A new tradition got started Valentine’s ❤️weekend at Bay Haven Inn of Cape Charles with the introduction of its first-ever cooking class program. Proprietors Tammy and Jim Holloway have had hundreds of requests over the years for recipes on how to make their Signature 🌟 Sweet Potato Biscuits and other yummy house specialties. So what could be more logical than to launch a series of cooking classes that guests can book when they reserve their rooms ? Planned for the winter season, November through March, Bay Haven Inn will present “What’s Cooking at Bay Haven” as a fun new offering for guests on selected weekends. Non- guests are welcome too if space allows.
For the kick-off last Saturday, Inn guests Kathy and Eric, along with Blue Heron Realty agent Montaigne Cree, joined Jim Holloway 👨🍳 in the Inn’s gorgeous new kitchen. An aficionado 🤗 of Southern style sweet potato biscuits, Montaigne was anxious to jump in and learn Jim’s techniques for his delicious biscuit flavor and pleasing texture. I was along as the unofficial 😋 Taster- which is very hard work but…. someone has to do it! After donning special Bay Haven Inn aprons, the group dove right into the 4 Lessons – compound butters, sweet potato biscuits, mile-high popovers, wrapping up with the truly decadent Ooey-Gooey French Toast.
First up, preparing various compound butters to complement the mile-high popovers of Lesson 3. Orange zest 🍊, lingonberry and rosemary/thyme herb butters 🧈were carefully mixed and rolled up log-shape
in Saran wrap to chill- ultimate goal, spreading on the piping-hot-from-the-oven Popovers to come.
Next, Jim’s famous Bay Haven Sweet Potato Biscuits. Much measuring, sifting, 🥣 mixing, folding, stirring 🥄 plus more stirring and folding before the batter was ready to pat out and cut into biscuits. ( Tip- Jim lines his sheet pans with silpat non-stick silicon liners which he swears by as the only baking sheet liners to use. And he made me a convert after seeing his silpats in action, next stop Bed, Bath and Beyond.) Into the oven for these orange colored yummies and on to making mile-high popovers.
Without exaggeration, Jim and Tammy’s recipe for popovers produces the tallest, tenderest popovers I have ever had ! Mile-high and truly delicious! The secret ? Using an electric mixer 🍜 to blend the ingredients until super foamy and smooth, rest the batter for an hour. Ladle into some really tall, cool-looking popover pans. End result ? Spectacular to look at and scrumptious to eat – – crunchy on the outside and melt-in-the-mouth on the inside. And oh so wonderful with the compound butters from Lesson 1- quite surprised to enjoy the savory herb 🌿 butter best !
Last but definitely not least, the French 🍞 Toast Lesson. So what do you get when you foam butter, Karo Syrup and brown sugar over gentle heat, then separately mix lots of 🥚 eggs, half and half🍶 cream, Grand Marnier, nutmeg and cinnamon in a big bowl ? Well, when you pour the foamed butter mixture into the bottom of a stoneware or Pyrex pan, add bread 🍞 slices, pour the cream mixture over top, refrigerate overnight and then bake in the morning you get …… a magical breakfast of Ooey Gooey French Toast.
What a wonderful afternoon everyone had, cooking, conversation and delicious, fresh from the oven treats ! Jim is a natural 🧑🍳 teacher, patient and fun. The well-equipped kitchen, spacious and light-filled, made everything so pleasant. The “students” got to keep the goodies they made and the unofficial Taster went home with a bag 🛍 of goodies too. So a very successful kickoff for “What’s Cooking at Bay Haven.”
