The Civic Kitchen, SF, CA

Welcome to The Civic Kitchen. San Francisco cooking classes for home-chefs, team building, and private events.

Mastering Pizza
with Michael Kalanty

Can you really make a restaurant-quality pizza at home? With Michael Kalanty’s help, you’ll be planning a pizza party in your own kitchen before you even leave the class!

Michael Kalanty knows pizza. He designed the Pane alla Pala table bread for Delfina Restaurant’s 18th street location and collaborated with their team to amp up the crust for their house pizzas, too. Chef Michael will work side-by-side with you to master his techniques for baking beautiful pies in your home oven.

Our menu is simple and uncluttered, focusing on technique and execution. All students in the class will make Artisan Pizza Dough, leaning to handle and bake it with confidence. We’ll make three easy sauces, Jersey Marinara, Pesto, and Garlic-Infused Cream, to top our pies, along with a blend of Mozzarella cheeses to balance browning with gooey stretch.

The class will gather together for a pizza feast, served up with crisp green salad and selected wines, chilly beers, and non-alcoholic beverages.

Kitchen On Fire, Oakland, CA

Focaccia takes different shapes and styles in every region of Italy.

In Puglia the dough is made with potatoes and semolina;
in Florence the breads are free-form and hand-held;
in Liguria the classic rectangle shaped is decorated with local cheeses and herbs.

Join Michael for this hands-in dough trek across Italy. You’ll bake and taste different styles of the Italian flatbread and be inspired to create your own version at home.

Work in teams to create your own Focaccia dough, learn techniques to get an even bread with open crumb, practice professional bench skills to make ALL your home-made breads better.

Our menu includes:

Focaccia Pugliese: round and deep-dish with a crunchy bottom, tender and airy crumb, garnished with tomatoes, olives, oregano.

Focaccia alla Fiorentina: hand-held breads filled with cured meats, cheese, and arugula. 

Focaccia con Patate: a variation of the Genovese classic with Golden Potatoes, Mozzarella, and Pesto. 

Artisan Baking Center, Petaluma, CA

Sourdough Breads II

In your ongoing quest to bake your perfect sourdough, take advantage of the system I learned during my French apprenticeship. Using formulas from my How To Bake MORE Bread: Modern Breads/Wild Yeast, you’ll practice techniques from the age-old French Levain tradition while baking delicious sourdoughs with modern flavor profiles. Join me for a hands-in-dough class at the professionally appointed Artisan Baking Center.

What You’ll Practice

• Everyone will make Multi-grain Sourdough

• Take home your dough to practice your new skills in your home kitchen the next day.

Plus General Principles to make all your baking better:

• Hand-mixing for tender crumb

• Working with couches (proofing cloths)

• 3-stage bake for dark rye breads

• Focus on bench skills for better dough handling & shaping

• Oven management to get the crust you want

Our Menu:
Multi-grain Sourdough: Tangy table bread with whole wheat, whole pumpernickel meal, and toasted wheat germ. 

Steel-cut Oats and Raisins: Mild tang, tender chew, long shelf life. A perfect breakfast bread or toast.

Pumpernickel Sandwich Bread: Coffee and cocoa powder bring flavor depth to this tender bread. 

Olive Fougasse: The regional specialty of the Provence region of France, this leaf-shaped table bread is studded with luscious Castelvetrano olives. 

The Civic Kitchen, SF, CA

Make, Bake & Take: Easter Breads Around the World

Welcome to The Civic Kitchen. San Francisco cooking classes for home-chefs, team building, and private events.

Easter celebration breads around the globe vary by shape and flavorful additives like dried fruits, nuts, and flavorings. But they share a commonality of ingredient like Eggs, Butter, and a bit of Sugar. These ingredients compromise the gluten structure of doughs and call for baking strategies to create light, delicate breads with melting texture and a touch of sweetness.

