At first, I followed the example of my mentors - do a full demonstration of the food lab the day before the lesson. The following days do the prep and the cooking, usually over 2 days. Then I started to streamline the process. Now I only highlight the challenging parts of the lab with a quick intro. What have I learned? They don't do any worse with mini demos!
The success rate is the same (quite high), the injury rate is (mercifully) very low, and the kitchen catastrophes seems to happen regardless of how meticulously I preview the labs.
I don't have the students copy out the recipe. I don't have them fill in the blanks as we go. I give each group a recipe sheathed in a plastic sleeve, I read out the important parts and away we go!
The biggest challenge is that by the end of 3 repetitions of the that lab, my delivery changes. As a positive, I can highlight the challenges (and the absolutely bizarre mistakes), but I sometimes miss out important details, like reminding them to put their peeled, cored, sliced apples into a baking pan (even though the recipe clearly states it).
Hooray for students who are attentive enough to ask questions about the part I missed!
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