Decorating with cocoa powder and chocolate
A good genoise sponge is one of the fundamentals of patisserie. You will find a layer of plain or chocolate sponge being used in many of the recipes in this book, such as Tiramisu (see here), Fraisier (see here), and the Blackcurrant and Passion Fruit Mousses here and here. I suggest you bake a few trays at a time and freeze what you are not using immediately, ready to defrost when you need it. The quantity below will make enough for two shallow (2cm) rectangular sponges baked in a tray approximately 35cm × 27cm.
You could also use this recipe to make one 21cm round or equivalent square cake (7cm deep), which will need around 20 minutes in the oven until it is golden and springs back if you touch it gently in the centre. A skewer inserted into the middle should come away clean.
Once the cake has baked and cooled, you could simply halve it horizontally, brush each cut surface with sugar syrup flavoured with a dash of kirsch (see here) then sandwich the two halves together with whipped double cream or crème Chantilly (see here) and fresh raspberries or strawberries. Finish with a dusting of icing sugar on top.
125g caster sugar
4 medium eggs
125g plain flour, sifted
25g butter, melted
a little butter for greasing the tin
Grease two 35cm × 27cm × 2cm baking trays with a little butter and then line them with baking paper.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas 4.
Put the sugar and eggs in a bowl (use the bowl of your food mixer if you have one), and stir with a whisk, then put the bowl over a pan of barely simmering water (don’t let the base of the bowl touch the water).
Whisk for about 3–4 minutes, until the mixture is foamy and has tripled in size.
Transfer to a food mixer with a whisk attachment, or use a hand-held one, and whisk at high speed for about 4–5 minutes until the mixture has cooled down and clings easily to the whisk, which will leave ribbon patterns in the mixture as you lift it.
Very gently fold in the flour a little at a time with a metal spoon – you want to keep as much air in the mixture as possible.
Then, again very gently, fold in the melted butter.
With a spoon, turn the mixture into your trays and tilt it so that it spreads into the corners.
Bake in the preheated oven for 12–15 minutes until golden and the centre is springy to the touch. With shallow tray sponges like this you can tell easily when they are done, so there is no real need to do the skewer test – though you can, if you prefer.
When the sponge is baked, turn out onto a cooling rack. Now the sponge is ready to use in your chosen recipe. Or to freeze, leave the sponge on its greaseproof paper, put another layer on top, and wrap well in clingfilm before putting into the freezer, where it will keep for around three months.
sieve 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder with the flour.
sieve 1 tablespoon of very fine instant ground coffee with the flour.
add either 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste, or the seeds of one vanilla pod to the mixture with the egg and sugar.
add the grated zest of one orange, and a drop of orange essence or orange flower essence to the mixture before folding in the flour.
add the grated zest of one lemon and a drop of lemon essence to the mixture before folding in the flour.
Choux is so fashionable – in every pastry class we run at the cookery school it is the technique that most people want to learn. It is the great versatile classic that any apprentice patissier must master, and the more often you make it the easier it will become. Don’t be afraid to double or even quadruple the recipe below, pipe it into different shapes from round buns to little éclairs, bake them and then keep them in the freezer, to bring out any time you need a last-minute dessert.
This recipe makes around 500g of dough, enough for the Paris Brest here, éclairs here and Gâteau St Honoré here. For the Croque en Bouche here – the festive tower of choux buns – you will need to triple the quantity. One quantity of dough can be made easily by hand; however, if you are making bigger quantities, I suggest you use a food mixer with a paddle attachment.
MAKES 500G
125g plain flour
4 medium eggs
225ml water
60g butter
½ teaspoon salt
Sieve the flour into a bowl and have the eggs ready in another bowl.
Bring the water, butter and salt to the boil in a large pan.
Tip in the flour, whisking all the time.
Continue whisking until the mixture clings to the whisk and resembles mashed potato.
Swap the whisk for a wooden spoon and beat over the heat for 2–3 minutes until the mixture is glossy and comes away from the edges of the pan cleanly. Then, if using a food mixer with a paddle attachment, transfer the mixture to the bowl now, otherwise leave the mixture in the pan and take the pan off the heat.
Add the eggs, one by one, either beating them in by hand or with the motor running. Whether mixing by hand or by machine, go carefully with the eggs. Add them one at a time, making sure each one is well incorporated before adding the next. Before you add the last one, check the texture. You are aiming for a mixture that is smooth and glossy but that will hold its shape for piping (it is better to be slightly too stiff than too runny). If it is almost at this stage you might not need to add all of the last egg.