What You’ll Practice

Advance your baking skills and deepen your understanding of the enriched dough process with this hands-on class. We’ll use a Sponge pre-ferment plus a unique cake-creaming method to build the delicate structure required by these rich doughs. We’ll add flavors and garnish in different styles and shapes for our projects:

• Colomba Pasquale (Italian Easter Dove Bread)—with Anise and Golden Raisins

• Osterkranz (German): Marzipan-filled braided ring with sliced almonds

• Hot Cross Buns (British): Currants, candied lemon peel, warm spices

You’ll leave class with an upgraded set of skills, utility approaches for benchwork and shaping, and a ziplock bag of your own dough so you can reinforce your new skills at home.

All your holiday breads freeze well. Just thaw them at ambient temp° and set them in a hot oven to restore their fresh-baked aroma and texture.

Kitchen On Fire, Oakland, CA

Kitchen on Fire hosts art historian-turned bread baker and award-winning author Michael Kalanty for a hands-on workshop. Follow Chef step-by-step while making your own Pain Au Levain dough, the classic French sourdough bread. Chef will demonstrate how easy it is to convert his Master Formula into great-tasting bread variations.

Class will also include demonstrations for:
• Apple Walnut Farmhouse Bread (recipe included)
• Rosemary Raisin Bread (recipe included)
• How to Make Your Own Sourdough Starter (recipe included)

All breads will be made using Chef's personal sourdough starter, "Lucky Lady #99". She earned that number by becoming the 99th starter inducted into the World Sourdough Museum in St. Vith, Belgium. As a special gift from Chef, you'll receive a sample portion of Lucky Lady, his 27-year-old organic sourdough starter along with instructions for Care & Feeding.

Learn the simple steps to keeping your natural yeast starter happy and thriving. See how easy it is to bake sourdough at home according to YOUR schedule, not the bread's. Join us for this exciting experience, learn real skills for making fantastic artisan bread at home.

Menu

• Pain au Levain (French Sourdough Bread)

This is an intensive class on making the classic French sourdough, Pain au Levain. All steps and techniques will be shown and practiced in detail.

Artisan Baking Center, Petaluma, CA

Make, Bake & Take: Easter Breads Around the World

Easter celebration breads around the globe vary by shape and flavorful additives like dried fruits, nuts, and flavorings. But they share a commonality of ingredient like Eggs, Butter, and a bit of Sugar. These ingredients compromise the gluten structure of doughs and call for baking strategies to create light, delicate breads with melting texture and a touch of sweetness.

What You’ll Practice

Advance your baking skills and deepen your understanding of the enriched dough process with this hands-on class. We’ll use a Sponge pre-ferment plus a unique cake-creaming method to build the delicate structure required by these rich doughs. We’ll add flavors and garnish in different styles and shapes for our projects:

• Colomba Pasquale (Italian Easter Dove Bread)—with Anise and Golden Raisins

• Osterkranz (German): Marzipan-filled braided ring with sliced almonds

• Hot Cross Buns (British): Currants, candied lemon peel, warm spices

• Reindling: Ring-shaped with rum-scented dark raisins.

You’ll leave class with an upgraded set of skills, utility approaches for benchwork and shaping, and a ziplock bag of your own dough so you can reinforce your new skills at home.

Kitchen On Fire, Oakland, CA

Looking to up your bread baking game? 

Learn Italian bread baking secrets in our Oakland kitchen (on San Pablo just South of Ashby).

Master Baker Michael Kalanty shares more professional tips and techniques, this time with crusty Italian breads. A solid step forward in building your basic baking skills.

Learn to incorporate Poolish and Biga pre-ferments into your doughs to give more flavor, better chew, and longer shelf life!

MENU:
Pane di Como—the tender, airy, crusty table bread from the Lake Como region in the North.

Roasted Potato, Garlic, and Green Onion—Dinner Rolls or Burger Buns? You decide!

Tender/Chewy, Savory/Sweet: Semolina Bread with Golden Raisins and Fennel Seeds.

