By: Sheila Crowley
Murray County News Staffwriter
Maggie Heezen, Murray County Central senior, recently competed in the 14th annual Schwan’s Culinary Skills Challenge. More than 20 high school students attended the challenge at Southwest State University on Thursday, April 5th. Southwest West Central Service Cooperative partnered with Southwest Minnesota State University for the annual event. In all 16 schools had the opportunity to engage in up to 10 different sessions. Twelve students from Mrs. Opdahl’s basic foods class from MCC were in attendance. Of those twelve, Heezen was the only student to actually compete in any of the cooking contests. There were a number of chefs on hand to present at this year’s event.
Heezen is a member of Mrs. Opdahl’s basic foods class and when she mentioned if anyone was interested in entering the contests at the culinary challenge, Heezen didn’t hesitate.
The challenge has seven different competition areas including baking science, cake decorating, culinary, food art, knife skills, menu design, as well as place setting/napkin folding. Of those, Heezen choose baking science. “I had always done well in the science competitions in elementary and figured I already understood the basics on the science part and just needed to use that knowledge and apply it to the food,” shared Heezen.
Each of the contestants was given a basic blueberry muffin recipe. The challenge was to prepare the recipe multiple times substituting or adding ingredients to make it healthier. Heezen chose to make hers gluten free. “I know several friends and relatives that are gluten free and struggle with finding recipes that work for them,” says Heezen. The challenge, for her, was to find the right flour to allow for this substitution.
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