Now the dough is ready to use.
One of the things I am asked about most in my classes is how to fill a piping bag cleanly, whether for piping choux pastry, cream or icing. The best way to do it is to turn the bag inside out over one hand and, with the other hand, fill it half full only. This helps to stop the mixture smearing over the outside of the bag as you fill it. Pull up the sides of the bag and twist the top so that the mixture is forced down towards the nozzle.
To pipe, hold the bag in one hand, with the other hand underneath to steady and guide it. Squeeze with the hand that is holding the bag, pipe, then turn the bag anticlockwise, squeeze again, applying the same pressure all the time, and pipe again.
When you bake choux pastry, the heat of the oven causes the pastry to expand and become hollow inside. The trick to keeping choux buns, éclairs, and so on, puffed up and crispy so that they don’t deflate (crucial for something like the Croque en Bouche here) is to dry out the pastry well during baking. Don’t be scared of leaving them in the oven longer than you might expect. I have seen recipes that suggest taking out éclairs and buns halfway through baking, then making a little hole in the base for the air to escape, before putting them back in. I think a better way is to mimic what happens in a professional bakery, where you can press a button and allow steam to escape from the oven. You can do this quite simply by leaving the door of your oven open just a little for the last few minutes of baking.
Some of the recipes use sweet pastry as a base. Although you can mix it by machine (see here), it is such a quick and easy process that I suggest you do it by hand, especially if you are new to making pastry as this helps you to get the feel of what you are looking for in terms of texture.
The pastry will keep for up to a week in the fridge and up to three months in the freezer, so it makes sense to make at least double the quantity and then freeze what you don’t need immediately. A good tip to stop the pastry from discolouring slightly in the freezer is to add a couple of drops of lemon juice or vinegar to the dough during mixing – you won’t taste it in the pastry.
I wrap pastry for the freezer in greaseproof paper, followed by a tight layer of clingfilm. When you take out the pastry and defrost it ready to use, you will find that it is beautifully easy to roll.
MAKES 360G
175g plain flour
pinch of salt
60g sugar
1 medium egg, plus 1 medium yolk
60g butter
Put the flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Have the sugar in a separate bowl and break your eggs into yet another bowl – there is no need to beat them.
The key to good pastry is to keep the butter very cold but still soft and pliable. I leave the butter in the fridge until I am ready to use it, then put it between two pieces of greaseproof paper and bash it with a rolling pin until it is about 1cm thick.
Put the whole piece of butter into the bowl of flour so that it is well covered, then tear it into large pieces and rub into the flour, with as light a touch as possible. The way to achieve this is to keep the pieces of butter constantly covered in flour, as you repeatedly scoop them up in both hands and just flick your thumbs over them in a soft skimming motion, as if you were dealing a pack of cards. Don’t press or grind the butter or it can become clumpy.
Recipes often say to rub the mixture until it looks like breadcrumbs, but I find that people often overdo it trying to achieve this, and end up with pastry that is quite sticky and difficult to handle. Instead, I always say to stop when the shards of butter are still the size of your little fingernail.
Add the sugar, mixing it in evenly.
Tip the egg and yolk into the flour and butter and mix everything together.
(N.B. the pictures show double the quantity being made)
You can use a spoon, but I always use one of the little plastic scrapers that I have for bread making, as it is easy to run it around the edge of the bowl, pulling the mixture into the centre until it forms a very rough dough, that ideally shouldn’t be sticky.
Press down on the dough with your thumbs, then turn it clockwise a few degrees and press down again. Repeat this a few times.
Now turn the pastry out onto a work surface. If it isn’t sticky, you don’t need to flour your work surface, but if you do, just very lightly skim it with the finest film of flour as you are going to work the pastry very briefly and any extra flour that goes in at this stage will make it heavier. Holding the dough with both hands, press down again gently with your thumbs and then turn the dough clockwise a few degrees, as before. Repeat this four or five times.
Finally fold the pastry over itself and press down with your fingertips. Repeat this a couple of times until the dough is like plasticine and looks even and homogeneous.
Pick up the piece of pastry and tap each side on the work surface to square it off so that when you come to roll it, you are starting off with a good shape, rather than with raggedy edges.
