Cooking in the Kitchen

Today I had the pleasure of attending a cooking class at the Baltimore Chef Shop, where my dad and I learned how to make croissants and danishes.  The Baltimore Chef Shop opened a few months ago in the Hampden area of Baltimore City.  It's housed in a cute townhouse on the avenue along with lots of other kitschy little shops and restaurants.  The chefs at the shop teach classes on loads of different styles of cooking; from French pastries to Omelettes, from Pizza to Dim Sum, and loads in between.

When I first heard about it, I was super excited!  It sounded like such a good time.  And since my dad is already a fabulous cook who took a class like this in Italy (and loved it!), I thought it would be a great birthday present for him.  And it turned out it was.  We had a wonderful time!  Our class was supposed to be 3 hours covering danishes and croissants for the first 2.5 hours, then give us a chance to eat what we had just made. 

Well, the class quickly turned into a 4 hour affair seeing as the timing was a little rough. This was the first time the BCS had covered croissants and danishes, and since they're just a bit labor intensive, we were willing to overlook that.  But after all of that, we finally got to taste what we made, and that was most definitely my favorite part.  The cheese danishes were so darn yummy!  The croissants were a little too buttery, a little too heavy and a little too empty (I would have preferred Chocolate...) for me.  And while I probably won't be attempting croissants any time soon, I'm already hoping to give Danishes a try one of these days - of course I'll be needing a Kitchen Aid, a scale and a bigger kitchen...