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Week three of Superior Pâtisserie kicked off with everyone’s favorite night…cheese night! The cheese lecture, given by Tom Badcock of Harvey & Brockless, is always a highlight of the term.
For the Superior lecture, we tasted eleven different cheeses, each more unique than the last. One, the Shorrocks Cheese Lancashire Bomb, is made by just one single cheesemaker. Another, the Roquefort Papillion, cost more than any cheese I’ve ever eaten before! I enjoyed all of the cheeses we sampled during the lecture, but my favorites were the Bleu cheese, a truffle cheese, and the Camembert.
Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate
After the cheese workshop, the rest of the week was all about CHOCOLATE!
The following morning, we embarked on a two-day chocolate journey. During twelve hours of kitchen time, our class worked together to create 20+ varieties of chocolate bon bons, confectionery, and pulled sugar sweets.
We were divided into small groups of 3 or 4, each group tasked with making a sphere molded chocolate, a polycarbonate molded chocolate, a piped ganache, a slabbed ganache, a praline, and some type of confectionery. I was in group two:
This class was exhausting, but also lots of fun. And we made SO MUCH chocolate! We gave it to the kitchen porters, the cleaners, the people who work at the front desk, the other students, and even some to a group of prospective students and parents who happened to stop by our classroom during a tour of the school. After all of that, we still had plenty to take home…
During this class, we also had a chance to play around with pulled sugar confectionery. This is similar to sugarwork (which we started to explore during our modern apple tart class) but is used more for edible sweets rather than showpieces and garnishes. We learned how to cook the sugar, flavour it, and then pull and cut it into things like lollipops and candy canes. This just might be my favorite lesson so far!
Chocolate Showpiece
In week four, we continued learning about chocolate as we made our first chocolate showpiece! This involved tempering nearly two kilos of Callebaut dark chocolate, than molding and carving it into various shapes, then using even more tempered chocolate to assemble everything into the finished piece:
I had the most fun making the rose. We hand-crafted each individual petal by dipping a knife in tempered chocolate and spreading it on a strip of parchment. Once the petals dried, we formed them around a bonbon shell to make a rose shape, then finished it with a dusting of red cocoa powder and flakes of edible gold leaf. So delicate, but so pretty!
On to the entremets…
Outside of the kitchen, we also spent week four learning about the process of creating the entremets and plated dessert that we’ll make for our final exam. We haven’t made either of these in class just yet, but I did some advance practice at home. I was especially happy with my dark chocolate mirror glaze:
The idea is for the glaze to be shiny and reflective enough that you can see your own image…I think my first attempt was definitely a success!
And now on to week five…entremets production, plated dessert, and the wine lecture. Yay!
Missed last week’s pastry school recap? Read it 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!