Artisan Baking Center, Petaluma, CA

“If the rectangular shape of Roman pizza doesn’t surprise you, you’re sure to raise an eyebrow when you see how it’s served!. Cut with a pair of scissors, pizza al taglio is a popular street food of the Italian capitol. You use both hands to show the vendor how wide a slice you want.  It’s transferred to a scale and priced by weight. 

Just about any shape or style of pizza could be cut into slices using scissors, so the term al taglio doesn’t really tell you what to expect in terms of the pizza’s texture, thickness, or baking technique. When speaking of specific styles of Roman pies, the terms Pizza Romana and Pizza alla Pala are more important.”

Join us for hands-on pizza making with Chef Michael Kalanty. Inspired by a recent trip to Rome, Michael is excited to share principals and techniques he has learned firsthand with a style of Pizza making that is truly one of a kind.

What You’ll Practice

Both styles of Roman pies:

• Pizza alla Pala–rectangular and thin, slid directly onto the oven deck from a flat board or “pala”.

• Pizza Romana-baked in a heavy metal pan for crunchy sides and bottom with a thicker, tender interior.

Plus General Principles to make all your baking better:

• Hand-mixing techniques for tender crusts

• Focus on dough proofing, handling and shaping

• Techniques to get the crust you want

Instructor Bio

Michael Kalanty is a professional bread baking instructor. He’s written baking curriculums for professional schools across the country, in Italy and in Brasil. His textbooks have won awards like “Best Bread Book in the World”® at the Gourmand Cookbook Awards in Paris and have been translated into Portuguese. When he was the Director of Boulangerie for the Le Cordon Bleu schools in North America, he was awarded “Best Instructor of the Year”. You can find him teaching online at The Great Courses and Craftsy.

“You can read all about my Italian baking journey in the article “From Rome with Love” featured in Pizza Magazine Quarterly. Better still, join me in class and explore the flavors and crusty textures of this Roman specialty from an  insider’s view.”

The Civic Kitchen, SF, CA

Welcome to The Civic Kitchen. San Francisco cooking classes for home-chefs, team building, and private events.

Mastering Pizza
with Michael Kalanty

Can you really make a restaurant-quality pizza at home? With Michael Kalanty’s help, you’ll be planning a pizza party in your own kitchen before you even leave the class!

Michael Kalanty knows pizza. He designed the Pane alla Pala table bread for Delfina Restaurant’s 18th street location and collaborated with their team to amp up the crust for their house pizzas, too. Chef Michael will work side-by-side with you to master his techniques for baking beautiful pies in your home oven.

Our menu is simple and uncluttered, focusing on technique and execution. All students in the class will make Artisan Pizza Dough, leaning to handle and bake it with confidence. We’ll make three easy sauces, Jersey Marinara, Pesto, and Garlic-Infused Cream, to top our pies, along with a blend of Mozzarella cheeses to balance browning with gooey stretch.

The class will gather together for a pizza feast, served up with crisp green salad and selected wines, chilly beers, and non-alcoholic beverages.

Kitchen On Fire, Oakland, CA

Kitchen on Fire hosts art historian-turned bread baker and award-winning author Michael Kalanty for a hands-on workshop. Follow Chef step-by-step while making your own Pain Au Levain dough, the classic French sourdough bread. Chef will demonstrate how easy it is to convert his Master Formula into great-tasting bread variations.

Class will also include demonstrations for:
• Apple Walnut Farmhouse Bread (recipe included)
• Rosemary Raisin Bread (recipe included)
• How to Make Your Own Sourdough Starter (recipe included)

All breads will be made using Chef's personal sourdough starter, "Lucky Lady #99". She earned that number by becoming the 99th starter inducted into the World Sourdough Museum in St. Vith, Belgium. As a special gift from Chef, you'll receive a sample portion of Lucky Lady, his 27-year-old organic sourdough starter along with instructions for Care & Feeding.

