Loafing around on bake-cation
Spending eight hours a day churning out bread and pastries can be a great bake-cation
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The bright kitchen at Zingerman’s Bakehouse had the fragrant smell of a panaderia, thanks in part to the Mexican egg bread I’d made earlier that morning.
By now, my thoughts had migrated from Mexico to Italy as I slathered layers of mascarpone cream on a rum-soaked ladyfinger cake. As soon as I dusted the top of my tiramisu with cocoa powder, it was time to move on to Spain and roll out the dough for some spinach-filled empanadas.
(Lori Rackl/Sun-Times)
(Lori Rackl/Sun-Times)
BAKE-CATIONS: The four-day program costs $1,000 and includes breakfast and lunch daily. A few spots are still available for the first-ever Bake-cation Pastry Weekend, scheduled for Sept. 12 and 13 ($500). Throughout the year, the bakehouse also puts on individual classes lasting at least four hours; (734) 761-7255, bakewithzing.com.
STAYING THERE: The comfortable and clean Hampton Inn Ann Arbor-South, 925 Victors Way, is less than a five-minute drive from the bakehouse. The 149-room hotel offers free WiFi and a hot breakfast, plus a small indoor pool and fitness center. Nightly rates this time of year are about $119; (734) 665-5000, hamptoninn1.hilton.com.
I spent a good eight hours in an apron that day, whisking, kneading dough and whipping egg whites into soft peaks. I’d be back to do it again tomorrow.
It might sound like work, but this was a vacation. A bake-cation, actually.
For the past three summers, Ann Arbor’s beloved Zingerman’s has offered bake-cations for people wanting to learn more about the art and science behind pastry and breadmaking.
Your apron doesn’t stay white for long during these four days of intensive, hands-on classes that have you piping pastry cream, twisting Bavarian pretzels and baking loaves of sourdough bread as wide as basketball nets. The best part is you get to make a mess doing the fun stuff: baking. Zingerman’s takes care of the not-so-fun prep work and cleanup.
“I couldn’t sleep last night, I was so excited to bake today,” said the aptly named Jennifer Baker of Chicago. Baker was one of six women — all strangers — in last week’s World Tour Bake-cation, where the theme was breads and pastries from around the globe.
Only one of the bake-cationers lived in Michigan. Baker, like me, made the 240-mile drive from Chicago. Others flew in from Minneapolis, Dallas and West Virginia to learn the tricks of the trade from Zingerman’s pros.
Classes started bright and early at 8 a.m. in a teaching kitchen at Zingerman’s Bakehouse, where all of the bread is made for the wildly popular sandwiches sold at Zingerman’s Delicatessen in downtown Ann Arbor. The six of us sat around a huge butcher block table with our black binders full of each day’s recipes, scribbling notes in the margins as our pair of instructors demonstrated every step along the way.
“People always ask, ‘Aren’t you afraid of giving away your secrets?’” said bake-cation instructor Alejandro Ramon, a Michigan native. “It might sound strange, but we want to share our secrets. Our goal is to inspire more people to bake at home.”
Zingerman’s enthusiasm for food is evident as soon as you walk in the door of the company’s colorful deli. Chatty workers ply customers with free samples of pastrami, smoked fish and cheeses, and the shelves are stocked with high-end — and equally high-priced — products. (Mario Batali calls Zingerman’s “the center of my gastrodeli universe.” The orange Crocs-wearing chef likes to stock up here before heading to his summer home on Michigan’s Leelanau Peninsula.)
In class, we used nothing but unbleached, unbromated flour. Forget about hydrogenated lard. The 50-plus eggs we each went through over the course of the week came from a nearby farm, as did the heavy cream.
“I love that you can see the cream change color throughout the year depending on what the cows are eating that season,” said bake-cation instructor Shelby Kibler, speaking like a true foodie. He recently built a wood-fired oven in his backyard with clay culled from the surrounding soil.
Kibler’s great-grandmother’s Polish coffee cake is one of the “secrets” he and Ramon happily shared with us amateur bakers during the week. Our world tour continued with a lesson in how to make Greek wedding cake, a Finnish rye called Hapanleipa and some American classics, like pecan pie. An entire day was devoted to the baked goods of France, when Ramon had to occasionally commandeer my rolling pin to rescue my problematic puff pastry.
Bake-cations are designed for all skill levels, from Martha Stewarts in the making to those whose baking experience consists of popping open a tube of refrigerated cookie dough.
Like most people in the class, Sarah Jones from West Virginia fell somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. Her son, a strength coach for the University of Michigan football team, bought her a bake-cation as a Christmas present.
“I think he knew we got to bring home whatever we make,” Jones said on the first day of class. “I’m guessing the whole football team will be waiting for me.”
After four days of virtually nonstop baking from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., it would take a football team to devour everything we produced.
When my bake-cation was over, I piled bags and boxes of homemade bread and pastries into my car for the trip home to Chicago.
I pulled up to my condo less than four hours later with a binder full of recipes, a newfound respect for pastry chefs and a gigantic loaf of french country bread — still warm from the oven.