I just recently took the most amazing bread baking class at Fiore Market Cafe in South Pasadena. Bill and Anne are the owners and Bill taught the class passionately and I truly understood why Fiore was such a popular lunch spot in the area — besides tasting delicious, there was a level of care and affection given to the prepared food. All the bread for Fiore is made is baked in-house daily, anything less than a day old was not served to customers
I’ve taken many cooking classes in the past and this is by far the best class that I have taken. To start off, the class is $30 — which is crazy in its value! Bill prepared a piece of dough that morning for each of the 12 students in the class and taught us how to shape it in preparation for the oven
My very own piece of dough, shaped by me!
Into the oven! We were taught that great quality bread can be baked in a regular home oven!
Beautiful delicious, hand crafted breads — I was surprised how heavy each of these were!
Still warm, each of the students got to take home a fresh loaf of bread. I immediately went home and made Fiore’s fresh pesto recipe, used some of the roast chicken from the night before with tomatoes and made the most delicious sandwich that I had ever made.
Bill also taught us how to make Foccacia bread. He encouraged us to use generous portions of olive oil and sea salt. I subsequently made this at home and it was perfectly done in one try, so easy!! There’s nothing like the smell of fresh dough and of fresh baked bread.
We were also taught how to make hand-rolled baguettes
The finale of the class — Bill made each of the students a foccacia bread sandwich, with fresh heirloom tomatoes from the Fiore Market Cafe garden, homemade walnut and basil pesto and a delicious, creamy, soft white cheese
Can’t wait for Fiore Market Cafe’s pizza class!!!
