Savour Chocolate and Patisserie School

This weekend I attended a confectionery course held at Savour Chocolate and Patisserie School located in Brunswick, Melbourne.  Our class was taught by Savour's guest chef, Bert Mueller who has trained in Germany, worked all over Europe and taught as a Tafe teacher in Australia.  First, our instructor talked us through properties often used in confectionery then we went into the kitchen where we measured out our ingredients to make five recipes.  On the day, we made Rose Turkish Delight, Strawberry Pectin Jelly, Lemon Pectin Jelly, Honeycomb and Marshmallow. Afterwards, Bert demonstrated the art of pulling sugar and showed us how to make mint flavoured candy canes.


The class was one of the largest that I've attended and we were broken up into groups of three.  Besides having a very knowledgeable instructor, I was also very fortunate to work alongside two pastry chefs who also provided me with some tricks of the trade.  This was pretty awesome as not only did they have a great sense of humour, they were also super efficient and between the three of us we often finished the recipes well ahead of the rest of the class.  We could then take the time to observe others at work and sometimes, learn from their mistakes.  Making mistakes, in a class is actually a good thing as everybody benefits from the advice provided by the instructor!  Starting off with the first mistake I made, which wasn't too bad, was squirting too much food coloring into the Turkish delight.  As you can see from the photo below, instead of a light tint of rose it ended up more blood red... oops, anyway as you know I do love colour just look at my blog!  So, this wasn't a big deal really.


We had the most fabulous day and below are some snippets of what we got up to.

My Blood Red Turkish Delight!

Strawberry Pate de Fruit - also called Pectin Jellies

Lemon Pate de Fruit

Honeycomb in the making

Honeycomb before the bicarb soda is added

The bicarb soda has been added and the honeycomb is being poured onto Silpat to set

Sprinkling flour on top so that we can shape the honeycomb

The honeycomb has been slightly compressed with a tray

Voila, our Strawberry Pectin Jelly, Rose Turkish Delight & Lemon Pectin Jelly

On the guitar ready to be cut

Lemon jewels dusted in sugar 

Strawberry Pectin Jelly & Turkish Delight ready for the guitar

Done & Dusted

Wow, our honeycomb gives Violet Crumble a run for its money!

Totally yumdelish.

Pink Marshmallows

These were left to set then dipped in tempered chocolate

Export quality confectionery - impressive!

Below, are photo's of Bert pulling the sugar to make mint flavored candy canes.

I had an amazing day, met some pretty cool people and will definitely go back to Savour next year to attend more courses.  


I also adored the little quirky shops and cafes found along Sydney Road, Brunswick but that's another story.