I cracked
three eggs into the bowl. To get that mint flavoring I added about one teaspoon of
peppermint extract, and to give it a green color I added green food dye. Then, I mixed it
up again. In a measuring cup I put half a cup of chocolate chips in a small bowl and
added a tablespoon of flour. I put the contents of that small bowl into the large bowl.
Then I added the other half of the chocolate chips on the top of the cake. I put it in the
over for an hour and then let it cool for about 30 minutes. After that I had to let it chill in
the fridge for four hours. All in all I spent about 1 hour for prep work and making the

3. cake, 1 hour and a half to bake and chill, and 4 hours to cool, which in total was about 6
and a half hours for one cake. Unfortunately it did not turn out as well as I thought it
would.
I don’t think I really needed a project facilitator for my project because I pretty
much did everything on my own. She did help me find recipes and research but the
cooking was all me. Some challenges I faced during this process was finding the recipes I
wanted to use for my book and when it actually came down to making them they never
quite looked like the picture. One specific problem I encountered was when I tried to
bake cream cheese cup cakes I put too much batter in the cups and it over flowed them
and the oven was a mess. If that wasn’t enough, I accidently left them in too long and the
cupcakes were burnt to a crisp.
From this whole project I learned that it takes a lot of time and patience to be a
good baker, those of which I do not have. I would not pursue this as a career but I would
love to keep baking and just make it a hobby. Ill let my mom stick to the cooking, just
like she had in the past. If you do want to bake something just be aware of the time if
takes to make it. Thank you for listening to my presentation. Are there any questions?