Chicago Food Trip

Last weekend we took a father-daughter trip to Chicago to do cooking classes. Not only was it unique, but it was tons of fun! Here's an overview of what we did.

Day 1: Bread Making
http://mykitchenclatter.com/classes/

We drove right from Grand Rapids to the first class, which was about 1 1/2 hours outside of Chicago. It was a private bread making class at a lady's house. She had a big, beautiful kitchen and obviously knew what she was doing. Since the breads that we made revolved around the flour that she milled herself, first thing she did was show us how to pour wheat berries into the top of her flour mill, and to make a multipurpose bread out of the flour that was produced. It only took a few minutes to mill all the flour that we needed for the recipe.
After mixing up the simple dough, we split it into portions. The first portion we rolled into tight loaves of bread, which we let rise and later baked. When the bread came out of the oven, we spread butter, honey, and/or jam on it—yum! We were given a loaf of this to take home.
The second portion we made into a pizza; we put olive oil, goat cheese, fresh basil, tomatoes, and sausage on it. I had never had goat cheese before, but I was pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted on this pizza!
The last portion of dough she rolled flat, then brushed plenty of melted butter on top, and sprinkled with a thick layer of brown sugar and cinnamon. Warm out of the oven and slightly under-baked, they were some of the best cinnamon rolls I’ve eaten. She gave us some extras to take to the hotel for breakfast the next morning. We kept them in the fridge and ate them cold the next morning; normally, this isn’t the best way to eat cinnamon rolls, but these rolls were still amazing, even cold. We were all hunched over on the floor, gobbling down our cold, sugary cinnamon rolls.
At the end she ground some more flour up for Julia to take home and experiment with—I regret not also asking for some!
The lady gave us a lot of good information and useful tips for making homemade flour—what type of wheat berries to buy, what mixers to buy, how to use it…so much information that I can’t remember it all! However, now I know that making homemade flour is easy and tastes amazing. I was impressed that she made the pizza, cinnamon rolls, and bread all from the same dough, and all tasted fantastic.

A few things I learned from this class:

-dough made from homemade whole wheat flour is more difficult to mix (you need to use a stand mixer), but almost impossible to over-knead
-you must knead dough until it can stretch thin, but not have holes in it
-with homemade whole wheat flour, the dough rises faster, and only one rise is necessary
-use olive oil to make counters non-stick so that extra flour isn’t kneaded into the dough
-use more narrow pans for baking bread so that the bread is able to climb the sides, aiding rising
-wait at least 3 hours to cut fresh baked bread so that it won’t lose moisture and become dried out
-kitchen aids are much worse quality now because they changed brands; however, there are other options out there
-milling your own flour is almost the same cost as buying it (but the machine is expensive)
-wheat flour has a very short shelf life
-for good homemade wheat flour, you must buy reliable seed and let sit for a few days to see if there are bugs in it


Day 2: The Wooden Spoon
http://woodenspoonchicago.com/cooking-classes.html?month=6&year=2015

This class took place in a cooking store called The Wooden Spoon. We were in a group of 12 students; there was one chef to teach us, and one guy to do the dishes. We were preparing 5 dishes in all (smoked trout salad, grilled herb marinated hanger steak, pan roasted green beans with almonds, creamy risotto with asiago, and molten chocolate cake with peanut butter filling), so we split into groups of 2 or 3 and each group prepared the ingredients for one of the dishes. Julia, Elena, and I were the risotto crew.
After all of the ingredients were prepared, we started cooking the food. One person read the instructions, the other carried them out, and everyone else watched. The chef tried to get people to cook a dish that they did not prepare. However, somehow I ended up doing risotto again--but later I also got to help with the smoked trout salad a little.
After everything was finished cooking, we all sat down and ate together. The food was delicious! My favorite was the smoked trout on the salad and the molten chocolate cake (surprised?). We were given the recipes to take home, and I know I will be making that cake again!

Some things I learned from this class:

-how to hold a whisk: hold your elbow in, put your hand on top of the whisk, and make circular motions towards yourself
-blanch green beans with salt water in order to get the beans more perfectly cooked and to help them retain a bright green color
-grease cupcake pans for molten chocolate cakes with melted butter, then dust them with a mixture of flour and cocoa powder so that the cakes do not have white outsides when they are removed from the pans
-to sprinkle salt or pepper on something: pinch some in your fingers, then hold your hand high over the dish and rub your fingers together, moving your hand so that the salt/pepper is evenly distributed


Steve’s Segway Tour
http://www.stevessegwaytours.com/Pages/default.aspx

Later, after the cooking class at The Wooden Spoon, we went on a segway tour! It was a very last minute decision to join the tour, but the owner was accommodating to us.
Before the tour we got a lessen in how to ride the segways: basically, lean forward to go forward, lean backwards to stop or go backwards
. Except, it was a bit harder than this in reality—at first I struggled with smoothly transitioning from forwards to backwards, but by the end of the lessen I was doing pretty well.
Our tour guide was very friendly, and she was knowledgable about the city. She made the tour very enjoyable. We got lots of information about Chicago in general, its history, and specific buildings.
Overall, it was a very fun way to learn a lot about Chicago and see new things. Also, by the end of the tour I felt like a pro on the segway—even though Elena was the speed demon, not me. Luckily I was never a “segway star”, when you fall off your segway and catch yourself by throwing up your arms like a star. Overall, the tour was a little expensive, but totally worth it.


