The French Kitchen

So yesterday I took a cooking class at The French Kitchen Culinary Center in Colorado Springs. The center has a wonderful, clean, modern kitchen (quartz countertops and Miele appliances), where classes are taught, as well as a bakery and a store that sells both food (including many items that are difficult to find elsewhere) and cooking supplies.

Yesterday, we made a Passion Fruit Cake, and we each got to take our cake home. I'm used to simple recipes that call for two cups of flour, three eggs, etc. The recipe we used yesterday was extremely precise. We had to measure out x grams of flour, y grams of egg yolk, z grams of egg white, etc. Also, we needed to sieve not just the flour and the sugar, but the egg yolk. While the class was waiting for the passion fruit mousse to set in the freezer, our instructor served us a snack of three homemade breads (sour dough, country, and baguette) with butter and four homemade jams. Absolutely divine! She also gave us some English toffee (to die for!) at the start of the class. The class was amazingly well organized. We had aprons waiting for us, and every station was set out for each student with scales and cooking equipment. All the ingredients we used were very high quality. Some are a little hard to find (such as passion fruit puree), but one can purchase them at the center.

The store carries a variety of syrups. We could help ourselves to water and syrups during the class. They were very tasty and would no doubt make great additions to cocktails. Apart from a number of fruit-flavored syrups, there were also hazelnut and French vanilla flavors, which would be great in coffee.

It was so much fun, and the cake is soooooo good! The French Kitchen offers dozens of classes, most of which sell out weeks in advance. I'm signed up for Salads next month, and Paige and I are signed up for English Toffee. I hope to take Bread and Jams, Strawberry Cake, Opera Cake, Vegetables, Quiches, and many more. I may suggest a vegan or vegetarian class at some point, or perhaps a class in cooking French lentils (lentilles du Puy).