Thursday, September 03, 2009

Fatboybakes Virgin Baking Class

Virgin baking class, .... as in, my inaugural baking class. Not baking of virgins...we have no volcanoes to appease, and no vestal virgins to sacrifice. Neither is it a class for virgins only.

Anyway, I have always fantasized about becoming a teacher, and barking orders to terrified intimated students, and throwing chalk at them when they doze off, or sending them out the room when they make smart arsed remarks. You see, when I was a student, that's what teachers did to me. I remember clearly, in an English class, in form 4, the teacher, a buxom lady that drew whistles wherever she went, was teaching phonetics, (not fanatics), and the "a" sound. As in farm, darn, etc. The guy behind me was asked to give an example. You see, English wasn't the forte of this particular school, and most of my classmates struggled to obtain passes for SPM, so the chappie behind me was silently mumbling some prayer, so I decided to help him out, and whispered, "FART". He gave me a relieved look of eternal gratitude, and said loudly, and clearly, in intonation that would have made professor Higgins proud, "FAAAAAARTTTTTT".

Now, in those days, moral standards were a lot higher, and any expulsion of wind from any orifice WAS unspoken off, much like procreation. I dunno why, but immediately, the Puan threw ME out of class. Why me? Why did she even think it was me? Chis!

So yeah, when I was offered to teach a baking class at THE COOKING HOUSE, all my childhood memories of studenthood came flooding back, with teary nostalgia. Then it dawned on me, drats, these students are paying RM120 per head. I doubt they'd take kindly to being thrown out of class for asking "What brand are your eggs", or for eating in class. Chis. Then the next phase of realisation dawned, GASP, I've never taught baking before. Images of a rocket scientist giving his first lecture on the theories of relativity and how it affected travel at warp speed came to mind..... and my knees suddenly transformed into konyaku.

Well, not quite la. Doing a demo at the FHM two weeks earlier, with a crowd of hecklers comprising Master bakers, cordon bleu chef, Consultants from Accenture, ....kinda gave me a new found confidence. I have confidence in sunshine, I have confidence in rain, I have confidence my cake will rise again, ....

I didn't know how many to expect, and in an unusual act of desperation, actually proceeded to announce the baking class in an earlier blogpost and all over facebook, lest I be staring at at empty classroom, with only KitchenAid as my ...aid. Was therefore pleasantly surprised to see quite a number of people, including the warm familiar faces of some floggers, ie, Alilfatmonkey, and Cacoethes Scribendi, and her ever smiling boyfriend. Also, friends of friends (Bald Eagle's colleague) were there, so sweet of them.

Everything was laid out and pre measured according to the recipes I had provided, which kinda horrified me, for the class timing showed 4 hours. It doesnt take me 4 hours to make 4 cakes. Heck, I was wondering how to make the class drag. I was counting on measuring and chopping and cutting myself, or asking the students to do it.


Malaysian students are generally a shy lot. Ask for volunteers, its almost like extracting 7 trays of mosquito hearts. Shy like anything, I tell you these girls.



As the class went on, and people warmed up, then there was more interaction.


The girl at the upper right hand square is Edyth, and her sister, Mei Kei. They own the Cooking House. You can HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EDYTH TOO at the Cooking House.

On the menu for the day, were Red Velvet Cupcakes With Cream Cheese Frosting.





Due to the high amount of cocoa powder, and less artificial coloring, sadly, the cakes arent as RED as some would like them to be. But even then, I saw some people gawking at the thought of putting two teaspoons of coloring into the batter. I personally prefer the entire thing without coloring, in which case, it'll just be chocolate velvet.


The no bake chocolate mousse cake. As it takes a few hours to set, I had to bring one ready made one from home.





Flourless chocolate cakes with molten centres. Always a hit with guests at parties, and so very easy to do.


If I ever go commercial, I'll be using her as my food model. Pretty hor.



Orange Jaffa Tart. A rich chocolate tart with orange flavouring.



I had a great time actually, and I hope the students did too. I would like to thank the Cooking House and all the wonderful participants for making my first time a memorable one, and special thanks to Monkey for taking pics for me.

Will be teaching more classes hopefully in October, November and December. Check out the cooking house website for their wonderful array of different classes.




22 comments:

New Kid on the Blog said...

Do you plan to have such class in Penang???
And do you plan to open a branch in Penang too????

gfad said...