Learn the simple steps to keeping your natural yeast starter happy and thriving. See how easy it is to bake sourdough at home according to YOUR schedule, not the bread's. Join us for this exciting experience, learn real skills for making fantastic artisan bread at home.

Menu

• Pain au Levain (French Sourdough Bread)

This is an intensive class on making the classic French sourdough, Pain au Levain. All steps and techniques will be shown and practiced in detail.

Kitchen On Fire, Oakland, CA

Looking to up your bread baking game? 

The new Oakland Kitchen (on San Pablo just south of Ashby) is the perfect place to learn the these French bread baking techniques.

Master Baker Michael Kalanty shares professional tips and techniques for baking your own crusty breads with tender chew and tons of flavor!! Ideal for building on your basic baking skills.

Learn to incorporate Pâte Fermentée into any dough to give more flavor, better chew, and longer shelf life!

MENU:
French Country Bread
Fruit & Nut Bread—ideal for cheese pairings
Rosemary & Olive Bread 

Artisan Baking Center, Petaluma, CA

Sourdough, Wild Yeast, Natural Fermentation. Whatever you call it, the newest, hippest way to make your own breads at home turns out to be the oldest one known to Man!

You’ll learn how to get the fullest flavor in your sourdough breads through a series of “builds”, or intermediate doughs. Learn how time and temperature change the flavor profile of your sourdoughs so you can make any bread fit your personal taste preference. Make San Francisco Sourdough and learn classic steps for this type of bread; make Apple Walnut Hearth Bread to learn a modern interpretation with a range of ingredients and a sourness so mild you won’t even want to call it a sourdough.

Breads

Pain au Levain, San Francisco Sourdough, Apple Walnut Farm Bread, Rosemary & Raisin Buns, and Multi-Seed Rolls.

What You’ll Learn To Do in This Class

• Start & Maintain your own wild yeast culture

• Develop (“knead”) sourdough breads for best texture

• Modify the bread’s schedule to create the flavor and texture YOU want

• Fully proof and properly bake sourdough breads to have open, airy texture with the type of crust you want–thin & crispy or thick & chewy.

“Every class I teach must give students the confidence and the techniques to make these breads at home, successfully!” With that mantra, MICHAEL KALANTY served as Dean of Education at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco and was twice named Instructor of the Year by Le Cordon Bleu. The author of several professional baking programs in the U.S. and internationally, his focus is taking professional techniques and making them accessible to aspiring bakers. His first book, How To Bake Bread: The Five Families of Bread®, won the Gourmand International award for Best Bread Book in the World in 2011. At Craftsy.com, his video courses cover baking science, techniques, and whole grain breads.  A leader in the sensory world for baked goods, he holds the copyright for the Aroma and Flavor Wheel for Bread©. In his spare time, he leads tasting and baking tours through Paris and the French provinces.

Draeger’s Cooking School, San Mateo, CA

Learn tips & techniques to make the most important part of any pizza—THE CRUST!!

You’ll make east coast-style pizza dough and learn to hand-stretch your pies so they’re tender and light. A variety of sauces will be available so you can mix and match to find your favorite combination.

Menu includes:
Thin East Coast-Style Crust 
San Francisco Sourdough Crust 
Shaping Techniques—including tossing 
Assorted Sauces and Toppings 
Tips for Oven-Baked and Grilled Pizza

San Francisco Cooking School, SF, CA

The newest, hippest way to make your own breads at home turns out to be the oldest ways we know –Sourdough Breads with Natural Yeast Starter.

Hands-on and hands-in dough! Build your own dough, feed the starter, learn how building your dough through a series of feedings changes the flavor of your bread.  Make Pain au Levain, the classic French sourdough bread, with special focus on bench skills and dough handling techniques.  Using a   prepared a batch of San Francisco Sourdough, you will practice forming rolls. Develop your bread palate during a taste & texture comparison between the French and American sourdoughs.

This is an intermediate level class, but a love of bread and clean, eager hands is all you need to bring with you!

