Pastry Basics

Pastry is a precise art using very simple and few ingredients. Knowing how these ingredients delicately interact with each other and how to apply detailed techniques is essential to great baking.

In this we make well-known and simple preparations, yet learn the key handling skills, how’s and why’s to do them well. Really well.

If you are someone who is curious about pastry arts or a pastry lover who wants to level up your skills, this course is for you.

Curriculum:

The recipes and methodologies are directly from our professional pastry program, for great pastry relies on precise execution and key understanding of how simple ingredients like eggs, flour, sugar, dairy, and even moisture, air, salt and acid affect pastry chemistry. We believe it is the fascinating part of the artistry.

Rather than do it one night a week for 6 weeks, we’ve decided to do it on two consecutive nights over 3 weeks. Why? Well, so much of what we are doing can’t be done once a week.

There are starters that need to be prepared for the following night’s breads. Doughs often need to rest overnight. And things like ice cream bases and ganache are much better if they’ve been allowed a day to have their flavours mature.

Week 1: Cookies

• What is happening in the oven
• Functions of the Main ingredients – wheat flour, fat, sugar, and eggs
• A ratio for shortbread cookies
• Moisture ratios for doughs and batters
• Introduction to using a piping bag

We will make four different tasty cookies to illustrate these concepts. So you will be taking at least four dozen cookies home with you.

Week 2: Tarts and Ice Cream

• Pate Sucre and basic pie dough
• Ganache filling (What is ganache?)
• Fruit filling (Precooked vs Raw)
• Ice Cream – custard style and Philadelphia style
• Basic piping skills

You will be taking home one 4″ ganache tart, about 4 small fruit tarts, and a tub of ice cream.

Week 3: Pate a Choux

• Craqueline cream puff
• Creme patissiere and lemon curd filling
• Meringue and ganache toppings

We will also cover a simple plated dessert using seasonal ingredients to be enjoyed in class. You will be taking home a selection of large cream puffs.