Is nothing sacred with you, man?? Never one to let go of a good pun, eh? :D

How come your Cis jadi macham orang puh-teh chakap phun-ya Chis? :D

Aiyo.. I so sayang I had to miss your class lah!! I'd had raise my hands, ask questions, volunteer, everything a model student would have done..

Rebecca Saw said...

It's a breeze now hor? So more comin from Oct onwards?
Hehe..if you want to do Pg and etc I can get u a place ;p

Paranoid Android said...

Now. Let's be honest now, time to spill the beans. The reason for holding the class was to get to know all those foxy ladies right? Not to impart your skills. Ha ha ha...

Your class looked like a riot of fun. Will get an oven and then sign up. :p

J2Kfm said...

hahaha ... 7 mosq hearts?!! they have them meh?!! LOL.
anyway congrats. after that daunting task of performing in front of VVIPS, Celebrities and who's who, this one should be a breeze ma.

minchow said...

Am signing up for yr next class, moral standards notwithstanding! I only hope I can keep up with all the luminaries attending!

J said...

MMmmmm... Orange Jaffa Tart sounds great. Can order ah? :)

J said...

And Congrats on your first class!
(So now you're not a virgin anymore....)
:)

"Joe" who is constantly craving said...

hmmm nxt time got so many hot girls, let me knw ar..hahahah wait..hope nic is not reading this.. oops..

Pureglutton said...

2 tsps of colouring?? Wow, that's really a lot! And i thought u used naturally red stuff in it, like dragonfruit juice or sumthin ;-)

Ciki said...

warrr not bad hor.. ur cooking class full of chun chicks;)

word verification : COMELY!

fatboybakes said...

ciki, if you had been there, it would be chun-ner.

pure glutton, some recipes call for 2 TABLE spoons apparently. i use beetroot, but its not enough to bring out the color, coz of the cocoa powder. unless you omit the cocoa la.

nipples, we had the entire range there. thamby was there too, bringing up the class age average. though she wasnt strictly there for the class la.

J, of course can order la.

550ml, yes, please do sign up. (grovel grovel beg beg)...

fatboybakes said...

j2kfm, mosquito no heart meh? maybe that's why they such heartless bloodsuckers hor.

paranoid, sshhhhhh.....

TNG, hahah, thanks, but no plans to go beyond the borders of desa sri hartamas for now.

gfad, suddenly everyone is using CHIS or CIS. sigh. trendsetter that i am. whaddaya mean is nothing sacred? lots of things are sacred to me.

New Kid on the Blog, (actually you not so new anymore hor), hahah, no plans for penang la. as for branch, i dont even have a tree here in KL, how to have branch?

qwazymonkey said...

I'll gladly be the photographer of the next class too. Just say when.

Congrats Ah Pa!

New Kid on the Blog said...

hahahaha... ya la... not so new anymore lor. In fact very aunty too.
eh, am very interested la... do consider to give some classes in penang lor.
penang people only can read and see but cannot touch and learn. :D

Flower said...

Wah sudah jadi cikgu ya. Kalau I di Msia, maybe I jadi your anak murid. Congrats.

Unknown said...

flower, hahah, baru satu kelas sahaja. tu pun hampir tak laku!
long time no see. selamat berpuasa dear.

NKOTB, aww, i am sure there are many baking classes in penang ma. you dont sound aunty at all. i thought you were in your 20s.

monkey, u so sweeetch.

fbb said...

ooops, peeps, that last comment was by me. accidentally logged on via son's account.

Flower said...

Thanks dear. Bz lah as usual. No time to ronda2 the blog unless I'm looking for some idea to cook.

Unknown said...

Wow ! congrats on your new teaching venture and all the best to you, teacher :)

Tammy said...

fatboybakes: me & 12 other friends will be seeing u on sat oct 16 for the baking workshop!!!

could u pls pls pls.. teach us red velvet cupcake instead of the orange poppy seed one?! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Pat said...

(1) I don't remember EVER punishing you, you know. You reminded me - and I guess that maybe I might have done... only because you were one of my favourites in class (because your English was already so good, and I didn't know what else I could possibly do to improve it!!!), and I didn't want to actually prove that I liked some of you more than others! That's the ONLY reason I can think of that makes sense!

(2) Are you a chef now? My son is one :)

(3) Do I really NEED to prove I'm not a robot and do that 'identify the damn letters' thingy after this? I am NOT a robot, and yet I always get the damn letters wrong!!! :(

(4)You guys were the first batch of students that I took to the SPM. I loved you all, and you made teaching a lovely experience for me. So, thank you. xoxo