Roses and Goldfish on Sticks

Me and my younger sister made all these beautiful things by dough. we choose natural fruits and vegetables, juiced them, and mixed it with flour to make colorful dough. We imagined a fairy tale named roses and goldfish. In our story, goldfish swam in a small pond with emerald green lotus leaves floating peacefully in the water, lush pink and golden roses surrounded the pond, competing in full bloom. Then, we shaped these colorful dough balls into flowers, fishes, and lotus leaves. After that, we steamed the dough to make sure they didn't go out of shape. Finally, we put sticks in the fishes, flowers, and lotus leaves. In order to make the scenery seem more lifelike, we punctured a half of a watermelon and put the stick in the holes. We also boiled some colorful tapioca pearls and placed those around the base of the watermelon.

Ingredients:

• Half of a empty watermelon for the base
• 2 LB flour
• 5 teaspoon compressed yeast powder
• 1 oz color tapioca pearl
• 3 teaspoon matcha booster powder
• 2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 red dragon fruit
• 2 carrots
• 1 sweet potato
• 2 plums
• Spinach

Tools:

• Steamer basket
• 2 cutting board(one for kneading dough and a round one for the base of scene)
• Rotating display stand for showing the scenery
• Knife for cutting and making shape of the dough
• Wooden rolling pin
• Bowls
• Mesh stainers for filtering juice
• Sticks for fixing the whole scenery

First, we cut a red dragon fruit into halves, peel it, juice it, and then use a mesh strainer to filter pure juice. Second, pluck off the stems of spinach, boil the leaves for half a minute, rinse it with cold water, then juice it and filter to pure spinach juice. Finally, cutting the plums into pieces, juice and filter them to pure plum juice.

First, steam the carrots and sweet potatoes for 20 minutes until soft. Second, peel the carrots and sweet potatoes, mash them, and then add a teaspoon of yeast powder and 0.5 lb flour. Stir the mixture thoroughly and knead into a golden dough. The carrot spots on the dough's surface fits the goldfish's pattern perfectly. Third, microwave the dragon fruit juice so that the yeast powder would mix. Then, add the mixture into a bowl filled with 0.5 lb of flour and stir it thoroughly. Last, knead it into a purple dough ball and we added some vanilla extract to make it extra sweet.

First, microwave spinach juice, add a teaspoon yeast, stir and pour it into a bowl with 0.5 lb flour, add 3 teaspoons of matcha booster powder, mix them thoroughly, and knead into a green dough ball. Second, microwave plum juice, add a teaspoon of yeast, stir and pour it to a bowl with 0.5 lb flour, mix them fully, and knead into a pink dough ball. Finally, we wrap all the different color dough balls and put them into a deep container, cover it with wrapper, and wait for these dough balls to react with the yeast powder and inflate.

First, we pressed the dough ball into a flat shape and used a rolling pin to flatten it more. Then, we used a knife to cut it into six slices with the center part connected. After we cut the dough, we put one or two lines in between the slices to make the base for the eyes. Next, we separated the lines and rolled it into a circle to form the eyes. To make it more beautiful, we used a small knife to carve traces in the fish's tails. We cut the tail into three parts and squeezed each part into a beautiful raindrop like shape. Finally, we separated each fish from the whole piece, steamed them, and then put sticks into the fishes.

First, we rolled the purple dough ball to a long strip and cut it into many small pieces. Then, we rolled every piece to a round flat shape, overlap six of them, and add a small spindle shape on the last one for the flower heart. Second, we rolled all the pieces from far toward us, make them a spindle shape, cut it to halves, pinch all of them's bottom to make a rosebud shape, then skewer with a stick and puncture into watermelon. Third, to make the golden rosebuds one of the ways is the same as the purple ones. But, we also made another style. We rolled the yellow dough and pink dough into one long piece on the board, then we cut it into three strips and braided them into a french braid, we then finally rolled it towards us to make a different two colored rosebuds.

First, we rolled the green dough piece into a long flat strip, cut it into many small triangular pieces, dip a little bit of water, and then stick it to the flowers to make them seem real. Second, we rolled small pieces into flat oval shapes, folded it up, and used a stick to trace several radiated lines. We used a skewer to shape the small individual leaves on the lotus leaf, we then pinched the bottom of the leaf to make it form the shape of a lotus leaf. Finally, steam the finished leaves for ten minutes and then take them out to put on the sticks.

First we stuck the goldfishes and lotus leaves on the watermelon, then we put the roses in the center of the watermelon, we also put some lotus leaves in the background to symbolize the leaves floating the the pond. Second, we put some fishes on the round cutting board to symbolize the fishes swimming around and the pearls were the bubbles they were breathing. Last, we boiled the pearls to make sure they are eatable. Interestingly enough, we discovered the rosebuds changed to light red.

Me and my sister can now taste our work. My sister dipped the flower into milk and I sipped it into honey and tasted it. We archived our goal and it was very delicious.