WITH A MIXER: use a paddle attachment. Before putting the cold butter in the machine, bash it with a rolling pin, as on here, then break it into four or five pieces. Put it into the mixer with the flour and salt and mix at a slow speed until the pieces of butter are about the size of your little fingernail. Stir in the sugar. You will need to scrape the butter from the paddle a few times, as it will stick. Add the egg and mix very briefly until a dough forms. As soon as it does, turn it out onto your work surface with the help of your scraper and follow the rest of the method here–here.
WITH A FOOD PROCESSOR: go carefully, as it is very easy to over-process pastry. Take the butter straight from the fridge and cut it into small dice, then put it into the bowl with the flour and salt. Use the pulse button, in short bursts, so that the flour just lifts and mixes, rather than whizzes into a greasy ball that will result in dense, tense pastry. Add the sugar and pulse in the same way. Add the egg and again just press the pulse button briefly until the pastry dough comes together. Turn it out with the help of your scraper and follow the rest of the method here–here.
Wrap the dough in greaseproof paper rather than clingfilm (as this will make it sweaty) and put it into the fridge for at least an hour, preferably two, or better still, overnight. The point of resting the dough is to allow the gluten in the flour to relax, so that the dough becomes more elastic and easier to roll. This also helps to stop it shrinking when it goes in the oven.
If you are in a hurry to use the pastry, flatten it by half with a rolling pin before wrapping it in greaseproof paper. This will help it to chill more quickly. Or you can put it into the freezer for 15–30 minutes.
The two most widely used styles of meringue are French and Italian. French meringue, which is the one most people are familiar with, is made by whisking egg whites and then adding sugar and continuing to whisk until the mixture forms stiff peaks. The Italian recipe is made with a hot sugar syrup, rather than sugar, and people tend to shy away from it, thinking it is harder to make – but if you use a sugar thermometer to take the syrup to just the right point, the rest is straightforward.
You can see the difference between the consistency of the two different styles in the photograph here: on the whisk the French meringue (on the left) is more compact and dry, whereas the Italian meringue is more ‘stringy’ with a glossy, silky shine to it.
I generally prefer the Italian-style meringue because it is more versatile to work with, and while it is firm on the outside, it retains a wonderful gooey softness in the centre, whereas French meringue is light, but a little drier and more brittle. However, it really is an individual choice, and though I have suggested Italian meringue in the recipes, you can substitute French meringue if you prefer.
The quantities I have given for each style will make around six big individual meringues, or one tart case, which you can use for the recipe for Chocolate Meringue Tart here, or simply fill with Chantilly cream (see here) and fresh fruit.
Some of the recipes in this book involve sugar syrups or caramel, which are really only about boiling sugar and water, but to different stages. I know from my classes that people find the idea of working with sugar daunting, usually because they have come across terms like thread, soft ball and hard ball, soft crack and hard crack, so I have deliberately kept things simple.
Most of the sugar syrups are simply equal quantities of sugar and water boiled until the sugar dissolves and you have a colourless syrup that can be flavoured with an alcohol such as rum or kirsch. I use these syrups for brushing over genoise sponge, to keep it moist and infuse it with extra flavour, when I am using it as a layer with various creams and fruit.
A slightly more dense sugar syrup, made with less water, and some glucose added to the sugar, is needed for making Italian meringue (see here) and for this and the few recipes that require caramel, the way to make your life easy is to invest in a sugar thermometer. These are inexpensive, and the best are those with digital displays that you can pre-set to a certain temperature and just wait for them to bleep when it is reached. I use mine for much more than working with sugar – for anything that I want temperature-controlled, for example deep frying.
MAKES 6 LARGE INDIVIDUAL MERINGUES OR 1 TART CASE
190g sugar
45ml water
20ml liquid glucose
3 medium egg whites
Put the sugar in a pan with the water and heat gently for about 5–8 minutes until the sugar has dissolved and formed a colourless syrup, and small bubbles are breaking the surface. The syrup is ready when the temperature reaches 121/122°C maximum, so I always set my thermometer to 122°C.
Now you are ready to whisk your egg whites. You can do this using a food mixer with a whisk attachment, or a hand-held whisk, but whichever you use, make sure your bowl is absolutely clean and dry, as water or grease can prevent the egg white from stiffening. Whisk the egg whites until soft foamy peaks form, then stop as soon as you reach this point, as if you over-whisk, the air bubbles that you have created will burst and the egg whites will collapse back into liquid.
