BOCES trio wins national contest with a dessert suitable for space
Three Ulster County BOCES students have won a NASA competition to see what sort of out-of-this-world meals can be served on the International Space Station.
Kingston High School students Lauren Hoetger and Sara Freer, along with Wallkill High School junior Angelina Violante were recognized Wednesday for their Strawberry-Rhubarb crisp at a meeting of the Kingston Board of Education.
NASA expects to send the dessert to the space station next year.
“Our original plan was to make a peach frangipane, which is like a peach cobbler, but NASA contacted us and said ‘no crumbs, you can’t make that,’” Hoetger said. “So we changed it and ... had to make variations to our recipe to change the carbohydrates and sugars and fats.”
The students credited teacher
Irene Powell for suggesting they enter the competition, which is part of the NASA HUNCH -- or High School Students United with NASA to Create Hardware -- program. According to its website, the educational initiative was launched eight years ago as a way to give high school students the opportunity to create hardware with NASA’s aid.
The program offers students the opportunity to compete in one of five catergories: design and prototype, hardware, soft goods, culinary arts and video.
Students in the HUNCH program receive valuable experience creating goods for NASA from, while NASA receives the creativity of the high school students, its website states.
According to NASA, 28 teams of high school students from Alabama, New Jersey, New York, Colorado, Virginia and Texas competed in regional competitions as part of the third annual NASA Culinary Challenge, which had desserts as its theme.
The Ulster BOCES team was one of 10 teams to make it past the regional competition to the finals, held on April 20 at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Freer said there were dozens of efforts to refine the recipe during the competition, with BOCES classmates being the willing participants in taste testing.
“Our classmates ate a lot,” she said. “For example, we made sure it was crisp something like 10 times.”
The students credited preparation with helping them move from a second place regional finish to overall winning entry.
“We had to make a video of us making a dessert,” Freer said. “That wasn’t judged at the regional competition, but it was at the national competition.”
Hoetger said the students felt comfortable explaining their entry to about 15 judges.
“I think a lot of teams didn’t realize you had to do presentations, so ... they weren’t ready for that,” she said.
Hoetger said among important lessons taken into consideration was the impact of weightlessness on astronauts.
“Through our research we learned that their taste buds get diminished when they go up into space,” Hoetger said. “So any food or dessert you make, you want to have a super-strong flavor, like a bold flavor, because, obviously, it has to carry through with them losing some of their taste buds.”
According to NASA, the team’s recipe will be included in an astronaut cookbook for preflight preparation.
It also will be made shelf stable through processing in the Space Food Systems Laboratory at Johnson, packaged and sent on a future U.S. cargo flight to the space station.
Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
Yield: About 10 Servings Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour ¾ cup old-fashioned rolled oats ½ cup coconut sugar ¼ tsp salt 5 2⁄3 Tbsp unsalted butter margarine blend, cold and diced into small pieces 2 tsp vanilla extract 1 ½ lbs fresh strawberries, stemmed and sliced in to 3 pieces, 2 if small 1 lb fresh rhubarb, sliced in to ½ in. pieces 2 Tbsp + 2 tsp sugar 2 tsp orange zest ¼ cup orange juice 4 Tbsp cornstarch
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, oats, coconut sugar, sugar and salt, breaking any clumps of sugar.
Add butter/margarine blend and vanilla and rub into mixture until it comes together in crumbles and no clumps of butter remain. Transfer to refrigerator while preparing filling.
In a mixing bowl, toss together strawberries and rhubarb.
In a liquid measuring cup, whisk together orange juice, orange zest and cornstarch until well blended. Pour in to mixing bowl with strawberries and rhubarb; toss together again.
Spread mixture evenly in to a 3-quart baking dish.
Remove crumble from refrigerator and sprinkle evenly over the top. Bake in preheated oven for 4045 minutes until the juices bubble and the crisp is golden brown.