Gift of Myself

1. Gift of Myself By Anukriti Tayal- HLA 6/7

2. Introduction • For my Gift Of Myself project, I decided to bake a cake. • The recipients of my gift were my family and friends. • I made a cake because I almost never cook or bake, so it would be fun to try to do so. I chose to give the cake to my family and friends because they are very kind to me and always help me out, so I wanted to do something for them! • I implemented my gift on the evenings of December 30th and 31st, 2011. • My gift took about 2 hours to make.

3. Step 1: Getting the Ingredients In this picture, I was getting the ingredients for the cake. I was feeling excited at the time because this was actually the first cake I had ever made by myself. I was also feeling nervous about how it would turn out.

4. Step 2: Cracking eggs and adding water In these pictures I am adding some ingredients to the cake batter. I was worried because I didn’t want anything to spill. I also didn’t want any eggshells to fall into the batter.

5. Step 3: Adding the other ingredients Here I was adding the remaining ingredients to the batter. I was trying to be careful so I wouldn’t drop anything or mess up. I was feeling pretty happy, though, because even if I did mess up, I could still say I was having fun!!!

6. Step 4: Stirring the cake batter In this step, I was feeling relieved and pretty confident. I wasn’t too worried because all that was really left was pouring the batter and then baking it. It really wasn’t that likely for me to mess up. Also, my mom was watching to make sure that I didn’t mess up.

7. Step 5: Pouring the cake batter In this picture, I was feeling relieved because the job was almost half over. At the same time, I was feeling a bit frustrated because I couldn’t find a good way to hold the bowl. That made it hard to scrape the batter from the bowl, so I was happy when it was over.

8. Step 6: Baking the cake Whilebaking the cake, I was unsure of how the cake would turn out. I didn’t want it to taste bad, and I was impatient to see how it would turn out. I was really anxious and was afraid that the cake would fall apart or something of that sort.

9. Step 7: Decorating the cake While I was decorating the cake, I had mixed emotions. I was really excited to show others what I had done, but at the same time I was worried something would go wrong. I was also frustrated because icing the cake was harder than expected.

10. Step 8: Serving the food This is a picture of the cake I had made. In the other picture, my friend is eating it. I felt very proud at this time because I had made a cake that was actually pretty good! Afterwards, most of my cake had been eaten.

11. Conclusion: • After giving my gift, I was very surprised that I had had so much fun making it. I was pleased that I had been able to give my family and friends something in return after all they had done for me. • I think my family was proud of me for doing this and my friends were surprised that I had made a cake for them. • I think doing this project taught me the value of helping others, as well as how fun it is to bake. I think my mom learned that I can actually bake, so she’ll be asking me to help in the kitchen! I think my friends were surprised at what I did and learned something new about me. • While doing this project, I learned that helping others can only help yourself. It was a lot of fun making the “gift” and seeing that others liked only made me happier. • I would love to bake again, especially with friends, but I’m not so sure about taking pictures and presenting them.