This past weekend I had the honor of taking a two day baking class with renowned cookbook author, Carole Walter. It was an amazing experience that I will remember forever.
The first thing you should know about Carole is that she does not let her age get the better of her. She rolls in on her electric scooter, props herself up on the counter, and commands the class. She reminded me of Julia Child's personality a bit in that she is outspoken and strong-willed. The look she gave me when I said that I don't own an electric mixer will always be burned in the back of my mind
Our first day was spent focusing on dough. We learned two doughs that served as the base for the recipes we covered: sweet dough and croissant dough. The great thing about these doughs is that you can make them ahead of time and freeze them so you can always have them on hand. In the interest of time, Carole demonstrated the croissant dough, and we all made our own sweet dough. We also shaped several croissants, some of which we ate that afternoon. The others were consumed at the beginning of day two.
Things were much more intense on day two. We were put in teams of three and given a specific coffeecake recipe. My team was assigned an apricot braid, which we got a lot of compliments on by the teaching team. As people finished their assigned recipe, we all filled and shaped pain au chocolats.
After a lunch break, we tasted all of the coffecakes we made-swedish tea ring, apricot braid, cheese kuchen, crumb buns, babka, pain au chocolat, brioche, and croissants.
I'm definitely looking forward to having company soon so I can bake these for people!
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