Winter Garden

This afternoon I spent a fun (and delicious smelling) time at Le Petit Paris, learning about the process of tempering chocolate and using it to create chocolate bunnies! Stefan showed us the tempering process of warming the chocolate to a specific temperature (which had been done before our arrival), cooling it by a specific amount (which he does by spreading on a metal table) then heating back a little (which he does either by mixing with some not-cooled chocolate, or using a heat gun!)

We then practiced pouring chocolate into molds (trying to get the air bubbles out) – we did this twice for each mold to give a thicker chocolate layer, with fridge time in between. As well as chocolate bunny shapes we did some egg shells and cases that we used later as chocolate stands!

Here’s a lot of delicious photos:

Here also is some video showing some of the tempering process:

Approaching Christmas we thought that the latest class at Le Petit Paris would be perfect, being their Feuilletine Buche (similar to a chocolate log cake), and today for the first time Margaret joined me. This class was more of a “watching” one, with very little for us to actually do, so a bit less fun than many. On the other hand we came home with two chocolate log cakes ready for Christmas!

The cake has a chocolate mousse center (frozen during making so it’s easier to handle) with almond sponge base with a crunchy “Feuilletine” filling, all coated in a shiny chocolate glaze. Here are photos during the making …