Pizza and Gelato Making Class

When I began making plans to go to Italy, Ashley was making plans to go to Dublin for Easter weekend with friends. As I've never been to Ireland, I didn't want to stop her. Instead we made different plans. Thinking we would be on our own for Easter dinner, I booked a pizza and gelato making class through Trip Advisor for Don and I.

Many reading this will think, "Jacquie, I know you don't like pizza." Yes, I don't like AMERICAN pizza, I do like European pizza. The kind that doesn't ooze grease and has oodles of toppings on top of it. The kind we would make at this event.

We met the bus. It took us past Piazzale St. Michelangelo (which was very crowded at 5pm, despite sunset not taking place until 8 pm) and up the hill to the villa. In Milan we met a couple of women who said they took the same class. They didn't realize where it was located. Even though they were staying across the street, they went into town to come back up to the cooking class rather than walk across the street. They loved staying just outside town. We loved staying in town. It is always nice when everyone is happy.

We had a full group of 26 people including a group of 7, another group of 6, a family or two, and some couples. The younger kids seemed to enjoy the activities -- turned out they were the bakers in their families. The teens were miserably along for the ride. We were glad the class was full when Ashley's plans changed because she would not have enjoyed it. Everyone broke up into groups of two.

My notes say I should have brought my notebook. If I had, I would have made better notes about the experience. This class is offered twice a day -- at 2 pm and 5 pm. The 2 pm group was making their pizzas when we arrived. It felt awkward having the overlap for 60-90 minutes. Once they left, we had the place to ourselves, but then I felt we were in the way of the staff who had put in a full day on a holiday and was ready to go home (or party with each other since they were all young). 

I'm under the impression we were all Americans on this tour. The families stayed together. We chatted with a couple at the end. She is a school nurse on Spring Break.

When we first arrived we were offered appetizers and wine or beer. After walking around Florence, it was nice to relax and enjoy the stunning view of the city -- a view nearly as good as the Piazzale Michelangelo. I had a feeling it would be extra magical at sunset in two and a half hours.

Simply fancy plates with the cut out for a wine glass

The view

I noted that we were Americans because rather than measuring ingredients, as we tend to do here, they weighed them (which is the right way for baking) in grams (which is not something most Americans have a sense of as far as a unit of measurement). Angela was our gelato making guide. She has a sing-song voice that is hypnotic. Listening to her you could easily agree to donate a kidney before the night is over. Fortunately, all she wanted us to do was choose a gelato flavor to make. We would taste each other's recipes before the end of the evening. No great surprise, we chose to make dark chocolate gelato.

Making gelato together

Don carefully measuring ingredients

And now we wait

Don was very serious with his measurements. He was also suffering from a non-stop runny nose -- which I would end up with in a few days as we were flying home. Knowing we would be sharing our gelato with others, he tried to keep sanitary. 

Others made strawberry, pistachio (which is big in Florence), stratiacelli, and Nutella. After we made our gelato, it was moved to the freezer to speed along the process.

As the gelato set, we moved onto learning how to make dough with comedy team Tiziano and Thomas. They made it light and fun, knowing our dough would be thrown out because nothing could speed up the couple of days it would need to rise. We took out our frustrations on it by pounding it. Then we posed with our "dough babies."  It had the essence of feeling like busy work. In the end, Don felt the "class" was little more than a demonstration. They did send us recipes a couple of weeks later, so maybe we could figure out how to make this on our own, but will we really? Our best plan would be to buy dough from a local pizzeria and put toppings on it.

We moved back inside for the next stop in making gelato -- mixing it in a bowl that has been kept frozen for eight hours. 

Angela gave us a mystery gelato before we moved on to making gelato. The flavor? Rosemary gelato with sea salt on top. We also sampled Tiziano and Thomas's pizzas before making our own. Best way to keep people happy is to keep them fed. Chianti doesn't hurt, either.

Measuring

Looking forward to the final product!

Angela freeze dried some of the herbs

Back to making our pizzas. By this point the sun was setting and I was getting hungry. When they decided to take the group of 7 and add a couple, I jumped at the chance to be that couple. I don't think Don realized what was happening. I'm glad we did since I am a slow eater and didn't want to be rushed eating my pizza.

It is so much easier to cook when someone else chops the toppings, knows exactly how long to bake, and does all the clean up. Felt like a day off.

We joined the pizza tossing fun -- it really was fun. Here is video proof. You can tell I did a couple of test tosses before the official toss.

Dinner!

Hot enough for you?

While ours cooked, the next group made their pizzas. We enjoyed ours with a glass of wine while the third group made their pizzas. A very relaxing, though nippy, way to enjoy the evening.

That said, it was not too cold to enjoy our homemade gelatos. We learned the difference between ice cream and gelato is that gelato is artisanal and ice cream is mass produced. Gelato is more refined and uses better ingredients. That said, I believe the bent spoon in Princeton and jeni's ice cream are more gelato than ice cream, just that we don't use that term as much around here. 

We sampled many of the other gelatos. Still felt ours was the best, especially with some freeze dried mint and chocolate shavings topping it. Ate it too quickly to take many pictures. 

Group shot

Souvenir certificate

Though most of us were staying close to the train station, they dropped us off where they picked us up (yes, to be expected but at that time of night, it would have been a nice touch to offer a ride to the other side of town, too). We walked the 20 minutes back to our apartment without getting lost (a rarity on this trip) and did a load of laundry.