Pastry & Dessert Workshop

Finish your dinner party on a high note. In this full-day Pastry & Dessert Workshop you'll learn the core techniques behind tarts, choux and custards, and why each step matters.

The Hero: A Pastry Display & a Plated Dessert

You'll build a pastry display of lemon tarts, chocolate éclairs and profiteroles. Then you'll compose a restaurant-style plated dessert from simple parts: crumble, fruit coulis and a crisp tuile. The day ends with everyone's work set out together on a dessert table.

Make-Ahead Sweets

You'll make a lemon tart with sweet shortcrust (pâte sucrée), a vanilla crème pâtissière that's the base for dozens of desserts, chocolate éclairs and profiteroles from one batch of choux, and a plated dessert with crumble, coulis and tuile. Pastry needs resting time, so your chef will have rested dough ready when you need it, and you'll still make your own from scratch to take home. Most of these can be made a day ahead, so dessert is ready before your guests arrive.

What You'll Learn

You'll mix, rest, roll and line a tart tin with sweet shortcrust, blind bake for a crisp, even base, and cook a smooth crème pâtissière and lemon curd. You'll make choux, pipe it evenly and bake it hollow and crisp, glaze, fill and finish pastries neatly, and plate a dessert with contrast in texture, colour and flavour.

What to Expect

This is a full-day, hands-on class from 10:00am to 5:00pm. You'll have your own bench and step-by-step guidance from an expert pastry chef, in a small group of up to 16 so there's plenty of one-on-one help. We work with premium Victorian butter, dairy, eggs and fruit, and enjoy the dessert table together with tea, coffee or a glass of wine. You'll take home your pastries and the recipes so you can bake it all again.

This is Day 6 of The Confident Home Cook, a six-workshop program at Otao Kitchen, but you can book it on its own.