Day 3: Give Me Some Sugar
https://givesugar.com/parties/private-instruction-2

This was a private class located a little outside of Chicago. They do many other baking classes here as well.
We each had a small chocolate cake that they had made for us and had cut properly. The owner of the shop demonstrated with her own cake how to do the cutting that they had already done for us (you get to do it yourself in the cake decorating 2 class). Afterwards, she showed us how to crumb coat our cakes…which I found a lot harder than she made it look. The cakes were then put in the fridge to set while we practiced different frosting techniques.
She showed us how to use a star tip and a round tip, and the different things we could do with each of them. We practiced the techniques over and over again on parchment paper. I found writing to be the most difficult to make look good—it's much different from normal writing! I liked making little flowers with the star tips best—as you can see from the way I decorated my cake!
When we got our cakes back, she demonstrated how to frost the cakes, which we then tried ourselves (remember: the enemy of good is better. This applies 100% here!). After finally accepting that any more fiddling with the frosting would make my cake look worse not better, I decorated my cake. I chose a simple design, because I know from experience that if I try anything too fancy, it will not look good!
I brought my cake to my friend’s house and we devoured it within a few days. Yuuum.

Things I learned:

-use a serrated knife to cut cake
-a turntable is essential (at least, if you’re serious about cake decorating)
-a crumb coat is a thin layer of frosting that seals in the crumbs; you must let it set in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, but preferably overnight before frosting and decorating it
-we used Italian buttercream to frost our cakes; it is made out of whipped egg whites, sugar water, and butter—lots of butter! I do not like it as much as American buttercream because it is so buttery and has little flavor (unless you add flavoring, like mint extract, in which case it’s great!)
-to hold a pastry bag: twist and hold the top closed with your right hand and squeeze down on the frosting; hold your right wrist with your left hand to steady and direct your right hand
-when writing on a cake you can use a toothpick to trace your words into the frosting first


Day 4: Bobby’s Bike Hike food tour
http://www.bobbysbikehike.com/default.aspx

This day we had no cooking classes planned, so Elena and I planned a surprise for my dad. We knew we wanted to do something with bikes, since he loves biking. After doing some looking, we decided on a bike-food tour because 1) who doesn’t like food? and 2) we loved our food tour in Italy. Plus, it was a bonus that it kept with the food theme of our trip.
Bobby’s Bike Hike was near our hotel, and easy to find. We were fitted with helmets and bi
kes (which all had names, haha—mine was Julius). Our guide was super friendly and knew a lot about Chicago and the food.
The first place we biked to was Gino’s deep dish pizza. Apparently they are still using the same recipe as they originally used 100 years ago when they started. It was an interesting restaurant because every possible surface was covered in writing, sometimes layers of writing so thick that you couldn’t decipher anything (ironically there was a sign outside the restaurant asking people not to write on the walls). The pizza was really good; it had a nice crispy crust and lots of thick cheese.
Next we biked to Swirl’s cupcakes. Swirl’s was one of the first cupcake bakeries in Chicago, and it opened right at the start of the cupcake craze…so at 9 years old, they are ancient in the cupcake world. Everyday the cupcakes are made fresh, meaning someone has to wake up at 12:30 in the morning to make the delicious cupcakes. Each cupcake is decorated beautifully with a lot of thought to the flavors; the cake is moist and topped with a tall swirl of Italian buttercream (the same thing we used to decorate our cakes, except this was flavored so I liked it better). There are flavors of the day and also gluten-free/vegan cupcakes. I got a mint chocolate chip cupcake which was so scrumptious (why doesn’t anyone use that word anymore? It’s awesome); it had a chocolate filling and a chocolate mint cookie buried under a tall piled of chocolate-covered mint frosting.
After cupcakes we rode over to have some hot dogs at Murphy’s Red Hots. They ensconce grilled Vienna beef in soft steamed poppyseed buns. You can get your dog “Chicago style” with everything on it, but Elena and I opted to get a plain one. Upon telling the man at the counter this, he was surprised and asked “you aren’t going to order ketchup on it, are you?”. We assured him that we were not! Our guide had told us before entering the store that if you order ketchup on your dog, you may be sent to the back of the line to try ordering again. This is because ketchup was originally made to cover up the taste of bad meat; thus, if you order ketchup on your hot dog, it is insulting because it is saying that their hot dogs taste bad. So, Elena had to sneak some of the french fry ketchup on her hot dog after we found a table.
Lastly, we biked to a bar by Wrigley Field. I got root beer, which was really good. We went up to the roof of the bar where bleachers were located, facing out over Wrigley Field, which was cool.
We took the lakefront trail back to Bobby’s Bike Hike, stopping once on the way to jump in the sparkling blue lake.

This trip was fantastic, and I highly suggest doing something like this for anyone who likes to mess around with food! I would recommend any of the places that we went for classes, since they were all great; all of them have other options for classes too.