Sicilian Pizza Cooking Class

Pizza just happens to be one of my most favorite foods to eat. I LOVE a good pizza. I’ve now learned to enjoy all types of pizza for what they offer rather than being stuck on just one type that I like. I was determined, that before we left Europe, I wanted to attend a true authentic pizza cooking class. Since I plan our vacations, I figured why not see if we could take a class while we were visiting Sicily. I found the perfect one in Taormina at Porta Messina restaurant, one of the oldest restaurants in Taormina. 

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Upon arriving at the restaurant, we were greeted by the chef and was setup with our apron. Let the party begin. One thing that I really liked about this class was the amount of food we received……I told you I like to eat. We started out with the first course which was appetizers. We made bread from scratch. They took us from the flour to the dough to the brick oven. Once the bread came out, it was cut into pieces and drizzled with an olive oil  garlic mixture. We also had meats, cheeses, and olives along with a glass of wine with our new found friends. This was a great way to start off the class!!! 

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Now on to the pasta course. We created the dough for the pasta which was crazy easy. We then took small pieces of dough and using a wooden skewer we rolled the dough into macaroni noodles. Who knew it would be that easy to create noodles….well, easy once you learned the technique. We all rolled out the dough and just added our noodles to the pile. There’s something gratifying to me when you put a little work in creating your food!!! We didn’t actually cook the pasta but it was in the good hands of the chef.

Pizza, Pizza….Time to make the pizza!!!  This class also started with the flour and then we made the dough. We had to knead the dough to the perfect consistency, building up the gluten. Once we shaped the dough into round circles, they took ours away and brought out the ones that had already been proofing for over 24 hours.

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Now it was time to create our masterpieces. We traveled to the kitchen were all of the toppings for the pizza were waiting for us. The chef showed us how to shape our pizza dough. We added the sauce and then added our toppings. Of course everything was so fresh!!! I was in heaven. We then had to get our pizza onto the pizza paddle so that we could put it into the oven. This looks a lot easier than what it is. I was so worried about messing up my pizza that the chef had to take over a little for me. It made it in safely. They cook up in no time inside of these hot ovens. Literally a little over a minute and it’s ready to come out. As soon as it comes out of the oven fresh basil and olive oil is added to the hot pizzas. YUMMY!!!!  After a quick cut, the pizza is ready to be devoured!!!

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We took all of our food to the outdoor eating area. They had the table setup with our pasta, pizza, and to our surprise we also had cannoli’s!!! WINNING!!! I had chosen the pizza class over the cannoli class so I was soooo excited that we had it on our menu. We left this class with our tummies full. This class included the apron, the recipes, and a certificate of completion. It was an amazing experience and definitely worth adding to your itinerary.