Next you are going to pour the hot syrup onto the egg whites. Since you need both hands free – one to whisk, one to pour – if you are whisking by hand, then before you start, wrap a tea towel around your bowl and wedge it into an empty saucepan to hold it steady.
Pour the syrup in a slow, steady stream, whisking continuously until the meringue has cooled down to room temperature, and is silky and glossy.
Now the meringue is ready to use according to your recipe.
MAKES 6 LARGE INDIVIDUAL MERINGUES OR 1 TART CASE
4 medium egg whites
125g caster sugar
125g icing sugar
Whether you use a food mixer with a whisk attachment, or a hand-held whisk, make sure your bowl is absolutely clean and dry, as any water or grease can prevent the egg white from stiffening. Whisk the egg whites and caster sugar until soft foamy peaks form, then stop as soon as you reach this point, as if you over-whisk, the egg whites will become liquid and you will have to start again.
Before you add the icing sugar, if you are whisking by hand, wrap a tea towel around your bowl and wedge it into an empty saucepan to hold it steady. You need both hands free – one to whisk, one to sieve in the sugar.
Sieve in the icing sugar slowly, whisking continuously until the mixture forms firm, shiny peaks.
Now the meringue is ready to use according to your recipe.
These are all the creams that we use throughout the recipes in this book and in our bakery. They are very versatile and some are actually a combination of two different creams, brought together to give different textures and flavours. They are also interchangeable, so if you like, you can substitute a simple cream for a more complex one and vice versa. Flavourings such as chocolate can be added (see overleaf).
The all-purpose pastry cream is really a thickened custard, which can be used in any number of confections and desserts, from a filling for éclairs to a base for fruit tarts. You can use semi-skimmed milk if you prefer.
MAKES ABOUT 400G
250ml whole milk
1 vanilla pod
3 medium egg yolks
60g caster sugar
25g plain flour
Pour the milk into a heavy-bottomed pan. Lay the vanilla pod on a chopping board and slice along its length with a sharp knife. Open out and scrape the seeds into the milk, then put the halved pods in too.
Put the eggs and sugar into a bowl and whisk until pale and creamy. Add the flour and mix until smooth.
Put the pan of milk over a medium heat, bring to just under the boil, take off the heat and slowly pour half of it into the egg, sugar and flour mixture, whisking well as you do so. Add the remainder of the milk and whisk in well, then pour the mixture back into the pan.
Bring to the boil, whisking all the time, then keep boiling and whisking for 1 minute, take off the heat and pour into a clean bowl.
Scoop out the halves of the vanilla pod. You can wash and dry them and keep them in a jar of sugar, which will give you vanilla-flavoured sugar for use in all your baking. Cover the surface of the bowl with greaseproof paper straight away, as this will help to prevent a skin from forming. Cool and then keep in the fridge until ready to use.
FOR COFFEE CRÈME PÂTISSIÈRE: add 1 tablespoon of good ground coffee to the milk and then follow the recipe as usual.
FOR CHOCOLATE CRÈME PÂTISSIÈRE: add 3 teaspoons of cocoa powder to the milk and then follow the recipe as usual. Alternatively, you can use 75g of dark, milk or white chocolate chips.
Probably the quickest, most simple and versatile cream of them all – it is nice and light for filling éclairs, or simply to serve with any tart or ice cream. You can perfume it with a few drops of rosewater or orange water instead of the vanilla extract if you prefer.
MAKES ABOUT 300G
250ml whipping or double cream
2 tablespoons caster sugar
a few drops of vanilla extract or paste
Whisk the ingredients together until thick, but don’t over-whisk, or the cream will turn to butter!
This is simply crème pâtissière with butter added – the advantage of this is that the butter sets the cream quite firmly, so it is good in recipes where you need the cream to hold its shape.
MAKES ABOUT 300G
200g cold crème pâtissière (see here)
100g butter, cut into pieces and allowed to become very soft
Take your cold crème pâtissière from the fridge and whisk it until it has the consistency of a light mayonnaise, then whisk in the pieces of butter a little at a time until the cream is smooth and has turned quite white.