Menu

Classic French Pain au Levain
and
San Francisco Sourdough

You’ll receive a complete set of instructions for both breads. Step-by step, you’ll make your own Pain au Levain dough that you can take with you to practice your new skills at home. You’ll practice shaping with a dough made in advance, and you’ll also bake sourdough breads in our professional steam-injected ovens. At the end of class, you’ll receive some of Chef Michael’s 25-year old Organic Sour Starter (from the International Sourdough Library in Belgium).

Draeger’s Cooking School, San Mateo, CA

RIch, buttery & slightly sweet—learn to make this versatile dough that can be shaped and braided for the Easter holiday. Easy to bake ahead and freeze!

Hot Cross Buns, the traditional Easter treat,

Braided Easter Bread w/ Raisins & Anise, Lemon Glaze.

Perfect for Dark Chocolate Babka Coffee Cake, too!

Draeger’s Cooking School, Blackhawk, CA

RIch, buttery & slightly sweet—learn to make this versatile dough that can be shaped and braided for the Easter holiday. Easy to bake ahead and freeze!

Hot Cross Buns, the traditional Easter treat,

Braided Easter Bread w/ Raisins & Anise, Lemon Glaze.

Perfect for Dark Chocolate Babka Coffee Cake, too!

Kitchen On Fire, Oakland, CA

Hands-on Workshop with a Master: Chef Michael Kalanty

The new Oakland Kitchen (on San Pablo just south of Ashby) is the perfect place to learn the secrets of Sourdough Bread baking!

Follow Chef step-by-step while making your own Pain Au Levain dough, the classic French sourdough bread. Chef will demonstrate how easy it is to convert his Master Formula into great-tasting variations like Apple Walnut or Golden Raisin Levain.

Learn the simple steps to keeping your natural yeast starter happy and thriving. See how easy it is to bake sourdough at home according to YOUR schedule, not the bread's.

Join us for this exciting experience, learn real skills for making fantastic artisan bread at home, and take home some of Chef’s 24-year old starter, too. Class running time: between 3 and 3-1/2 hours.

This is an intensive class on making the classic French sourdough, Pain au Levain. All steps and techniques will be shown and practiced in detail.

Ramekins Cooking School, Sonoma, CA

Wrap up your weekend with our Perfecting Pizza class. Enjoy your own hand-made pizza with farm-fresh salad and wine in our courtyard by the wood-fired oven!

Hands-on dough, best home baking techniques & wood-fired baking!

• Pizza Dough

• East Coast Style Pizza Dough

• San Francisco Sourdough Pizza Dough

• Sauces for Pizza

• Quick Tomato & Olive Oil Sauce
  Pesto

• White Sauce

• New Jersey Boardwalk Pizza Sauce
  (Marinara)

• Salad Dressings Bonus Recipes

Chef’s Bonus: 25-year old San Francisco
Wild Yeast Starter

Draeger’s Cooking School, Blackhawk, CA

Baguettes—classic and epi shapes

Bubbly Italian Biga Starters 
Potato, Roasted Garlic and Green Onions Rolls 
Lightly Sweet Golden Raisin and Anise Rolls

Take some extra dough home for more practice and fun!

San Francisco Cooking School, SF, CA

The newest, hippest way to make your own breads at home turns out to be the oldest ways we know –Sourdough Breads with Natural Yeast Starter.

Hands-on and hands-in dough! Build your own dough, feed the starter, learn how building your dough through a series of feedings changes the flavor of your bread.  Make Pain au Levain, the classic French sourdough bread, with special focus on bench skills and dough handling techniques.  Using a   prepared a batch of San Francisco Sourdough, you will practice forming rolls. Develop your bread palate during a taste & texture comparison between the French and American sourdoughs.

This is an intermediate level class, but a love of bread and clean, eager hands is all you need to bring with you!

