
Being a food-lover does mean that I'm not too shabby in the kitchen. I'm not exactly creating croquembouches every fortnight, but I can churn out the basics quite nicely.
Need someone to get that pasta dish done? I'm your girl.
Whether you're the executive chef at home or more in charge of the sponge and scourer, there's always room to learn something new in the kitchen. That's exactly what you can do at The Golden Pig Cooking School in Brisbane's Newstead.
What's the benefit of actually going to a cooking class instead just rifling through "Woman's Weekly Easy Dinners"? Read on to find out.
Need someone to get that pasta dish done? I'm your girl.
Whether you're the executive chef at home or more in charge of the sponge and scourer, there's always room to learn something new in the kitchen. That's exactly what you can do at The Golden Pig Cooking School in Brisbane's Newstead.
What's the benefit of actually going to a cooking class instead just rifling through "Woman's Weekly Easy Dinners"? Read on to find out.
The Golden Pig has such a wide range of cooking classes, you'll be mastering things like knife skills, blanching and sautéing, and piping icing in no time. Each cooking lesson is four hours long, which includes time at the end to enjoy the fruits (and vegetables) of your labour. For the more liquid-inclined, there are also wine appreciation classes available.
I tried out a brand new class covering cake baking and decorating, and finishing up with a high tea afterwards. This was indeed a terribly civilised and fun to spend a Sunday afternoon!
This class was lead by Carla from Bow and Daisy Bakery, whose offerings you may have sampled from many a market stall in and around Brisbane town.
Carla had a natural approach to decorating her cakes and cupcakes with no high-vis flouro food colouring in sight. Instead, there were loads of fresh fruits and flowers on hand to literally bring your bog standard cupcake to life.
I tried out a brand new class covering cake baking and decorating, and finishing up with a high tea afterwards. This was indeed a terribly civilised and fun to spend a Sunday afternoon!
This class was lead by Carla from Bow and Daisy Bakery, whose offerings you may have sampled from many a market stall in and around Brisbane town.
Carla had a natural approach to decorating her cakes and cupcakes with no high-vis flouro food colouring in sight. Instead, there were loads of fresh fruits and flowers on hand to literally bring your bog standard cupcake to life.
We kicked off the class learning a basic vanilla cupcake recipe that can easily be tweaked to be a chocolate cupcake recipe, strawberry cupcake recipe or whatever-other-flavour-you-can-come-up-with cupcake recipe. Personally I'm turning this into a rave cupcake by adding skittles and popping candy.
Right from the start, the benefit of a cooking class over a downloaded recipe kicked-in with Carla sharing a plethora of tips to keep your cake light, fluffy and tasty. While a recipe may note "room temperature butter" we got hands-on to feel the optimal softness of the butter we were using. We also learned three different ways to separate eggs- a handy skill to impress on a first date.
After baking different flavoured cupcakes including chocolate brownie filled cupcakes (zOMG!) we got to piping icing.
We made an Italian buttercream icing which is fiddly enough to be impressive without requiring you to set your hair on fire to achieve the end result. It made for a super creamy but fluffy icing that is delicious by the spoonful.
In case you're wondering, yes there is a difference between French buttercream icing and Italian buttercream icing. Italian for the win.
Now I'm not a natural with the old piping bag. In fact I suck at it. Thankfully I got a bit of one-on-one attention here to correct my awkward attempts at getting icing onto a cake in a socially acceptable manner. This does not involve using a tea spoon as is usually my want.
We then got to take our cupcake creations home, making me more popular than a Kardashian at a selfie convention.
Right from the start, the benefit of a cooking class over a downloaded recipe kicked-in with Carla sharing a plethora of tips to keep your cake light, fluffy and tasty. While a recipe may note "room temperature butter" we got hands-on to feel the optimal softness of the butter we were using. We also learned three different ways to separate eggs- a handy skill to impress on a first date.
After baking different flavoured cupcakes including chocolate brownie filled cupcakes (zOMG!) we got to piping icing.
We made an Italian buttercream icing which is fiddly enough to be impressive without requiring you to set your hair on fire to achieve the end result. It made for a super creamy but fluffy icing that is delicious by the spoonful.
In case you're wondering, yes there is a difference between French buttercream icing and Italian buttercream icing. Italian for the win.
Now I'm not a natural with the old piping bag. In fact I suck at it. Thankfully I got a bit of one-on-one attention here to correct my awkward attempts at getting icing onto a cake in a socially acceptable manner. This does not involve using a tea spoon as is usually my want.
We then got to take our cupcake creations home, making me more popular than a Kardashian at a selfie convention.
After our venture into the world of little cakes, we then tackled a four-layer naked cake, complete with making our own decorative peanut brittle and tempering couverture chocolate to pop on top.
Again, these are some mad skills to have in the kitchen.
Another benefit of the cooking class over the recipe book was that we found out what to do if you've stuffed an element of your cake. In fact Carla wrecked a couple of things on purpose to show us how to save our end result. You don't get that kind of knowledge on taste.com.au.
Again, these are some mad skills to have in the kitchen.
Another benefit of the cooking class over the recipe book was that we found out what to do if you've stuffed an element of your cake. In fact Carla wrecked a couple of things on purpose to show us how to save our end result. You don't get that kind of knowledge on taste.com.au.
If creating sweet treats isn't your thing, other classes at The Golden Pig include butchery and knife skills, French bistro cooking, exotic flavours of the Middle East, and sourdough and bread making.
Being schooled on fancy cooking is particularly nifty for a unique work team building activity, or for a unique Hen's night/ baby shower. Alternatively, these classes are also great if you're flying solo, just as I was. More cake for me.
The Golden Pig can be found at 38 Ross Street, Newstead 4006.
Being schooled on fancy cooking is particularly nifty for a unique work team building activity, or for a unique Hen's night/ baby shower. Alternatively, these classes are also great if you're flying solo, just as I was. More cake for me.
The Golden Pig can be found at 38 Ross Street, Newstead 4006.