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Mini Desserts


Petits Fours

We spent a couple of classes on smaller desserts…things that might be served with an afternoon tea, or at the end of the meal with coffee (and after a proper dessert).

I didn’t take my camera with me to class, so here are the photos in Insta.gram from my phone.


Passionfruit white chocolate macarons


Green tea financiers with a white chocolate ganache


Chocolate shortbread & piped jasmine shortbread


Chocolate shortbread dressed up with white chocolate ganache

We worked in teams of four for these petits fours and split up the duties. I spent some time agonizing over the passionfruit white chocolate filling first, because it did not look like anything that should be consumed for a long time there. What happens is after the passionfruit cream is cooked, white chocolate is added. After some intense stirring, the cocoa butter content from the white chocolate oozed everywhere and curdled the cream – yuck! Luckily for me, the recipe then called for some more fats, butter this time, to emulsify the mixture once again (it’s like the chefs knew this was going to stress me out). As soon as I worked in the butter, everything became magical and we ended up with a beautiful passionfruit cream. Phew.

Otherwise the class was easy and I really liked the spirit of cooperation in this class. It is so much nicer to work in a group now that we’ve got the recipes down, and just want to save time while producing beautiful products. My group finished pretty early and the chef was pleased with our work, so we got to leave early, but only after I had consumed way too many “imperfect” pieces during the assembly process. Oops.


Apple & blackcurrant mousse verrine. The chef may have taken pity on me and sliced on the apples on the right for me…

Next up, we made desserts in shot glasses. Cute concept, but not really my thing. I wasn’t a fan of the mousses and creams we used to fill these glasses, and to be honest, I wouldn’t want this served to me in restaurants. These types of desserts would be great for cocktails parties, though. I would want to experiment with different fillings for these shot glasses before trying this one again.


The strawberry one gets a special mention because the crumble topping got a surprise ingredient mixed in – Pop Rocks! The crumble was tossed with a packet of Pop Rocks and drizzled with some white chocolate to keep it all together. The result was somewhat jumpy crumble that attacked my face every time I got too close to the glasses when I was decorating. I also liked this one more because of the fresh strawberries I cut in – probably not practical with fresh fruit sitting on the cream directly, but I think it enhanced the look and taste much more.

After the little shot glasses, we are now onto plated desserts – three classes worth! I can’t wait to see what they bring, since plating is fun, but totally stressful given the time constraints in class sometimes ;)

{ 1 comment… add one }
  • Jessica's Dinner Party Saturday 28 January 2012, 11:29

    Ah! Wish we had made those passionfruit white choc macarons. I didn’t really like the chocolate ones we made.

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