Cream Puffs & Eclairs

 This year for Christmas Alison and I continued our annual tradition of arranging a Harmon's Cooking Class for her family. This year Chef Freyka taught us how to make cream puffs and eclairs. Since the class last year went so late we started at 4pm this year. We also thought a dessert class might be a little quicker - spoiler it wasn't, but it was a lot of fun. 

First, we learned how to make the filling - Crème Pâtissière and then we learned to make the Pâte à Choux dough. It was pretty remarkable how the dough turned into pastries and it wasn't that difficult. Skylee helped Chef Freyka throughout the demonstrations and then we all got a chance to try our hands at making it ourselves. 

Chef Freyka does a great job of keeping the kids involved, but Anna wasn't quite as into this one as some of the other classes we have done. She found other ways to keep herself entertained. She decided she was a little swiper and collected everyone's silverware and other items from the table and put them in a pile at her spot. She also talked Jake into taking her on a couple of shopping trips downstairs. First, she went looking for chocolate coins but came back with chocolate bears. Then she decided she needed some raspberry jam. She came back with the jam as well as an assortment of other goodies that she didn't have at home. 

After we finished our pastries we ate a delicious chicken noodle soup that Chef Freyka prepared for us and we tasted a few of the pastries. It was another fun cooking class.