Menu

Classic French Pain au Levain
and
San Francisco Sourdough

You’ll receive a complete set of instructions for both breads. Step-by step, you’ll make your own Pain au Levain dough that you can take with you to practice your new skills at home. You’ll practice shaping with a dough made in advance, and you’ll also bake sourdough breads in our professional steam-injected ovens. At the end of class, you’ll receive some of Chef Michael’s 25-year old Organic Sour Starter (from the International Sourdough Library in Belgium).

Draeger’s Cooking School, San Mateo, CA

Baguettes—classic and epi shapes

Bubbly Italian Biga Starters 
Potato, Roasted Garlic and Green Onions Rolls 
Lightly Sweet Golden Raisin and Anise Rolls

Take some extra dough home for more practice and fun!

Draeger’s Cooking School, San Mateo, CA

Classic Butter Croissants 
and
Pains au Chocolat
Learn to make the dough and butter block, how to laminate them together, and how to shape, proof & bake these luscious, flaky pastries.

You’ll take some dough to practice shaping & baking at home while the class is still fresh in your mind!
A light snack is provided.

Due to the croissant process, class may exceed three hours.
A light snack will be provided.

Kitchen On Fire, Oakland, CA

Looking to up your bread baking game? 

The new Oakland Kitchen (on San Pablo just south of Ashby) is the perfect place to learn the these French bread baking techniques.

Master Baker Michael Kalanty shares professional tips and techniques for baking your own crusty breads with tender chew and tons of flavor!! Ideal for building on your basic baking skills.

Learn to incorporate Pâte Fermentée into any dough to give more flavor, better chew, and longer shelf life!

MENU:
French Country Bread
Fruit & Nut Bread—ideal for cheese pairings
Rosemary & Olive Bread 

San Francisco Cooking School, SF, CA

The newest, hippest way to make your own breads at home turns out to be the oldest ways we know –Sourdough Breads with Natural Yeast Starter.

Hands-on and hands-in dough! Build your own dough, feed the starter, learn how building your dough through a series of feedings changes the flavor of your bread.  Make Pain au Levain, the classic French sourdough bread, with special focus on bench skills and dough handling techniques.  Using a   prepared a batch of San Francisco Sourdough, you will practice forming rolls. Develop your bread palate during a taste & texture comparison between the French and American sourdoughs.

This is an intermediate level class, but a love of bread and clean, eager hands is all you need to bring with you!

Menu

Classic French Pain au Levain
and
San Francisco Sourdough

You’ll receive a complete set of instructions for both breads. Step-by step, you’ll make your own Pain au Levain dough that you can take with you to practice your new skills at home. You’ll practice shaping with a dough made in advance, and you’ll also bake sourdough breads in our professional steam-injected ovens. At the end of class, you’ll receive some of Chef Michael’s 25-year old Organic Sour Starter (from the International Sourdough Library in Belgium).

Kitchen On Fire, Oakland, CA

Looking to up your bread baking game? 

Learn Italian bread baking secrets in our Oakland kitchen (on San Pablo just South of Ashby).

Master Baker Michael Kalanty shares more professional tips and techniques, this time with crusty Italian breads. A solid step forward in building your basic baking skills.

Learn to incorporate Poolish and Biga pre-ferments into your doughs to give more flavor, better chew, and longer shelf life!

MENU:
Pane di Como—the tender, airy, crusty table bread from the Lake Como region in the North.

Roasted Potato, Garlic, and Green Onion—Dinner Rolls or Burger Buns? You decide!

Tender/Chewy, Savory/Sweet: Semolina Bread with Golden Raisins and Fennel Seeds.

Ramekins Cooking School, Sonoma, CA

One of our most highly-rated baking classes of 2019!!

Warm your home and the hearts of your loved ones. Get back to basics
with this hands-on bread baking class. Learn bakers tricks for easy
mixing, kneading, and spot-on baking.

• Whole Wheat Honey Loaves

• Tender Milk Rolls

• Cheesy Bread Twists

• Chocolate Swirl Buns