Slovak Kolaches and Babka Baking Class in Park City

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Host Bio: Lenka is a passionate baker and food lover from Slovakia currently living, eating, and baking in Park City, Utah! One of Lenka’s fondest memories from her childhood is kneading dough on her grandma’s knees, it is something she vividly remembers every time she thinks of her childhood. She learned to cook and bake from her grandmother when she was eight and still uses her valuable recipes. Mixing, whisking, licking out the bowls, kneading, filling, baking, and most of all, cherishing seasonal ingredients and turning them into delicious bread, pastries, and cakes – has always been Lenka’s happy haven. When she moved out of Slovakia to live in other parts of the world, returning to traditional Slovak cuisine and especially to baked goods was a natural transition for Lenka as a way to feel at home and cherish her own culture and heritage. Apart from baking for friends and family and conducting baking classes - online and in-person, Lenka also writes a blog. Which she considers to be a baking diary - a collection of recipes she inherited from both her grandmothers. Cooking Description: In this cooking class in Park City, Lenka’s main focus is on sharing traditional Slovak and Eastern European pastries. She is so excited to share her family recipes and teach you about Eastern European cuisine – which is incredibly diverse and still pretty unexplored. In your 1.5-hour hands-on baking class learn how to bake two pastries from scratch - sweet and savory traditional kolaches (traditional breakfast pastries) and babka bread (sweet braided bread of Jewish origins). Both pastries will be filled with a variety of different, typical, and seasonal fillings for example, poppy seed paste, walnut paste, sweet cheese filling, savory cheese filling, chocolate, jams, ajvar (vegetable spread), or sauerkraut. The baking class is hands-on and every guest will be making their own batch of pastry. After you learn to make traditional Slovak and Eastern European pastries from scratch, following Lenka’s family recipes, you will sit down to share the dishes you helped prepare.