Local Student Wins Nat'l Recipe Contest

The St. Albans (Vt.) Messenger, Monday, May 2, 2005
Local student wins nat'l recipe contest
By EMILY WILLS
Messenger Correspondent
FAIRFAX — Christian Williams, a student at Bellows Free Academy-Fairfax, was recently named one of four winners in a nationwide recipe contest.

Johnson & Wales University sponsored this event, the Third Annual National Middle School Healthy Heritage Recipe Contest, in conjunction with the Healthy Kids Challenge, which is "a youth-oriented health initiative." The contest divides the United States into four areas of competition; Eastern, Southern, Southeastern and Western regions. Williams was the winner for the Eastern region with his entry of "Green Mountain Maple Muffins."

One reason he chose to submit this recipe was that Vermont was the top producer of maple syrup in the United States in 2004. Also, Williams takes pride that he makes his home in Franklin County, which produced the most maple syrup of all the counties in Vermont.

The other winning entries to the contest included a tropical chicken Caesar salad, a potato and ham casserole, and a shrimp and fruit entree. The contest is designed to encourage middle school students to demonstrate creativity in the kitchen while taking into account nutrition guidelines.

The origin of Williams's recipe is a muffin cookbook. Williams's goal was to make the original recipe healthier, so he substituted skim milk for whole milk, and used applesauce to replace half of the oil and light sour cream instead of full-fat sour cream. Williams worked with Brian Norder, Project Director at the Food Venture Center, an incubator for emerging food companies in Franklin County.

Williams's Family and Consumer Sciences class was trying to create healthful snacks that could be sold for a profit, which would be donated to a tsunami relief fund. The class made four different prototypes of muffins and held taste-testing sessions to find which was the most flavorful. The winning muffin recipe was baked and sold to middle school students.
Williams is thrilled that he won the contest.

"I like to cook at home too, but this is the first time I've ever won anything for my recipes. I certainly didn't expect to win," Williams said. 'My entire class really contributed a lot to the altered, healthier version of the recipe, and they all baked it with me for our school project."

As his prize, Williams receive a $12,000 scholarship toward full-time tuition at Johnson & Wales,' a trip to the university to be "Chef for a Day," and numerous gifts including a pastry kit, a subscription to Cooking Light, a spice rack and a handheld mixer. As childhood obesity grows among America's students, Healthy Kids Challenge director Vickie James hopes this contest will "help to get kids thinking about how to make a recipe healthy, and the "Chef for a Day" visit will expand that thinking to an entire classroom."

Green Mountain Maple Muffins

1 c. whole wheat flour
1 c. all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c. sugar
1 egg
1/2 c. skim milk
1/4 c. grade b amber maple syrup
2 tbsp canola oil
2 tbsp applesauce
1/2 c. fat free sour cream or 1/2 c. plain low fat yogurt
1/2 c. chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions: Preheat oven to 400*F. Stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar. Add in eggs, skim milk, syrup, oil and sour cream and mix. Then add the mix to dry or paper-lined muffin pans! Fill 2/3 full. Bake for 20 minutes. This recipe makes 12 muffins.