Last Saturday I gave my first Pastry baking course at the Dorothy Clive Garden. I had already given a few Bread Baking classes so we thought that something new was in order!

It was a fun day and the 7 "students" left with lots of croissants, pain au chocolat and someone was even brave enough to make some pain au raisins.

During the day we went through all the different steps of making a laminated dough. From folding the butter into a dough I had made the night before for each student to bashing some butter and showing the different ways a laminated dough can be used.

So the first step was to wrap a slab of butter in the dough to do some folding to create the layers that are the trademark of a successful croissant.

While the dough was relaxing in the fridge between each folding, we made a dough from scratch that everyone took home with them ready to make a new batch of croissants the next day in their own house.

Once this was done it was time for a nice lunch. Food at the Dorothy Clive Garden is REALLY good. We had soup that was accompanied with some foccacia and cheese bread I made in the morning before the class.

It was followed by some free time which is just perfect for a walk around the garden.

After that things accelerated. Everybody decided that of course they would make some croissants but making pain au chocolat was also popular. One student wanted to make some pain aux raisins which can be challenging when time is short.  Still I think she did a great job considering that the dough was getting warm when it was cut into slices.

As I said it was a great day and the atmosphere was really friendly with everyone wanting to be useful even insisting to do the washing up!

Thanks everyone for a great day!