Chocolate masterclass at Fortnum & Mason, Piccadilly

The shop of Fortnum & Mason locates at the heart of London in Piccadilly. F&M shop is famous for the window decoration. 
This time was to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee
The colourful Queen's Beasts were guarding and celebrating the Queen and F&M with melodies.  


Halloween items were also featured.


My friend brought me here to attend a chocolate masterclass held on 18th October from 6-8pm.

The pastry chef, Tal Hausen went through three different recipes: chocolate tartelets, parfeit and fondant from the book "Cooking with Chocolate:Essential Recipes and Techniques" by Frédéric Bau, Clay McLachlan, Pierre Hermé, L'Ecole Du Grand Chocolat Valrhona - Random House Incorporated (2011).


For tartlet and parfait, we made chocolate crémeux, the mixture of custard and melting chocolate. 


I learnt that the best temperature of custard to add to chocolate is 82C (degree centigrade). 


Chocolate fondant was more exciting and complicated. 
The chef showed how to cool down the chocolate butter by using marble board and spatula. To make a perfect fondant, 28C is the best condition of chocolate that the molecule is ready to be combined with whisked egg and flours.

Perfectly-made chocolate butter was combined into the whisked egg and sugar
The fondant batter settled in fridge over night was poured into molds 
10 mins later, fully raised fondant chocolat came out from the oven!!

The fondant chocolat was served with caramel ice cream with crashed biscuit
Mmmmmmm.....
Speechless......

The class was completed with a glass of champagne as well as with a surprising goody bag.
Goody bag contained a F&M apron and three different cacao strength chocolates from Valrhona
Very useful!!

It was a fantastic event!!
I enjoyed every moment and learnt a lot about the art and the technique of chocolate. 
It was a great value (25 pounds for 2hours course with 3 recipes).

Thanks to my friend!!


Fortnum & Mason's Autumn and Winter Events detail is available here:


No comments:

Post a Comment