Petit Fours & Chocolates

Remember those little bite sized marzipan and fondant coated jam and sponge morsels with a curly piped filligree on top and dotted with bright coloured gels?

Well, as delightful as I once found them...... the French have really taken Petit Fours to a whole new level.  Petit Four means small oven in French, and the requirement is simple.  It has to be no bigger than 2 bites.

The petit four course at Savour is a must!  Regardless of whether you are an experienced pastry aficionado or not, this is a wonderful place to start!  The 2 day weekend course saw many students travelling from all parts of the country.  All the petit fours went back to good homes.  Here is a little peek into our weekend.

It started with Paul offereing a sneak peak of the choclates produced in the chocolates classes.  Such pretty, pretty chocolates!

Unmoulding our perfectly formed chocolate cups

Filling our orange chocolate cups with mousse.

Look at how happy Evelyn is!  Working with chocolate does that for you.  Talented Evelyn is actually a dentist by day......patissier by night..... cool, steady hands.....perfect for this chocolate task - making little stands for the chocolate cups.

See....don't they look adorable?

with a perfect dome of blood orange jellies.

Sigh!  Almost too good to eat.

Brentons topped with whipped ganache

Brenton finishing production

Filling the divine raspberry & chocolate tarts

They made me so so very happy.

Chocolate raspberry tart finishing production

So sleek, so sexy, soooo goood!!

Chocolate moons (I called them eyelashes) for our lemon praline tarts

Lemon tart production team

Et viola!  Don't they look stunning!?

Guinea ovals.  Almond friands topped with sesame praline & pineapple gelee.

Choux profiteroles being dipped into hot caramel.  Much much hotter than boiling water.....ouch! 

Ready for taste testing.....

What next you ask..... walnut macarons of course.

Look at their perfect 'feet' and gorgeous presentation.

And last but not least,

Slow baked dark chocolate mousse

Melt in the mouth with a wonderful hint of coffee.  The memory is making me drool.

There was also an amazing almond mini cake with cherry jam that simply did not last long enough to be photographed.... 

As if there was not enough sugar in my life, I moved straight onto Chocolate class..

Tempering chocolate is one of those terribly mesmerizing things to watch.  Heating chocolate to melt it and then cooling it to a certain temperature so that it recrystalises properly to give fine chocolate its trademark shine and crack is certainly not as easy as it looks.

Here Robin is tempering our dark Callebaut chocolate ready for class.

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Here I am.....attempting it...... somehow feels like an episode of Masterchef.....

The omnious looking Guitar cutter

See what it can do to a perfectly fine chocolate filling!

Dipped and dessed with the most beautiful chocolate transfer sheets

Smiles all round!  Chocolate is so good for the soul!

 

Perfect shine, filled with caramels and luscious ganaches all ready to be savoured.

So, get into Savour school, the art of patisserie is truly worth experiencing and you will have a whole new respect for the perfection that takes place there.

Back in Sydney, look where my topsy turvy cake has ended up.

Shop front at Alex and Alex shoes in Erskine Street, Sydney.  All glammed up and surrounded by shoes, every girls dream!

Hope you all have a great week ahead, stay posted for Entremet classes. 

(Entremets are formerly known as Gateaux)