2 months ago my mum signed me up for a cooking class. Actually to be exact, she signed me up for a baking class. I've never really been very talented in any areas. I can't sing/dance/perform and I don't possess much artistic talent or sporting abilities. But I've a greedy tongue and stomach. And I've always enjoyed a good meal. Seeing how I obsess over food 24 hours a day, she decided to put that one little "talent" to good use.
My mum had invited her office girls to join in a cooking class as a form of bonding session, and she asked me to tag along too. The Cook's Studio director Sarah Lee is a friend of my mum (she's the daughter of their old church friend) so this also encouraged my mum to sign the few of us up for the class.
I'm glad I went... because in the end, I learnt a whole load of recipes. It was a way long baking lesson though... that stretched beyond its supposed 6 hours. (It was a day class) The good thing about Cook's Studio is that it provides hands-on lessons. Unlike many baking classes these days, they only either do a partial hands-on session, or they just do a show-and-tell. But hands-on is the best way to learn. Because some things get ingrained into you along the way. :)
An overview of the cooking classroom
It's really a brightly lit and spacious learning area. Unfortunately my camera wasn't behaving that day.
The cooking class
Meet my fellow participants. Yeap. It's for the old and young. :) Oh and of course.. it's for all genders too! Sarah (our teacher and Cook's studio director) told us that she get guys coming in to learn cooking lessons from her to learn to cook for their girlfriends. Talk about being romantic. Metrosexual is in!
My bench
I was sitting alone though. At every bench there's supposed to be 2 students.
The white thing in the foreground is the electric cooker. That's where I did all my damage. :) I think the electric cooker is really convenient. Just press the buttons and you get what u want.
Closeup of the bench and tools provided
Seafood Tarts
The Delicious Seafood tarts unwrapped
Sarah taught us that if you want to make this, the ingredients are crab meat, tuna, mayonniase, lemon rhind, sesame seeds. Mix them all up and you get this delicious concoction. Of course for the exact proportions and the recipes, join her class! :) Esay, lovely finger food in seconds that is great for your parties and gatherings!
Closeup of the Seafood Tart
You can see how crispy the tart base was and every other details of the Seafood tart. The toasted Seasame Seeds gave the tart a very nice distinct, unique taste. Yummy.
The Baking Agenda for the day
1. Fruit Tartlets
The beans used to hold the tarts' base
The reason why we get the general shape of the tarts is because we put this broad beans into each tart before putting them in the oven. This keeps the shape and prevents the tart's base from rising up.
Preparing the Custard
Trust me, you don't want to know how bad my cooking skills are. Everyone who saw my custard said it was very good. No lumps, no clumps but just a smooth thick consistent paste. And I was really pleased too. It wasn't watery either and I was just starting to be very full of myself (seeing how I had managed to follow the instructions completely).... when I saw the bowl of egg next to me.
Then the realisation that I had forgotten to add one of the most important ingredients in hit me! I quietly dumped the bowl of custard in and switched on the cooker. But by then the class was done cooking the custard. I mustered some faint explanation that my custard suddenly turned watery and insisted I needed to continue cooking the custard.
The teacher said that I didn't need to do that, but I persisted (because I left out the egg!). Needless be said, my custard was watery and everything that I didn't want it to be after that. :(
Preparing the fruits
Chop your fruits in a whole new way and you will get fantastic art pieces to decorate your fruit tarts with. Don't you think that the chopping board is to a cook like what a palette is to an artist? The colours of life... :)
The Gelatine Leaf
I always wondered what a gelatine leaf meant by this. I would scour supermarkets looking for the gelatine leaf in the vegetable section, thinking that it must be some wonderful miraculous vegetable that could somehow turn into gelatine upon being boiled. It was only that day when I realised you buy this sort of things from baking suppliers like Phoon Huat.
Preparing the Gelatine
You boil and you watch. But Gelatine is really tricky to work with because it sets so fast!
Perhaps it had something to do with my sitting at the back. But it wasn't until everyone had put their fruit tarts into the fridge that I realised I had forgotten to glaze my fruit tarts with the gelatine!! It was another repeat of the *forgot to add in the egg* incident. So I quickly rushed to the fridge with my gelatine and risking the success of my fellow cookmates' tarts. (You shouldn't keep opening and closing the fridge door because it affects the texture and taste... or something like that)
The Ready Fruit Tarts!
Really delicious. Unfortunately thanks to my egg incident, my tarts was very watery from the watery custard. The custard ooze out upon biting into the tart. Luckily my family attributed this to the tart melting! hahahahahah (actually I don't think that tarts melt)
There was too much custard and fruits left. So I decided to finish them up- mix them together and you get a lethally delicious combination!
Freshly cut fruits
I never knew they could look this pretty!
Kiwis are high in antioxidants because they contain lots of vitamin C! I love berries. But somehow I feel that the berries in Singapore are not as sweet as those in Canada. :( I miss my Granville Market Cherries.
2. Chilled Fruit Sago Cream
The Scooped out Melon Balls
I couldn't quite get how to use the melon baler device. Is that even the correct term? Anyway, I just tried to get a decent ball out of it! haha thus the odd melon shapes! I totally am a cooking idiot!
