So I went to Paris a few weeks ago and it was amazing as per usual (third time there! Yes I know I’m very lucky) and I’ll do a full blog post on the recommended eats & where to take great pics, but today’s post is about a croissant baking class…yes,you read that right. I, Priscilla, possibly the most “kitchen newbie” there is, shelled out 99 euros and 3 hours of time to learn the art of the puff pastry…and IT WAS SO WORTH IT! 🙂 okay lets back up first to how I found this class. A few/many years ago, I went to college at UCSD and made quite a few friends. One of those lovely friends is named Eric and he is from Paris…oh and he’s a pastry chef! Like wah?! Yes, that is actually a profession and so freakin cool! And beneficial for lovers of sweet breads (ahem that’s me!).

When my cousin and I planned to go to Paris, I knew we had to take Eric’s class because last I saw him, he had just started his pastry apprenticeship. Eric is a freelance pastry teacher, but we caught up with him at Le Cuisine Paris. He teaches a few different classes and what dictated our choice was the fact that all of his classes were full except the croissant class haha so choice made!
I honestly walked in weary because even though I know Eric is a great teacher, I also know I’m not great in the kitchen (seriously folks, I melted a plate in half “cooking” a pop tart…). We get there and are greeted kindly by the reception and we meet the rest of our classmates (classes are 8 at max capacity). We go downstairs to this basement kitchen that is fully stocked and yet still felt homey. We get plastic aprons and do intros. Then the lesson begins. We have to work quickly since the plan is to make different kinds of croissants all in a 3 hour period…oh and it’s summertime and we can’t let the butter melt! Like seriously butter is a huge deal for croissants and keeping it in its non melted form is very important.

I won’t go into all the details because I don’t want to butcher Eric’s teaching but I’ll just say, I MADE CROISSANTS!! And they were edible 🙂 also even though I’m slightly biased since Eric is my friend, I will still say Eric is an amazing teacher! Not only is he attentive and patient, he is quite funny! There was one point when one of my croissants went a little wonky and he helped me fix it no problem within a joke context so there is no shame in my undomestic goddess ways 😛 Okay now I’ll let the photos speak for themselves: