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Week 9: Petit fours, chestnut cake, ice cream, and macarons!
After a long bank holiday weekend, week nine of Basic Pâtisserie began with an 8 am practical, where we made the chocolate chestnut cake we’d learned in the demo the week before. Except for underfolding my sponge cake, I did an okay job with this one:
All About Ice Cream
Our next class of the week was another technical lesson. This one was all about ice cream! We learned the history of ice cream and watched the chef prepare a champagne sorbet. We also tasted five different frozen desserts: a mango sorbet, red wine granita, chocolate ice cream, coconut ice cream, and vanilla ice cream. Of course my favorite was the coconut!
Petit Fours
It was nice to have a fun, low-stress technical lecture before heading into back-to-back demo/practical days. Over the course of two days we learned an assortment of petit fours. These are small confections designed to be eaten in one or two bites. The name “petit four” literally translates to “small oven,” and is a tradition dating back to 18th century France, when huge brick ovens were used for cooking. Bakers took advantage of the stored heat to create small pastries during the cooling process.
On the first day, we made piped fleur-de-lis petit fours, as well as a chocolate and vanilla checkerboard design:
Macarons and Florentines
On the second day, we watched the chef prepare traditional macarons, as well as a chewy almond-flavored cookie called a Nancy macaron, and a nut-and-dried-fruit confection called a florentine biscuit.
Above are my Nancy macarons and florentine cookies. Not pictured are the traditional macarons, which were a complete and total fail! The oven my kitchen partner and I were using turned out to be really inaccurate, and even though we’d set it at the correct temperature, it was way too hot. The excess heat caused our macarons to rise too quickly, and instead of proper macarons we ended up with little macaron-style soufflés! They still tasted pretty good (especially the chocolate ganache in the middle) but were far too unattractive to photograph! I’m excited to go back and give the macaron recipe another try at some point in the near future.
Exam Prep
Outside of class time, I’ve been doing as much exam prep as possible, drilling myself on the four recipes I need to be able to make without any notes. This week, I practiced the coffee eclairs, the sponge cake with raspberry and buttercream, and the mango charlotte. I haven’t perfected any of them yet, but I’m definitely feeling more confident with each attempt:
Missed last week’s recap? Read about weeks seven and eight here.
About Rebecca:
Rebecca earned the Diplôme de Pâtisserie from Le Cordon Bleu London in 2020. She kept this detailed diary as a record of her journey, and as a way to help others decide if pastry school might be the right choice for them. Rebecca also holds an MSc in Culinary Innovation from Le Cordon Bleu and Birkbeck, University of London, and a Professional Chocolatier’s Certificate from Ecole Chocolate. She currently works as a recipe developer, food stylist, food photographer, writer, and pastry chef. Feel free to make one of her original recipes, or to follow her on Instagram @bastecutfold for more baking and pastry inspiration!