The fruits prepared
Melons, mangos, honeydews :)
Cooking the Sago and Coconut Milk
Somehow cooking is really challenging for me. I repeated this at home and what I got was the sago melting into a thick liquid, and the coconut milk segregating into white clumps. Luckily the taste was not affected (I did repeat cooking the sago though) despite the looks of the dessert. Of course Reuben, and Yimin were the biggest sceptics. My biggest fan though was Cassalyn (THANK YOU!) who felt that it was nice. :( I tweaked the recipe abit though for the mango sago dessert, so that could explain why it turned out kind of weird.
Note to self: When hosting a dinner party, try not to cook/make something that you are trying out for the first time by yourself.
The Fruit Sago completed!
3. Blueberry Muffins
The Blueberries Muffin rising in the oven!
We were so thrilled to see our fruits of labour coming to pass! Ooo la la... finally a muffin that rises and doesn't fall flat! The trick? It's all in the recipe!!
The Blueberry Muffins all baked and pretty!
A closeup of the Blueberry Muffins!
Another closeup of the Blueberry Muffins!
Our Blueberry Muffin cut up and revealed!
The muffins were really very moist, tender and the overall taste wasn't too sweet! It was just nice! Unfortunately I found the blueberries to be very sour. :( I miss Canada's sweet blueberries. So delicious!
4. Apple Pie
Cooking the apples
The key to good apple pie?? Red red granny smith apples!! :) (Hmmm did i get the name right?)
Alas, I just had to screw this important step up too. I suspect that my sitting position (I was at the last bench in class) might have something to do with my day-dreaming in class. One thing I hate most about cooking/baking is that you have to multi-task. And I'm totally very bad at this. Whenever I multi-task, I end up not paying attention to alot of things!!
Take the cooking of the apples for example. I was supposed to cook the apples and work on the pastry for the pie at the same time. I didn't know that sugar burns so easily. :( I mean I know sugar burns very easily, but not that easily! So my apples were totally brown the next minute I knew.
Anyway, I realised through this class how totally bad I am at multi-tasking. My pastry for the pie turned out crappy as well.
Here's how a normal pie pastry should look like after you stretch it over the base. Courtesy of my mum's beautiful apple pie. (Yea yea, where the daughter is inept, the mother comes in)
The Beautifully Crafted Apple Pie
My mum's relly meticulous. To the extent of the details at the rim of the pie and the holes on the pie... it has to be neat and pretty. So she was really quite upset when she saw my pie. Anyway, take a look at the finished product of a good student's work!
The Apple Pie after it's baked- looking all gorgeous and shiny!
Greatness gracious! So pretty and delicious (I know because I ate it!).
Now take alook at my pie... promise not to laugh... please...
My APPLE PIE!
Ha... a total disaster! My goodness... even I couldn't bring myself to love it. It's like how they always say "Oh no, that's a face that only a mother could love"... well in this case, I don't even like my pie's face. :P
I couldn't do much to make it look a tee-wee bit better because Sarah was trying to wrap up the class asap.
What happened??
Well apparently, I had not added enough butter, so my pastry seemingly became very flourish and couldn't stretch properly. Sarah had to do the pastry cover through the "
patching" method. Meaning you take lumps of dough here and there and patch the pie as well as you can.
*Sob* What an ugly piece of pie.
We did try to salvage the pie by adding more water. Unforrunately it was not to be. :( The good news? Well, my pie tasted decent. I must say that it tasted exactly like my mum's! The filling that is. If you discount the fact that my pie's crust was hard, unappetising and dry, well... it's pretty ok. Haha a decent pie for a first-timer ok!! AND you have to admit this was the first major mistake of the day!! :P
5. Easy Chocolate Cake
The Chocolate Cakes Factory!
Last but not least... we baked the Easy chocolate cake! It was supposed to take only a mere 15 min. But I guess we were all pretty slow. o_O
Another Shot of our Chocolate Cakes
Don't you guys think that all the chocolate cakes put together looks like a factory churning out chocolate cakes?
Oh the toys in the background belongs to Sarah's little girl Phoebe! I wanted to post her pictures here. But knowing how there are weird people out there on the internet, I better not. Plus I did not get permission you know... Phoebe is really so cute and adorable!
My Chocolate Cake!
Uh huh! I'm not that bad right?
The problem? Well... I realised I did another *forgot the egg* incident. Just that by the time i realised the missing ingredient, the cake was baked and ready!
The missing ingredient?? Ehhh.... vanilla essence!! hahaha... luckily my mum didn't know and the cake tasted pretty ok to her. *Evil laughter*
Cook's Studio (Click here for the link to the website)
1 Lian Seah Street
#02-15 Liang Seah Place
Tel. No: +65 63340515
Visit the website for directions to the school or for more information on the classes if ever you want to cook up a storm!
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So guys, if you all want to prove that you are not a cooking/baking disaster, sign up now! Ha... Sarah has many other interesting lessons. Guys... if you are chasing that sweet girl, think of cooking classes! Hey, you never know... the way to a gal's heart could jolly well be through her stomach too! (I know mine is!!)
:) Oh the whole, I would give the food a
4/5 (That's for the class average, really! 5/5 if it's not done by me... 10/5 if it's done by me!! hahaha) and a
5/5 for the recipes (the baked goodies came out really well which reflected the accuracy of the recipe). On the whole, there was great food (refreshments were provided), great company and lots of great fun!! I learnt how to bake!! Anyone up to try?
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