Baking Class with Chef Eloise

On Tuesday, August 16, 2016, the dining group participated in a Cookie Baking Class with Chef Eloise through Verlocal.  The event took place at DeLise dessert café in North Beach, San Francisco.  There were four participants and the event lasted approximately two hours.  Chef Eloise is the sole baker of DeLise dessert café.  In addition to working at DeLise, Chef Eloise teaches about three baking classes a week.  Chef Eloise attended culinary school in San Francisco and has been professionally baking ever since (12 years).

As soon as we entered DeLise café, we were escorted to the back kitchen by Chef Eloise.  The back kitchen was very tiny and is the only kitchen for the small café.  Chef Eloise extended a warm welcome, explained her background and intentions for our afternoon baking class.  In our two hours with Chef Eloise, we baked two types of cookies: shortbread and chocolate chip cookies.  While the shortbread cookies are Chef Eloise’s favorite, the chocolate chip cookies are DeLise’s best seller.  Throughout the baking class, I learned a lot from Chef Eloise.  She was very knowledgeable and provided helpful baking tips that I had never heard of before.  For example, Chef Eloise explained the importance of proper mixing techniques.  While I am not an expert chef, I do enjoy baking.  I was never taught the importance of properly mixing the ingredients so Chef Eloise’s insights were very useful. 

The key takeaway from my experience with Chef Eloise is the importance of clear event descriptions.  While I enjoyed the baking class, it was not the experience I expected.  Ultimately, I thought the baking experience would be more interactive.  As such, I thought that all the participants were going to bake and have their own experience.  However, the baking class was more observational.  Chef Eloise was the only one who baked, and as she baked, she spoke about the process while the participants just listened.  As a result, I was disappointed since my experience did not match my expectation.  Therefore, my experience with Chef Eloise brought to light the importance of clear descriptions and known expectations of the experience prior to the actual experience.