Cooking Class - Pie Baking Fun

The Pie baking experience didn’t really live up to my, very beginner, pie making expectations. Chef Mike was a nice guy but he was very open about the fact that he was a savory chef not a pastry chef. He didn’t have much to add to the process of baking other than to say he wasn’t into measuring very much. This was evident in the prep for the class. We made one full size pie of peaches and blueberries. After getting things mixed, we pored the filling into the crust and it was about 1/3 the amount it should have been. Not a huge deal but it doesn’t show any attention to basic prep. When doing the lattice on the pie the sous chef (who claimed to be a pastry chef) didn’t know the process for weaving the lattice. She instructed us one way and was corrected by, I’m guessing, the manager of (the store where the class held. The kicker was that the ovens apparently weren’t baking our pies as fast as they should have been. So, our pie came out almost baked by the end of the class. The chef instructed the sous chef to take it out of the pie tin and put it in a cake box, for us to take home and finish baking. Well this assumes we have a pie tin at home and also assumes that we’ll be able to get a fully loaded pie, sitting in just the crust, off of a cardboard box and into a pie tin. Not easy for an experienced chef I’m sure, let alone a couple of novices. I would have guessed working ovens or better prep with timing would be a basic feature of a class like this. There was so much down time waiting for the pie to slowly bake that the chef started teaching us how to cut onions and mince garlic. Nothing wrong with that, just a lot of standing and waiting that seemingly shouldn’t have happened. The one thing everyone on staff seemed prepared to do was push sign-ups for their other classes and products in the store (for which we were given a 10% off coupon). All in all, I was disappointed. This was supposed to be a nice gift for my wife’s birthday but it turned out to be a big let down. I would not recommend the Cozy Meal classes.

Chef L. J was great. Making macarons is very complex, and while it was a bit rushed at times and hard to follow the instructions, we were still able to finish in about 3 hours.

This class was very nice and fun! It was informative and very good & tasteful! The only thing is that we were told we were going to be sent the recipe and I have yet to receive it which is upsetting since I want to re make it! :)