April's Dessert Class

Tonight is a Dessert Workshop with April Tucker! She has been selling her baked goods and preserves at the St. Mary's County Farmer's Market for a number of years and this promises to be a very enjoyable evening.

The main event is an Extreme Chocolate Cheesecake. It has five separate parts including a crust, white chocolate layer, milk chocolate layer, fudge cake and the Dark Chocolate Ganache frosting.

The gang looks at the monitor as Chef April shows folding techniques.

There is a little bit of double-boiler action to melt the chocolate appropriately. This recipe will take almost three hours before it is done!

The miracles of modern cinematography, the base cheesecake is already heading into the convection oven! This leaves us time to work on Creme Brulee.

The consistency of the eggs is important!

So is an effective torch, which we just couldn't seem to get going in the beginning...but Darla saved the day!

Meanwhile back at the lab, Chef April showed the ramekins and shared her thoughts about making Creme Brulee ahead of time. Into the containers they went!

...and then those that had been made the previous day were topped with brown sugar, and made ready for torching the top. Don't they look good!

We slip in a quick sisters and daughters shot.....

and then everyone got to try out the torch for their individual serving. No fire extinguisher needed for this class!

These were enjoyed by all!

We are still waiting on the Extreme Chocolate Cheesecake, and there is time to do a Pralines topping to go on ice cream - oooppppsssss, we forgot the ice cream :(.

But we still proceeded with heating the almonds in super fines sugar, to demonstrate how to make an awesome praline. April also showed how to make a biscuit basket which is done with a thin cookie that gets shaped in a small glass container. This was enjoyed in spite of the ice cream mix-up. Finally we are back on the Extreme Chocolate Cheesecake.....Things have cooled and can be iced.

The first bite is for Steve!!!!

And the rest is sliced and served.

Just about everyone took home a piece to share with their family. What a remarkable finale! Chef April will be doing an Authentic Mexican Class later this summer and will continue in the fall with some new and exciting themes. Thanks April!