I awoke bright and early Saturday morning (quite an unusual feat) and quickly showered, dressed, and double checked the subway directions. Kevin kindly woke up as well and gave me a ride to the end of the 1 line.



Riding the 1 train to Times Square, I read through the Sunday Times Magazine (a regular Saturday ritual). At Times Square, I switched to an N train and headed to my final destination at Canal Street.



Above ground at Canal and Broadway, I quickly figured out which direction was north (opposite the way the train was headed... took me waaaaaay too long to figure out that keeping in mind which way I was headed on the train could help me figure out directions above ground.) As I had a little extra time, I stopped at a small cafe and ordered a bagel and water. I finished reading Frank Bruni's feature article as I ate my breakfast and became more excited for the rest of the day.



I walked back to the International Culinary Center, which is a joint venture of the French and Italian culinary institutes. (Apparently, Jacques Pepin is one of the deans of the school. I was hoping he'd be wandering the hallways, but no such luck.) I checked in at reception and received my apron and skullcap and waited for the rest of my classmates to arrive.



Shortly after 10am, I and my fellow students (11 others) were escorted to the baking classroom where we met Chef Karen and Chef Johnson. Chef Karen started by briefly telling us a little about herself and then asked each of us to introduce ourselves and say a little something about why we were there. (Since it had been a while since I was on the student side of such an activity, I forgot how agonizing it can be to say something interesting. But of course, I'll still keep making my own students do it on the first day of class.) Then it was time to jump in and learn about doughnuts!!



Chef Karen demonstrated for us how to make a yeast dough. She passed around the dough at various stages so that we could get an idea of how it should look and feel. Because yeast doughs need time to rise, we didn't use the batch she made, but instead worked with a huge batch they had made earlier in the morning. In teams of three (I worked with two sisters who were very nice and friendly), we cut, weighed, and pre-shaped the dough. Then we gave it a final shape and let it proof.



At that point Chef Karen moved us onto learning about apple cider doughnuts, which rely on baking soda and powder instead of yeast. After demonstrating how to make the dough, each team of three gathered the ingredients and mixed our own dough. That dough had to rest in the freezer.



Chef Karen's apple cider dough was well rested so she demonstrated cutting the doughnuts. And then returned her doughnuts to the fridge for another rest. Then she demonstrated how to make a hole in the yeast doughnuts (basically just punch your finger through it).



And then it was time for the frying. There were some technical difficulties with keeping the oil at the correct temperature (the simple and short version is that this is the first time they taught this class and so didn't anticipate that the electric burners wouldn't be strong enough). Once the technical issues were solved, my team and I fried and fried and fried. Yeast doughnuts were fried and coated with vanilla sugar, and others with cinnamon sugar. Some yeast doughnuts were fried without a hole and then filled with raspberry jam. Then we fried the apple cider doughnuts, some of which made it into the sugar, and some of which were drizzled with icing or glaze.



The number of doughnuts created by the whole class could probably have supplied a small bakery for their entire day. I was able to bring home more doughnuts than Kevin and I could possibly eat.

On the bigger plate are mostly yeast doughnuts (all sugared), the smaller plate contains the apple cider glazed doughnuts.



The class was a lot of fun and I really learned a lot. I've already ordered some supplies and tools to give doughnut making a try at home. (Turns out Bed, Bath, and Beyond is the crappiest place you can go for baking tools. However, King Arthur Flour is awesome!) I'm also keeping my eye on future classes and might try taking another in the Fall!