Tuscan Cooking Classes in Florence

Few cities on Earth have the charm thatFlorence has, and if you visited this gorgeous city, you would have probably not only enjoyed the sights but the flavors too. 

Tuscan cuisine is among the best regional cuisines of Italy. Full of traditional aromas and colors. During our visit we decided to take a cooking class and so started researching until we came across these classes.

The Spice Lab  or 
Tuscan Cooking Classes in Florence

The name is a little confusing because the URL is Tuscan Cooking Classes but when you get to the website or blog, it's called The Spice lab, so don't worry, they are the same people.  
The Spice Lab team is composed by Paolo and his wife Melanie both are chefs, and you can choose to have the classes either in English or Italian. 
Melanie will assist you with choosing the menu (there's a 3  or 5 courses class to choose from), so that you can address any dietary or allergies requirements. 

Location, Location, Location

The Spice Lab classes are held either in their studio in city centre near the Mercato Centrale, or weather permitting they can be held in the family's Olive Grove. Both are great location, each with different charms. 

It was Summer during our visit in Tuscany, so we opted for the Olive Grove. 

Our experience

The morning of our class it's a sunny midweek day, which is perfect for the outdoor class. 

We walk about 15-20 minutes through the streets of Florence to reach Porta Romana where we meet Paolo. 

We hop into Paolo's car and head for the hills. 

The drive is about 10-15 minutes long and the views are enchanting. Gentle hills filled with olive trees and rocky walls, until we enter an unassuming gate and arrive at the grove.

We reach the grove and Paolo gives us a quick run of the facilities. They are pretty rustic, but this also part of the charm of being so close to nature. 

We take a walk around the grove as Paolo explains the various crops and herbs that grow. As we have no particular requirements, Paolo proposes to check what's ready in the allotment and build our menu from there. 

We find some Zucchini with their flowers, which will get stuffed and fried later, but before that, we start our menu from the dessert: a flourless Chocolate cake. This is one of the easiest desserts to make as all that you need are GOOD chocolate, preferably organic dark chocolate, some sugar and eggs. There're quite a few recipes for it online so we won't be printing it here, but here's a photo of the result. Needless to say, it was super delicious. 

The other  courses that are prepared are as previously mentioned, stuffed zucchini' flowers, "Involtini di melanzane" and a risotto with zucchini and pancetta. Very quick and delicious recipes that are perfect for a summer day. We published below the recipes for the Stuffed Zucchini Flowers and Involtini di Melanzane.

Suffed Zucchini Flowers

Ingredients
Zucchini flowers
Fontina cheese (or mild young cheddar)
Black & green pitted olives
Capers
Ham

Batter:
3/4 cup of self raising flour
150 ml (or a bit more) of full-strength beer
Mix the two together adding the beer a little at the time. 

Tools:
 Knife & chopping board, frying pan.

Directions.
Chop the cheese, olives and capers and ham very finely and mix them all in a bowl.
Softly open a flower to spoon in the stuffing until it's full then gently twist it at the top to close it. 
In a frying pan add 7-8 table spoons of olive oil and bring to a temperature of 189-190 degrees. If you want to check whether the oil is ready for frying drop a little batter in it to see if it's starts frying or not.
Holding the flowers from the top, dip them one at the time into the batter coating them from all sides then gently drop them into the frying pan, turning them around until it's golden all over. 
When ready, drain them off and place them on some kitchen paper to dry off the excess oil, sprinkling some salt on them and they are ready to enjoy.

Involtini di Melanzane

Ingredients:
Note that we aren't mentioning the exact amount of how much because it depends how many slices you cut from each eggplant, after that it's 1 slice of ham per eggplant size and as many mozzarella and tomato slices you need to cover the eggplant slice. 
Eggplant/s sliced 0.8-1 cm thick
Cooked ham thinly cut
Tomatoes
Fresh mozzarella cheese
Dried Italian herbs
Olive oil, salt & pepper

Tools: 
A broiler, a skillet, a roasting pan  toothpicks

Directions:
Wash thoroughly the vegetables and start by cutting the eggplant in slices approximately 0.8-1 cm thick.  Place the slices in a colander and add some salt heavenly.  Cover and let them rest for a 15-20 minutes. This is to drive the water out of the eggplant. 
Whilst you wait on these you can proceed to cut the tomatoes and mozzarella cheese, placing them in separate bowls. 
Once the water is out of the eggplant slices, drain them and dry them with kitchen paper. 
Get the broiler heated on medium -high heat and one it's ready place the slices on the broiler.  There is no need to add oil, just place the slices on the dry broiler and cook them for 40-45 seconds on each side or until you see then have become soft and malleable. 
Place them back in a dry bowl. 
Put 1 slice on the cutting board and add the ham slice on top, the alternate a slice of mozzarella and one of tomato (usually you should be able to fit 2 of each) sprinkle some salt, pepper and a generous portion of dried Italian herbs. 
Start rolling up the slice  from the top to the bottom and one it's rolled up, firm it in position by sticking 2 or 3 toothpicks. 
Congrats! You just made an "involtino"!
Place your involtino in a oiled roasting pan and put the pan in a hot oven for about 10-15 minutes or until the mozzarella has melted.

Some observations

The day was fun and we enjoyed our time with Paolo and his friend. The recipes were tasty and easy to reproduce at home.  The only downside to this otherwise pleasant experience is the cost. Courses start at 100 Euros per person in a group of 4, there were 2 of us thus paying 115 Euros per head.


Compared to other classes done in other countries, they are way more expensive for the following reasons:
 
80% of ingredients used came from the allotment and the remaining like ham, mozzarella, rice, would cost less than 10 Euros for a meal for 5 people.

Cooking at the olive grove as much as it's scenic, it's really rustic and it's in no way set up to be a "cooking class".

There are no individual cooking stations, which means you do a lot of watching and have to take turns in cooking with the other participants. It wasn't so bad being 2 of us, but imagine being a group of 4 you'd be lucky if you manage to chop something 

It's not as hands on as we experienced elsewhere and because there are no individual cooking stations, you don't make individual dishes, but rather 1 portion that will feed all, basically like at home, and whilst this may be a homely experience it also dilute the need to ask that much money per person. 

They should charge way less for classes at the olive grove. 50 to 60 Euros per head would be more appropriate.  Unfortunately we doubt this will happen as a due research showed that other cooking schools in Florence and nearby areas, charge the same if not more. 

To us this is a typical example of how tourism in Italy is exploited, which frankly is quite sad. So, if you don't mind spending that much money and rather focus on the sunny experience, you'll have a delightful day.