Chocolate Confections

ICE’s Fine Cooking series are the classes on which our recreational program’s reputation was built. This intensive course expands on our Fine Cooking 1 series and takes a deeper dive into essential culinary techniques.These full-participation classes teach fundamental skills, not recipes. This course covers everything from fileting a fish, to properly sautéing, to cover poaching techniques and fundamental sauce making. As you advance through the series, you’ll gradually come to understand each cooking concept. You’ll have a firm grasp of ingredients and equipment; you’ll know why things happen; you'll learn how to avoid and correct mistakes. Most importantly, you’ll gain the experience you need to cook with confidence and pleasure - without relying strictly on recipes. Each class culminates with a student-prepared meal. Prerequisite: Fine Cooking 1.

Whether you like your pizza with a thick or a thin crust, with tons of sauce or no tomato at all, this class will give you a repertoire that includes just about everyone’s favorite. You’ll start by learning to make pizza dough, and while the dough is rising, prepare various toppings. You’ll learn the best baking techniques and work hands-on to make the following: pizza dough; tomato sauce; pesto sauce; pizza toppings including prosciutto, fresh herbs and sautéed vegetables; and dessert pizza with Nutella and fresh fruit.

If you want to learn how to make pasta, then this class is just what you knead! Over the course of five days, you will be getting your hands into dough to learn the ins and outs of pasta making. You'll grow from learning how to make regular doughs and noodles before furthering those techniques to include naturally colored doughs and stuffed pasta shapes. By the time this class comes to completion after five days, you'll feel comfortable exploring a whole new world of endless pasta-bilities. The items you prepare include: pastas like pasta all'uova, semolina pasta dough, squid ink dough, golden saffron dough, green spinach dough; sauces such as pesto, marinara, tomato sauce, ragu de chingale (wild boar sauce); stuffed pastas like ricotta ravioli, pumpkin tortellini and ravioli all'uova (ravioli with an egg); and pasta dishes including lasagne, pasta cacio e pepe, pasta agio e olio (garlic in oil), pasta with pesto trapenese (Sicilian tomato-basil pesto) and gnocchi.

Good wines and simple but elegant fare are hallmarks of the French brasserie tradition, and steak is a favorite order. You’ll learn to prepare: oysters mignonette; frisée aux lardons; steak au poivre; pommes Anna and haricots verts aux champignons et noisettes.