Erica and I went to a cookie decorating class at Western Reserve School of Cooking last week - and we had a blast! That actually wasn't our first class there - just by chance of scheduling, we went to a main dishes class the night before - where we watched a flank steak get butterflied and stuffed, a pork tenderloin get sliced out like a rolled carpet and stuffed, annnnd chicken breasts got little pockets carved into them and stuffed. That was some really good food - particularly the chicken and pork dishes. I need to post some cell phone pics from that real soon... In the meantime - the cookie class!
Brett was going to go with me to the cookie class because no one else was available or interested. It turns out the scheduled class was booked up, but another was opened the nite after the class Erica and I were scheduled to take a class. She was really interested in taking the decorating class - she's a bit intimidated by the process, and wants to bake and decorate with her daughter Rowan. So we made "a date" of it - few others will go to the Korean restaurant, and we both love it. So before class we hit Seoul Garden and got stuffed on all kinds of crazy stuff. Then we decorated cookies in class the rest of the night.
I was already aware of some of the techniques, recipe styles, etc, but also learned some cool new stuff, and became much more in tune with Royal Icing and it's wetter cousin, Flood Icing (also known as Color Flow or Run Sugar). While our cookie decorating could've turned out more attactive (hey, there were alot of people using very few bags of icing - stuff dried out or didn't have the best tip or the colors weren't quite right!), we still had a lot of fun and learned some great stuff as well...
Brett was going to go with me to the cookie class because no one else was available or interested. It turns out the scheduled class was booked up, but another was opened the nite after the class Erica and I were scheduled to take a class. She was really interested in taking the decorating class - she's a bit intimidated by the process, and wants to bake and decorate with her daughter Rowan. So we made "a date" of it - few others will go to the Korean restaurant, and we both love it. So before class we hit Seoul Garden and got stuffed on all kinds of crazy stuff. Then we decorated cookies in class the rest of the night.
I was already aware of some of the techniques, recipe styles, etc, but also learned some cool new stuff, and became much more in tune with Royal Icing and it's wetter cousin, Flood Icing (also known as Color Flow or Run Sugar). While our cookie decorating could've turned out more attactive (hey, there were alot of people using very few bags of icing - stuff dried out or didn't have the best tip or the colors weren't quite right!), we still had a lot of fun and learned some great stuff as well...
Pictured below are some of the cookies I decorated, along with some chocolate covered cranberry/pecan/marshmallow blobs I was testing (they're REALLY good, but photographed really dark here). The flaky stuff on the stained glass cookie was desicated coconut - had never heard of it before, but found it at Mr Bulky's. And the striped cookie was supposed to be a candy cane, but I rolled it out too long and decided to get creative. Still tasted great! ;-)
Just wait til I kick into Christmas cookie/goody baking and decorating mode here annnnnny time now!
Just wait til I kick into Christmas cookie/goody baking and decorating mode here annnnnny time now!
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