Angel delight cheesecake wtf?

[Angeldelightcheesefreak]

Very possibly BU with staff pressures, lack of funding etc but Dd yesterday was excited to be making cheesecake in technology at school. We love cheesecake so all good. The ingredients are provided for them. She came home and it's a digestive biscuit base, very thick, with a layer of chocolate angel delight mixed with cream cheese on top. It's tasty in an emergency food kind of way but cheesecake it is not.
Should schools not be teaching the children how to actually cook and to use proper ingredients for things? Luckily dd knows how to make a proper cheesecake and comes from a family of good cooks and bakers but others will think this is what cheesecake should be like and won't have the benefit of culinary knowledge at home. Why can't they teach proper dishes and techniques? Ok year 7 isn't cordon bleu but come on, angel delight cheesecake ffs. It's an abomination and an insult to cheesecake. I might make one of my chocolate cheesecakes and send it in to the teacher along with the recipe to show him or her what a cheesecake actually is. And don't get me started on the use of take away style plastic pots and cardboard boxes to bring things home in.

So far dd has made pineapple upside down cake-all good. Apple tart using ready made pastry-not good. And the angel delight abomination. Oh and some couscous.

Yes ok IABU, teachers, stress, budgets, Tory governments yada yada. And maybe I'm
A food snob 🤷🏼‍♀️

Please share with me your child's school food tech abominations. Please note I don't mean if your child has made a mess of the recipe but rather that the school has given them a shit recipe for bastardised dishes.

I feel better for that

I took food tech for one of my GCSEs I spent the duration making a shit load of bread. Jam tarts using a jar of store bought jam. The pastry had to be jus roll not homemade. Luckily for me, my Dad was a baker so I took homemade pastry in. Same when we made a chicken pie. Oh and we made lemon curd one time too. Nothing exciting

I do think it's bad how "cookery" has deteriorated since I was at secondary in the 80s. We made things using real ingredients, not packets. Not expensive things either. I'm far from a food snob (and don't much like cooking so am happy for easy cop outs!) but what is it really teaching children?

I agree that even Nigella advocates the use of ready made party though.

And don't get me started on the use of take away style plastic pots and cardboard boxes to bring things home in

What are they meant to bring things home in?

You’re not wrong about the cheesecake though, it should at least contain cheese.

It had cream cheese in it.

You’re not wrong about the cheesecake though, it should at least contain cheese.

It does, the topping is a mixture of Angel Delight and cream cheese. Although as a pp says, it really should be butterscotch, not chocolate.

Mine made pasta bolognese at school and were told to bring in pasta, either beef or veggie mince and a jar of Dolmio type sauce.

Bolognese from scratch isn't that hard to make.

@Bluntness100

Why don’t you teach your kid to cook if you’re such a snob and then the school lessons become irrelevant?

But that's the problem. Many kids will have parents that do this, mine does. But the children with parents who don't, who already eat ready made all the time, everything is packets, don't. Those are the children who actually need to learn it and can't, because no one teaches them.

My DD's school did 'pizza' that was a pita with Dolmio and toppings. All shite. Worse than a frozen one. Fresh pizza can actually be not too bad for you.

We made this exact dish is home economics 41 years ago, it was delicious! We also made cheesy bake bean pie and savoury bread and butter pudding

I still make these dishes occasionally now, it hasn’t stopped me making other types of cheesecake too

Couldn't agree more op.

I did home economics at school in the late 70's and we were all taught the basic techniques - fat less sponge, victoria sandwich, short crust pastry, puff pastry, roux sauce and even gutted and filleted a fish. For our exam we had to cook a three course meal. I did egg mayonnaise (making my own mayo from scratch) pork and apple casserole and cheesecake for pudding (definitely made with Angel Delight).

My daughter did food tech and did variations on cookies and designed packaging.

I think there needs to be a complete redesign of this subject in schools. Doubt it will happen though.

YANBU and also agree if you are going to do it at least use the butterscotch flavour…

@alittlequinnie

OMG - I hear you and I can go one better...

My mum is really proud of her "cheesecake" creation which is in fact lime jelly, angel delight and not much else. To add insult to injury she puts sliced up grapes on top?!

