Cooking Demonstrations

I have been doing cooking demonstrations since I graduated from the Culinary Institute of America 30 years ago.

You know, I can still remember my very first demo. At a country club in Tucson, I taught everyone how to make my favorite fruit desserts (like the Sonoran Sunset and the Parisian Berry Tart). It must have gone well because I got another request for a cooking demonstration. Then another, and another.

Each year brought more requests. Things leveled up from there, and soon I was taking my demonstrations to the big leagues, baking pumpkin swirl cheesecakes for a PBS television series and making fresh apple strudel from scratch on live TV.

I even managed to woo some American Culinary Federation (ACF) judges, winning an ACF gold medal for one of my desserts. My ability to give clean, organized and engaging cooking demonstrations catapulted me to the top. I knew the judges were watching me as I put the final pieces of my dessert together. Instead of throwing everything on the plate in a messy hurry, I staged each portion carefully and efficiently.

This methodical approach impressed them, as did my show-stopping dessert, and I took home the gold.As a consultant for Princess House, I further sharpened my cooking demonstration abilities, spending years doing cooking demonstrations for their sales teams. My audience was often large, between 300 and 3,000 people, and I worked with various mediums, often repeating demos over 8 hours straight. Sometimes I had to do a lot with a little, but I improvised, baking cakes in microwaves (yes, it's possible!) and using marshmallow cream as a meringue on baked Alaska.

I didn't think about my experience with cooking demonstrations when I first started Food and Health, Inc, but the requests soon came pouring in. I remember typing my first ten tips for a cooking demo for the readers of foodandhealth.com after countless appeals from family and consumer science experts and dietitians.

My first set of tips went a little something like this...

1. Make sure the lavalier microphone has fresh batteries.

2. Bring paper towels.

3. Wash your hands and sanitize the area.

4. Never measure things in front of people -- it bores them.

5. Demonstrate how to assemble the dish, then whip out a finished dish for them to taste. It's like a well-planned magic show.

The blog post almost broke the website- I had thousands of hits. So I decided to run with it, pouring all my knowledge and experience into two books -- The Cooking Demo Book and Salad Secrets. Both are now bestsellers in the Nutrition Education Store, and I get lots of emails from people who have loved the books and used the tips to improve their cooking demonstrations.

My repertoire has since expanded, and I've added two more books to the cooking demonstration resource page -- The MyPlate Cooking Demo Book and Home Run Meals. I've also created a cooking demonstration section for the free recipe database. I love sharing my expertise with health educators!

Now let's fast forward to when I started teaching an advanced pastry class for the culinary art students at Johnson and Wales Denver (JWU). It meant a lot for me to teach as an adjunct instructor at a great school with talented students.

This topic and group posed a few new challenges...

• This lab is for chefs unfamiliar with pastry art and the discipline of exact measures and procedures.

• There are only nine days to teach all the lessons they need.

• Most of the audience comprises innovative and visual young people who don’t want to sit for hours of lectures.

• The restaurant industry itself has leaped ahead of classic culinary art instruction. Social media and the Food Channel have enabled massive idea sharing and trends like molecular gastronomy that has to be considered.

I wanted my class to feature traditional preparations and skills but still be relevant for chefs, inspiring them while educating them about what is happening in the industry. I am thrilled to be in a facility that allows the students to do so much cooking.

But how do I meet the challenges? With five more tips!

1. I have divided the classes into eight major lessons about skills that my students need to know. Starting with what to teach and narrowing it to the most essential keeps everyone focused.

2. We are taking a tour of highly successful Michelin-starred restaurants and highlighting their desserts daily. It is essential to show what is happening in the industry that is significant right now.

3. The students will research the restaurants and find desserts they like. From there, they will design a final project that can be done in our classroom.

4. Each session features an inspirational photo, then a video, followed by hours of lab work with "pop-up" demos.

5. We plate everything we make. This allows hands-on creativity, and it develops confidence.

So far, my approach has been successful. My students came up with amazing plates using nothing more than fruit, crème Chantilly, and almond lace cookies on their very first day!

I highly recommend allowing individual creativity for any cooking demo: Let the students make a dish or many recipes in groups, then help them produce a final plate they can photograph.

They love it, and the hands-on portion helps the lessons stick.

Another approach that I found to be very compelling was incorporating inspirational photos. I make interest boards for each class for this purpose.

On one of the final days of the class, I used a photo of a fruit tart to teach the kids about proper tart composition. The fruit was tightly and neatly arranged, and the glaze was very thin. This photo helped set a good example and inspire the students in a way that a description or lecture could not. Combining photos and hands-on creation time is an excellent way to teach their needed lessons.

The class even completed a final buffet served to other pupils at the school. This social event offers the pastry students a real chance to show off what they learned and will help everyone see what they have achieved in 8 short days. I am looking forward to developing some demos for healthful cooking using the same techniques I have implemented in my course at JWU.

By Judy Doherty, MPS, PC II and Founder of Food and Health Communications, IncPS: Are you looking for resources to improve your cooking demonstrations? I've poured all my expertise into the following products -- which one will help you reach your goals?