Entremet Class at Savour School

Entremets....??  What is an entremet?

Kirsten Tibballs explains :  It means between layers, or between servings. Somewhere along the line, a French patissier decided that seeing as housewives were producing cakes and calling them gateaux, that a professionally produced one should be called something else.  A well made entremet should be visually appealling, have textural contrast, and, of course, taste good. The taste buds should be tempted as well with different combinations of taste sensations like salty, sour, sweet and bitter.

The quality of the ingredients we used for our Entremets at Savour school, I can be certain to say is of superior quality to the majority of commercial products nationwide.  But now that I have tasted the best, I can determine quality from this very high benchmark comparison!

Some of the most exciting parts of learning, is meeting the interesting people you are in class with.  Like Sophie, I was so impressed with her attitude, almost enough to change my mind about Y Gen.  They CAN be focused, talented and have good attitudes.

 Sophie works with none other than the fabulous Clare...

Remember Clare?

Who gave me serious cake envy in Topsy Turvy class!

  or real life Australian Cake Boss - Dymon from the Hellenic Bakery, Marrickville in Sydney - yes, that's him in the back supervising the girls.....

As well as Poornima (3rd from left) who is returning to India this year with her other half to open their little dream business and Julianti (2nd from left) who is as equally cake crazed as me as well as being a fellow Planet Cake addict.  And Anna, fellow Westralian who made the cross country trek all in the name of cake!  Thanks team for making the learning experience so much more rewarding!

Moving on.....

Classes started with making a traditional strawberry charlotte - with a modern twist of course.
First up, learn how to make perfect sponge fingers

and the resulting creations.  Aren't they pretty in pink?

Add some rum and Flambe the bananas....

For the Ambre

A delicious combination of hazelnut brownie base, caramelized rum bananas, coconut mousse with a salted caramel glaze.

Introducing the Nirvana 

Covered with a gorgeous Titanium white chocolate glaze - just like Masterchef finals week!

Me carefully placing the finishing touches on top

Looks like Kirsten approved of my reproduction of her creation.   In class we dubbed this the 'Lego cake' - a delicious combination of nougat and apricot.  Those spheres are actually thin as wafer chocolate domes filled with Callebaut chocolate mousse, then sprayed with cocoa butter - for extra melt in the mouth deliciousness!

 Placement of the kirsch truffles on the Cube before adding the glaze.

Yes....the shell for the Yarra Tart is not precise enough...well, file it down!  Talk about perfection!

Gorgeous, gorgeous chocolate cherry spheres for our decorating the Cube.  Complete with that "Whoa" shine factor!

Oops.... not so happy......making jam is hazardous to your health!  One seriously burned finger sitting in a cool water bath......

Moving onto Macaron class, look at Yvette go!  

How fabulous to see another Planet Cake team member at Savour!!  The world is such a small place for cake enthusiasts!

Here are the little fussy things resting....
 

 and here they are about to be devoured by Paul who gets first pick...... caught in the action!

How to impress the students a bit more?  Hamburger macarons of course!

How adorable is that??

Not to mention, sinfully delicious.

And then I hand carried them all the way home!!

(photo courtesy of Joanne Tay)

I want to thank the dedicated team at Savour School.

Kirsten for her vision and passion to the pastry arts - where would Australians be without her spearheading our knowledge of fine patisserie and chocolate?

Paul for his Paulisms, good humour, flair and amazing talent and Robyn for her patience, perfection and love of teaching, 

Seung-Yun for her quiet persistance and excellence in her craft and of course the hard working office team, who's names we didnt always know, but certainly enabled everything to take place.  I look forward to seeing you all soon!

Meanwhile, back in Perth........
Planet Cake has landed.  Stay posted!

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.

.

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)