I’ve always had a passing interest in baking.  Even when I was a child I remember being in the kitchen with my mother making fairy (sign of things to come) cakes, or my own culiniary delight which was Rice Krispie buns.  At one point I even got a place to study Culinary Arts in DIT.  Alas it was not to be and like many others I ended up getting a job and getting used to having money. From time to time I still try my hand at a bit of baking with moderate degrees of success.  It’s finding the time to practice that seems to let me down.

Another buddy of mine (lets call him Baking Boy) also likes to dabble with flour and eggs from time to time. Being the good chap he is, he organised for us to head to Dublin Cookery School in Blackrock for their Petite Patisserie class.  Basically its an excuse to eat fattie food and a competition to see who makes the best ones.  Nothing like a bit of (un)friendly rivalry to keep things interesting.

So we arrived for class at 7 p.m. and joined the group which was mostly made up of ladies and we were promptly served a glass of wine and some food.

The set up for the class was pretty standard.  We got to sit back and relax and drink wine while Linda done all the hard work right in front of us. Linda is like a female Willy Wonka but without that creepy element he has. She is great fun. She knows her stuff, is passionate about her chocolate masterpieces and that enthusiasm makes the class a great place to be. We had about five differant recipes to get through in about two hours.  The first couple were demonstrated with ease by Linda while we supped our wine.

She made mini versions of everything using some very handy silicon moulds. I’ll definately be using them when I get around to recreating some of these mouth watering treats. Linda actually made a birthday cake for Robert De Niro (which kinda makes her a bit of a hero) when she worked in Vancouver and shared the recipie in miniature version with us. It was a chocolate hazelnut  cake and if it’s good enough for Mr. De Niro it’s good enough for me.

She also made mini frozen tiramisu and chocolate mousse encased in glazed chocolate boxes. Droooooooooooool

After beguiling us with her skills Linda let us loose in the kitchen area to have a go at something a little less intricate.

We made Chocolate Madeleines first.  Lets just say that they didn’t quite work out. Some key ingredients might have been forgotten then added in the wrong order and bascially I blame the wine because the very simple recipie suddenly turned into something written in latin and the Chocolate Madeleines didn’t quite make it but we still had fun trying.  Few pictures below of the steps involved.

Unfortunately there is no finished product picture because they were far too tragic to be photographed. The Lime and Coconut Friands however were a roaring success.

Cooking with Linda is great fun I have to say and I laughed as much as I learned so thats what I call a recipie for success. Dublin Cookery School has a whole host of classes coming up so take a look here.

Dublin Cookery School
2 Brookfield Terrace
Blackrock
Co. Dublin

Phone: 353 (0)1 2100 555

Email: info@dublincookeryschool.ie