For the Love of Chocolate

For Christmas, one of my favorite gifts was Lizzie's gift of  a ticket to a chocolate cooking class.

We both took the class at The Pain Quotidien at Fashion Island in Newport Beach. It was a rainy Sunday but when we got there the place was very nice and comfortable and smelled wonderful!

The class is for no more than 8 people, but we lucked out and we were the only persons take the class. Maybe because the weather was not so good or because it was Oscar day, but I loved to have a personalized class. Out teacher was young and very cute and friendly. 

Dario Murcino

 Getting started

 We learned how to make great chocolate chip cookies with pecans... Them we made brioche dough and kneaded and worked it and kneaded again, it was work! Then me made them into shapes and had to wait to rise, and then bake them. Last thing we made was chocolate ganache, and we filled little tartlets with ganache and blueberries and blackberries.

Chocolate chip and pecan cookies ready to bake

Some chocolate brioche ready for the oven

Lizzie and I were good listeners and followed directions, but I lagged behind a bit so Dario kept on kneading my dough :)

 We are happy cooks!

and here we are filling the little tarts with ganache and berries

It was a very fun day!

I always look like this on selfies

We took a ton of brioches, cookies and tartlets home, we had enough to share with my neighbor Amy and froze some of it for when Sandy gets here next week

Thanks Lizzie for a fun and yummy day!