Always learning

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to take a cooking class.  But me being me, I was too cheap to take one.  Sur La Table has cooking classes and depending on what you're taking it can be anywhere from $65-85 per person.  Last month, I was perusing their latest offerings and saw my holy grail class was on sale for $49 so I asked the Mr if he wanted to take a hooky day and learn to make croissants with me.  He seemed enthusiastic and agreed but anything disguised as a hooky day always sounds good, right?

We arrived for our class and waited for everyone to show up so we could get started.  The teacher told us we could divide up into teams of four and when the lady in the row ahead of us tagged the people in her row, we both suddenly felt like we were in elementary school dreading being the last ones picked.  Everyone stood up and I told the Mr we were going up front where two women close to our age were already standing.  We asked if they were with anyone and they said no so our little team was formed! 

Because of time constraints, we had to kind of work backward.  They had croissant dough already made so we rolled it out and she taught us how to cut it and roll them.  We made the pain au chocolats...

 ...and our teammates made the ham and cheese. 

Then it was time to slap on the egg wash which was two eggs and 2 tbsp of heavy cream because croissants aren't rich enough.

We put them by the window to proof in the sun while we learned to make the dough. 

(Not ours, but you get the idea)

Yeast dough has always been my nemesis so I was glad to have guidance on how to let it proof and what it should look like.

We had a lot of fun and not to toot our own horns but our team's croissants turned out the best.  The instructor couldn't stop taking pics and telling us all how good we did especially the rolls on their ham and cheese but ours were the best pain au chocolats.

I felt the sting of irritation from one of the regulars who has taken quite a few classes there as the instructor praised us.  Twas elementary school in another way...yeesh.  We each split up our croissants and dug in to taste our end results.  SOOOO good!!  The butter kind of cooked out a little early on everyone's because the room was sunny but the instructor said it turned out better than she thought given the butter should've been colder. 

We did a little shopping afterward but before we got too into it, we ate our last two croissants because we were starving.  Need that fuel, you know?  ;-)  I would do another class if it was on sale like this one was.  I don't think a $150 day date is something I can justify often but it was super fun and I can't wait to try making them again at home!

Have you ever taken a cooking class?  What did you make/would you want to make?

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