Second time's the charm

I taught the second halves of two classes this week, and both of them were tons of fun. In both cases, I felt like the first classes weren't my best--they were okay, but we didn't really get warmed up. It was nice to have a second meeting, and it was almost like seeing old friends again--there's really a camaraderie that's formed by cooking together.

The Cake Decorating class made some really lovely cakes, frosted like the pros do it, with cool garnishes, including this minimalist one (made by an engineer, can you tell?)


I can tell you that it's very difficult to make corners as clean as you see on that cake. That's why you almost always see borders piped around the edge of cakes--the corners look bad.

The Cooking Basics class was also a good time. We made some great food, of course, and it was cool to find out a little more about the class participants. Among the students were an Episcopal priest, a Russian kettlebell trainer, and a manufacturer of hiking and camping equipment--the diversity made for some interesting conversation when we were all enjoying the fruits of our labors at the end of the class.

Tonight we had a nice private event, and the participants made a chocolate-hazelnut torte that was really fantastic. It's hard to produce a fancy baked good in an just hour or two, because that type of dish usually requires a lot of cooling time, but this torte was easily ready by the time we got to dessert. Luckily the torte served 12 and there were 11 guests, so yours truly got to taste some at the end.

And finally, we have posted our class schedule for April. We've got some cool new classes, including one on sauces, and another on sushi (and other things you can roll). I'm expecting the sushi one to sell out, because a lot of people have asked about it, so sign up early if you're interested.