Colleen Allerton-Hollier runs a culinary popup and teaches baking classes this week at SoFAB | Food and drink | Gambit Weekly

Colleen Allerton-Hollier has worked in the psychology field, performed improv comedy at local clubs and runs a culinary pop-up and catering business, Luncheon. If that wasn’t enough, Allerton-Hollier also teaches a demonstration (and limited hands-on) pie-baking class at Southern Food & Beverage Museum at 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday, Nov. 19-20, which includes samples and wine, and a cookie class on Monday, Nov. 23.

Gambit: How did you get interested in baking?

Colleen Allerton-Hollier: I was born and raised in New Orleans, but there wasn’t anything moving about baking or cooking from my family. When I was young, my dad and I baked brownies out of a Duncan Hines box once a week. We just liked it. But the Food Network was a thing. Emeril (Lagasse) was on TV, and Ina (Garten), Giada (De Laurentiis), all the big names now had just started. I learned to cook and bake from them. I’d come home and watch the Food Network every day. Instead of box brownies, I was like, “We can make brownies for real,” and my dad would go buy the ingredients.

I went to LSU and got a degree and worked in the psychology field for a couple years, but I didn’t like sitting down all day. My friend was like, “Come make king cakes at Domenica.” It kicked my ass, but it was so much fun.

After a year or so there, I was moved up by Kelly Fields to be her right hand at other restaurants. I was put at Johnny Sanchez and Borgne to do menu creation and production. It sounded incredible at the time. I thought, “I am going to be really creative.” I am proud that I got to put my own desserts on the menu with her supervision and blessing. But I was also the production person, so whatever I wanted to do, I had to do. You have to get fast and used to knocking out desserts. I would work 17-18 hour days during the holidays.

I got married in 2017 and quit my job to go to Europe. When I came back, I got back in touch with Christina Balzebre, who was operating Levee Baking Co. as a popup then. She said come bake, and it was best I ever felt at being underemployed. I worried about every dime I wasn’t making, but it was coming back to baking in the most spiritually lovely sense. I learned so much from slowing down. The amount of volume I was doing previously stood in the way of fundamental understanding.

Gambit: What do you cover in your classes?

A: Pie is the first one. I try to break down what are the big holiday pies before Thanksgiving. We’ll do eggnog chess pie. I’ll teach how to make pie dough that’s nice and flaky. It’s all butter. We’re going to do apple galettes with brown butter caramel. It’s easily tailored to having a smaller Thanksgiving crowd.

We have a cookie class which is holiday cookie stuff and learning how to make gifts. We’ll do a few gluten-free things. We’ll do a holiday cake class with sticky toffee pudding cake. We’ll do heavenly hash, which is something my family made. Then we have French Christmas. We’ll do buche de noel. Everywhere you go in France they have chocolate bars with nuts and dried fruits. It’s one-upping white chocolate bark with peppermint.

Gambit: What do you try to teach people about baking?

A: I have soap box moments. There are things that matter in baking, and they’re not necessarily the things that you think. It bums me out when people are like, “I don’t like baking because I hate measuring stuff and I don’t like following directions.” OK, heard that. But it’s also important that you get these little things down — time, temperature and technique, and then you can go be creative. Ingredients matter. Using good eggs matters. These little things become good habits that you can master, and then moving forward, you can look at a recipe differently.

Visit letsdoluncheon.com for information. Baking class tickets are available from the Southern Food and Beverage Museum.