As foodies, I think it’s somehow embarrassing if we say we can’t cook at all. Honestly, rather than cooking, my passion is always more into baking, but *ahem* here I am still learning to be a better cook. Few weeks ago, we got the opportunity to join a private cooking class at Gourmet House Cooking Club Jakarta, which is a division under Nayati Group: the largest kitchen equipment supplier company in Indonesia. If you have ever heard about Hell’s Kitchen Indonesia, Allez Quisine in Indosiar, Cooking with William Wongso in Metro TV, yes, they all use the equipments from Nayati.
Gourmet House Cooking Club itself is already existing in Semarang, Central Java, known for its extensive selections of cooking classes and courses. The Jakarta branch along with the Resto-Mart and Nayati building is located in Batu Ceper, Central Jakarta, has just opened in February 2016, and we were very excited to do the trial.
Our cooking class that day was supervised by Chef Astini Moechsin, who seems very passionate about her job. Since it was my first time doing REAL cooking class like this, I was a little bit stiff at the beginning but thanks to Chef Astini, she managed to make us feel relaxed and enjoy the class with no pressure. Lucky us, we had this private class only for us, so we brought our family (total of 7 person including two of us) and the class was fun although we wished it could have been a little bit longer, LOL.
Chef Astini Moechsin.
Before the session started, we were gathered on the 3rd floor, listening to the introduction and what we would do that day. So we were going to make 2 dishes with theme of “Café Menu” including Pizza Shrimp and Veggie Blanket, and Cake Lava Chocolate. We were given the recipes in folders and before we entered the baking area, we were served some cakes and teas, yum!
Pizza Shrimp & Veggie Blanket
First, we made this pizza blanket which resembled calzone so much, if you ask me. Chef Astini said, rather than making regular pizza, she wanted to teach us something different, hence the blanket. I usually think that it’s too troublesome to make pizza dough straight from the scratch, but after this cooking class, I think differently. The dough is actually very simple to make, but perhaps because we used the gigantic Nayati mixer that made it look so easy and effortless. XD One thing I hate the most when making breads, pizzas, and doughs is kneading by hands, and here I witnessed the kneading with machine so it changed my mind completely. :-X
Let the kneading process continue until we get this elastic, non breaking dough before we wrap it up with plastic wrap and let it sit for a while. Rise, dough, rise!
Then let the other machine do its job! Flattening the dough doesn’t look so tough anymore when you have this. Keep it thin but not too much because we still can make it perfect with our favorite rolling pin later! 😉
After we get our desired pizza shape, start adding the contents. Here we used marinara sauce, mixed vegetables, mayonnaise, shrimp, and a block of mozzarella cheese on top. After it’s done, put another dough on top just like a blanket, and cut accordingly.
TA-DAH! The pizza blanket is done! We like how it turned out to be, although some salt and seasonings could help. The skin was awesomely crispy with softness in the inside, while the fillings were definitely too little for these pizza blankets. However, we love it and it was considered a success! ;P
Cake Lava Chocolate
Okay, this is definitely not a new thing and is commonly served as dessert in many popular café and restaurants worldwide. Many people (including us) think that it would take a genius to make this and actually it’s NOT! After joining this class, we made this at home few times already and it’s always successfully done, meaning that YOU, YOU, YOU can do this yourselves at home and safe some 20-60 thousands rupiahs ordering this in café/restaurants!
Basically what you need is: flour, butter, dark coverture chocolate, coaster sugar, egg, and coffee!
And of course, the oven. XD
Boil the water in the pot first and melt your butter and chocolate on top of the pot (NOT on the stove). I always failed melting the chocolate because I always do that on top of pot on the burning stove, and the high temperature can definitely separate the oil from the chocolate like, severely.
Put in the coaster sugar, egg, coffee, and flour. Keep whisking until you can’t feel your arm anymore it’s completely mixed.
Pour into molds until 3/4 parts, bake them up and keep checking within 8-10 minutes to make sure your cakes are not overdone and the lava is still inside. XD
Garnish, garnish! Chocolate Lava Cake basically has nothing attractive about its presentation so garnish is very important, IMHO. Play with colors, fruits, and sugar, or some sauces, if you like. These cakes were gorgeous, delicious, and addictive! I couldn’t believe that after all these times, finally I could make a successful chocolate lava with bursting lava like that, WOW!
After the class finished, we walked around the building and found that they also sell many kitchen and restaurant equipments in these 3 floors of the building. From small kitchen utensils to large cooking equipment, they have them all and it was difficult for us not to drool on some of them. XD
Overall, it was a fun cooking class we had with Chef Astini and team, we are hoping to enroll in any other class soon in the near future, and if you happen to like cooking/baking and have spare time to do a class, make sure to check them out!
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** This review is written based on our visit on 3 September 2016.
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