Year 10 Food preparation and nutrition students have been learning all about the function of fats in pastry whilst conducting a mock task for NEA 1: A Food Science Investigation.  The brief asked students to find out which is the best fat to use when making shortcrust pastry and why. We carried out research on the properties of fats in baking looking at plasticity, melting points and shortening. Students then made a range of pastry samples using different fats in each one - fat being the variable. They attempted to conduct a fair test after writing a hypothesis and then recorded and evaluated their results, explaining which fats worked the best and why. They used sensory language to describe the samples, conducted a snap test for texture and recorded the colour using a colour chart. Samples were also ranked according to overall preference.

Earlier this term, the same students carried out a mock NEA 2: A Food Preparation task. This task looked at healthy meals for a school canteen, focusing on the nutritional needs of a teenager. They researched the task and then tested some recipes before planning and cooking a final dish with an accompaniment for their practical assessment. Their final evaluation included nutritional analysis using the Explore Food Programme; costing the recipe; and a star profile to record the sensory characteristics of their dish. 

NEA makes up 50% of the overall mark for their GCSE 
with the other 50% coming from the written paper.