There's no cheese - you can't call it cheesecake - my daughter refuses to eat it!

That sounds like a slimming world concoction.

One of our Home Ec lessons involved ‘making’ a Pot Noodle. The teacher boiled the kettle and we all lined up for her to pour the water into our Pots.

Et voila, Pot Noodle!

Those were the days.

YABU. I went to a tough inner city London comprehensive where we had to bring our own ingredients.

Not sure why tax payers should be funding real cheesecakes?!

Wow, can't believe some of these posts.

It's a good job school bothered to give me some life skills. Both of my parents were and are disabled and my mum was an awful cook. Not everyone has involved and capable parents to teach them to cook. If school managed it 30 years ago I can't see why they can't make some effort now. If they have time to lead a class on designing a packet then they surely have time to teach something more useful.

@goose1964

The only downside of this is that it was chocolate Angel Delight, everyone knows butterscotch is the best. It's a non scary way of learning to cook

Mixing up and angel delight isn't cooking.

I'm 40 and we made proper things, from proper ingredients. Apple crumble, jam tarts, pizza are ones I remember. Other people made peach cobbler, that still intrigues me, I'd never heard of it then and still to this day have never seen it on a menu or had it or made it.

One of my home ec lessons was making banana milkshake.

Milk, banana, blender. Job done.

School shouldn't fund the ingredients though. My parents were poor, for want of a better word, and managed to buy the ingredients. Apart from the meal I did for my exam, it was mostly very cheap, basic stuff.

Frankly, that sounds epic, though I'm with others on the need for the Angel Delight to be butterscotch.
The teacher is dealing with kids who have never chopped anything with a sharp knife, who have never weighed anything, and in fact whose parents may never make anything from scratch (even using a packet) etc, and has to show them what to do, and make something to completion plus clear up completely in a 1 or 2 hour slot.

Mmmm angel delight cheesecake...

@IHaveBrilloHair

I'm 43 and I remember one of our lessons was to make a sandwich

My first Home Economics lesson in high school was to make a cheese sandwich. Remember it well.

Can I have the recipe (proportion of cream cheese to angel delight)? I really want to try this, it sounds amazing!

Last week in our virtual parents appt with the Food Tech teacher I mentioned that I was rather miffed that DD (yr8) has made a roasted veggie tart (which was delicious) with bought pastry!
I sort of thought pastry ought to be a basic skill!

In fairness she said they dont normally do pastry at all until yr 9 but that COVID meant social distancing had brought with is workspace problems. I guess in our case they are doing their best

@SoupDragon

You’re not wrong about the cheesecake though, it should at least contain cheese.

It had cream cheese in it.

Clearly I didn’t read the opening post properly! Oops.

With regard to the ready-made pastry, it's lack of time. In a one-hour lesson, they have to fit in a demonstration and explanation of the techniques required, the actual making and cooking of the dish, and then washing up afterwards. Corners have to be cut just to fit it all in.

When my friend did her work experience in a hotel kitchen they were horrified at how little she had actually been taught. We weren't allowed to cook with meat, fish or dairy. Another friend brought in mince to make shepherds pie and was given a lunchtime detention.
I had three years of food tech and left without being taught how to make a weeks worth of healthy meals. It's no wonder the kids in my hostel couldnt cook really.

Other than slightly different variations of sponge cakes I remember being taught :
Spaghetti bolognese - one onion, one tin of tomatoes, one packet of pasta.
Pizza - tortilla, tomatoe sauce, sliced onion/mushroom
Lasagne - one onion, jar sauce, packet of lasagne sheets.

As a pp poster I was taught cookery in the 70’s and I still use the techniques . Every time I make pastry, I hear in my head, my cookery teacher saying there was to be no flour on the palms of your hands ( to ensure it was light)
However my son’s cookery lessons where dire . One especially dreadful lesson involved a part cooked pork sausage casserole ( which would have been deadly) which was then left on the counter in the sunshine for half a day. For the poster who said the parents should be teaching their children , that is exactly what I did but only because of the expert teaching of Miss Smith .