As a mom, I’ve always wanted to be able to bake bread and cookies for my family. It warms my heart whenever I see them eat my finished products. But while baking by merely following recipes and watching tutorials worked for a time, I knew in my heart that if I wanted to be able to bake better cookies and bread and eventually be able to sell them if I want to, I really have to know the proper techniques in baking.
PACE (Professional Academy for Culinary Education) is now opening their facility for students of Baking and Pastry Arts and so I was one of the lucky mommy bloggers to see it and sample the Baking Essentials Course that the school is also offering. The school administrator Mr. Mark Catarroja showed us the business industry level kitchen they now have so that their students will experience how it is to work in a kitchen similar to real-world restaurants. See photo of the kitchen below. I am certain that any student who will enroll in their class and use this kitchen will learn very well.
PACE Culinary school Kitchen – still for completion but already shining and getting ready for the new batch of students
PACE school administrator Mr. Mark Catarroja excitedly showed us the progress and the future pastry kitchen for incoming students
PACE Lecture room
After the short tour, the Baking Essentials class started. We were only four bloggers that day from the community of Mommy Bloggers Philippines and so we took advantage of the opportunity that we have a tiny class to learn and ask questions to our chef teacher Chef May Martinez.
pastry chefs for the day : Joy of joybites.com, me, Neri of Nhengswonderland.net , Dane of DaneRelente.blogspot.com, Chelsea of PACE, and Chef May
Chef May of PACE demo of baking brownies
Chef May showing how to pipe batter
Some of the new baking tips I learned from Chef May are :
- the importance of using sifter to sift dry ingredients
- that we should put in fresh eggs one at a time when recipe calls for us to put several eggs
- some of the brands preferred for butter (Anchor, Queensland and use unsalted for baking) for baking chocolates she mentioned Nova and Selbourne, for bread flour she mentioned Wooden Spoon.
Chef May teaches well, with her soft but clear voice and confident movements. She taught us in actual how to bake oatmeal raisin cookies, brownies and butter cookies. I’ve shared the 3 recipes down below. First, Chef May baked all three recipes while we all watch and then she had us form teams of two.
So Joy and I were team mates that day. We’ve alternated in preparing the ingredients, baking and then washing the kitchen tools and pans. What I can say is that this method of teaching, listen first and do it yourself after, was quite easy to follow. After two and 1/2 hours, we were done baking all three recipes. And very confident as well to do them again at home.
Our finished products – Cinnamon oat cookies, butter cookies, chewy walnut brownies
[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:20]
Butter Cookies Recipe
Ingredients:
168 grams butter
83 grams sugar
43 grams powdered sugar
2 pcs eggs
2 ml Vanilla Extract
250 grams Cake Flour
Procedure:
1. Cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.
2. Add eggs with vanilla extract gradually.
3. Add in flour. Mix until well-combined. Put the mixture into the piping bag.
4. Pipe the mixture onto the prepared baking pan. Bake at 375 deg F for about 10-15 minutes.
Fudgy Brownies Recipe
Ingredients:
60 grams unsweetened chocolate
145 grams bittersweet chocolate
290 grams unsalted butter
4 pcs eggs
260 grams sugar (white)
2 grams salt
7 ml vanilla extract
115 grams bread flour
90 grams walnuts, chopped
Procedure:
- In a bowl, combine the chocoate and butter and put it over double boilder. Melt until the chocolate is completely melted.
- Add the sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract mix until well combined.
- Add the bread flour with salt into the mixture.
- Fold in half of the chopped nuts into the batter.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes or until done.
PACE (Professional Academy for Culinary Education) offers BPAD (Baking and Pastry Arts Diploma Course) and CAD (Culinary Arts Diploma Course. Go to www.pacemanila.com to know their course fee and payment plan. *As of 2017 leaflet I got, fee was P130K. They offer cash installment and post dated checques mode of payments.
Branches:
Antipolo Branch
2F Ciannat Complex Commercial Building
Marcos Highway, Antipolo City 1870
632-654-4862
Paranaque Branch
2 Presidents Avenue cor Adelfa St.
Tahana Village BF Homes Paranaque
632-238-0968
PACE is in partnership with Mrs. Cheffy & Company which offer catering packages for any occasion. You can check their catering service via their website www.mrscheffycateringservices.com. Some of their services include the following:
Corporate Catering Packages
Debut Packages
Holiday Catering
Private Party Packages
Kiddie Party Packages
Wedding Packages
