Barcelona

Visiting Barcelona has always been on my 'to-go' list. I had heard many horrible stories about pickpockets and general security problems. And yet, every one of my friends still recommended it as the place to go.

Having spent 4 days there last week, I can honestly say that I am in love with it. Everything about its culture, city vibe, food and the people. I know there are many tourists who are still overwhelmed by stories of pickpocketing and stuff like that, but I can reassure you that there has not been a single attempt while I was there, and of all the sight seeing spots, there were police scattered everywhere.

As a first time go-er in Barcelona, I had to visit all the main touristy attractions - Gaudi's Casa Batillo, La Pedrera, Sagrada Familia and Park Guell; La Boqueria (fresh food market); Joan Miro's Foundation; MNAC - the National Museum; Picasso Museum etc.

As a foodie, I had so much fun in La Boqueria, where I brought back spices like paprika and saffron at a very decent prices! You always get to see all of its local produce in the area such as fish, shellfish, fruits, vegetables etc! It was absolutely eye opening!

My highlight was definitely my visit to Miro's museum. You know how the Spanish dedicate their cities to their artists: Madrid has Goya, and Barcelona Miro. There seems to be a lot of influences of Miro's work around the city, whether it was street art or buildings.

Let my photos speak for themselves!

Gourmet food in a gourmet cookery school

In my last post, I wrote about my experience of attending the Petit Fours and Macarons course at Bellouet Conseil. It was a intensive three day course, with hands-on experience to take on making some of the finest desserts that I have ever tasted.

Another unexpected delight on the course was that both breakfast and lunch were provided - and of course you would not expect anything less than gourmet standard in a proper cookery school!

Breakfast - warm pastries were served fresh from the oven every morning, courtesy to the students from the previous pastry classes who prepared them all. Croissants, pain au chocolat, apple filled pastries... and the list goes on.

However... this sweet little pastry really deserves a shot on its own (it's my favourite!). Soft brioche with almond crunchy topping, oozing out with cinnamon and blueberry custard filling. It's truly so good - so good that I could probably have this for breakfast everyday.

Lunch - the term "school lunch" for me usually means "cottage pie", "roast chicken with gravy", "spaghetti bolognese". Nothing wrong with those dishes - however, in a cookery school there is a totally different interpretation of "school lunch".

A buffet? With escargot filled pastries? Pan-fried foie gras? Seafood salad? Chicken terrine?

No joke, but I must be living in dreamland.

Again, courtesy of this gourmet feast to the wonderful classmates next door. They were taking on a three day course on professional catering for groups. 

Salad cup

Selection of chicken, seafood and
vegetarian terrine

Tea time! More desserts, anyone?

Chestnut ice-cream cake

Extra-large Ferrero Rocher!

Raspberry mousse cake

Vanilla ice-cream, with Orange
Grand Marnier
sorbet and chestnut ice-cream

There were endless selection of delicious desserts to satisfy my sweet tooth... these must be the "hooks" that will make me want to come back to take on all the other courses!

A sweet date with petit fours & macarons in Paris @Bellouet Conseil

I have been making various kinds of baked goodies at home for quite a few years now. Starting with simplest cookies and indulgent chocolate brownies, then slowly stepping into the more elaborate art forms of baking cupcakes and chiffon cakes (recipes to follow in future posts), and finally conquering the ultimate challenge in home-baking - MACARONS. Those who have successfully (or unsuccessfully) baked macarons at home before would understand what I mean by "all the sweat and tears that went behind the scenes"... (yes, it was not until the 15th time until I finally saw those little feet rising in my macarons, and those tears were tears of happiness)

Bridging the gap between the "home-baker" and the "professional"
In search of perfection, it's about time to learn from the proper professionals, in Paris, the foodie heaven that is well known for its sweet delicacies. While most people would choose to go to Le Cordon Bleu for professional cooking classes, it unfortunately didn't offer short courses that would suit my interest nor timeframe. Having done a few searches online, I finally booked into a class in Bellouet Conseil - a three day course to learn to make Petit Fours and Macarons.

Course content

The three day course covers over 20 different types of dry cakes (sables, tuiles), soft cakes (madeleine, amaretti), fresh petit fours, tartlets, savarin etc., and 9 different flavours of macarons (ranging from the traditional ones like caramel, raspberry chocolate, to the slightly more adventurous ones like lime ganache, cherry ganache). The course covered a lot more recipes than I initially expected, which came as a pleasant surprise and made it worth every single penny!  

How was the course?

The course was taught by a professional pastry chef and the class was delivered in French. Equipped with less than ten words in my entire French dictionary, I was soon relieved to find out that... 

1) There were only four people in my class - not a surprise as most professional pastry chefs who usually go on these courses were busy preparing for Easter! With less people enrolled to the class meant I would get more hands-on time to learn

2) The recipes were all nicely printed in English

3) The instructors and the rest of the class were so helpful, so language wasn't really a big issue after all

As the course was designed for real professional chefs, the pace of the course was quite quick and you would be expected to understand the basics in baking. As a sound home-baker, I found it slightly challenging during the initial few hours of the class but soon adapted to working in a real kitchen and it was truly an eye-opening experience!

Day 1 - started with the basics and completed most of the dry cakes. Also prepared a lot of the components required for the soft cakes and petit fours (base for the tartlets, mixture for the fillings)

Day 2 - Completed the soft cakes (chocolate, pistachio, rasins and pineapple), continued with preparing more components for petit fours (mousse and cream filling, glazing, chocolate ganache).

Learned about the mastery of making macaron shells (with Italian Meringue base) and the secrets behind those bright eye-piercing colours (basically food colouring used in "moderation"). Prepared the different ganache fillings for the macarons.

Day 3 - Assembly and decoration - the most exciting part of the course. Staring at trays after trays of little cakes, tartlets and macarons, the final task was to give them last magical touch - dress them up with more chocolate, fruits and cream and then to the presentation plates.

And after days of hard work.... Voilà! The Petit Four and Macaron feast.

And of course, all of us were able to take a sample of these tasty little treats home. Freshly made petit fours tasted much better than the ones that you would normally get from the shop. The macarons needed a day or so to mature in the fridge - and I could probably get away with telling people that they are from Pierre Herme.

Verdict

Value for money? 9 out of 10. If you are a pastry/ dessert fanatic like I am, it's definitely worth the investment (although still quite a hefty amount to pay for a 3-day course)

Will I be going back for another course? Hell yeah (though need to first recover from the sugar overdose and need to save up for my next gourmet venture)


Information


Bellouet Conseil, Paris
http://www.ecolebellouetconseil.com/