This is a beautiful cream and my favourite. It is lighter than crème au beurre, but more substantial than Chantilly, and I always think it has the flavour of a great vanilla ice cream, but without being frozen. You could use it as an alternative to crème au beurre for the Fraisier here, for filling éclairs, or simply to fill a sweet pastry tart case and then top it with fresh fruit.
MAKES ABOUT 300G
200g cold crème pâtissière (see here)
100ml double cream
Take your cold crème pâtissière from the fridge and whisk it until it has the consistency of a light mayonnaise.
Whisk the double cream until thick and fluffy then fold into the crème pâtissière.
We use this for the Îles Flottantes here and the jelly here, but you can serve it with any pudding or tart.
You could also substitute double cream for the milk, and churn it in an ice cream maker to make a great vanilla ice cream.
MAKES ABOUT 320G
3 medium egg yolks
40g caster sugar
250ml full fat milk
½ vanilla pod
Put the eggs and sugar into a bowl and whisk until pale and creamy.
Put the milk and vanilla pod and seeds into a heavy-bottomed pan and bring to just under the boil. Pour the milk slowly into the egg mixture, whisking well as you do so.
Return the mixture to the pan over a medium heat. Using a wooden spoon, stir continuously in a figure of 8 until the cream thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. (To test, lift the spoon out of the cream and draw a line down the back of the spoon. If the line stays clean it is ready.)
Strain immediately into a clean bowl and continue stirring for a few minutes. Remove the vanilla pod. Either serve hot or leave to cool, covered with a sheet of greaseproof paper to prevent a skin forming. Once cool, store in the fridge until you are ready to use it.
These are great to have on hand in the kitchen – you can make up batches of different varieties of nuts, and they will keep for about three months in airtight jars. You can then use them whenever you like, for example to make the Chocolate Lollipops here.
MAKES ABOUT 300G
75g caster sugar
250g whole Brazil nuts, almonds, hazelnuts or pistachio nuts (shelled weight)
Heat the sugar in a pan until it dissolves and begins to bubble. Continue cooking until it is golden brown (if you have a sugar thermometer, the temperature will be 140°C). Take off the heat and stir in the nuts.
Have ready a non-stick baking tray or a silicone mat.
Lift the nuts out of the pan with a slotted spoon and spread them over the tray or mat so that they stay separate and don’t touch one another. Leave to become cold and solidified, then transfer the nuts to an airtight jar.
I always have home-made or high-quality jams on hand, for use in all kinds of assemblies and cakes. We serve this raspberry jam for breakfast before classes at the cooking school and everyone always asks for the recipe, so here it is. It is a very quick jam to make, cooked only briefly so that you retain all the vibrant colour and sharpness of the berries. Out of season you can still make it using frozen raspberries. You can use a thermometer to gauge when it is ready, or do the old-fashioned ‘crinkle’ test.
MAKES 2 SMALL (200G) KILNER JARS
½ teaspoon pectin powder
400g granulated sugar
500g raspberries
juice of 1 lemon
small pinch of salt
If you don’t have a thermometer, put a plate into the fridge before you start so that it is well chilled.
Mix the pectin powder into the sugar.
Put all the ingredients in a large, heavy-based pan and bring to the boil. If you have a thermometer, bring the temperature up to 106°C – this will take about 10 minutes – then take off the heat.
Alternatively, after the jam has boiled for 10 minutes, take your saucer from the fridge and spoon a teaspoon of jam onto it. Put it back in the fridge for a minute, then with your finger, push the jam to see if it forms a crinkly skin. If so, it is ready. If not, let it boil for a further minute and then test again.
While the jam is still hot, pot it in sterilised jars (see here).
MAKES 2 SMALL (200G) KILNER JARS
1 teaspoon pectin powder
450g granulated sugar
500g strawberries, cleaned and hulled
juice of 2 lemons
If you don’t have a thermometer, put a plate into the fridge before you start so that it is well chilled.
Mix the pectin powder into the sugar.
Put the strawberries in a pan and give them a squash with a potato masher to release a little of their juices. Add the sugar and lemon juice and bring to the boil. If you have a thermometer, bring the temperature up to 106°C – this will take about 10 minutes – then take off the heat.
Alternatively, after the jam has boiled for 10 minutes, take your saucer from the fridge and spoon a teaspoon of jam onto it. Put it back in the fridge for a minute, then with your finger, push the jam to see if it forms a crinkly skin. If so, it is ready. If not, let it boil for a further minute and then test again.
While the jam is still hot, pot it in sterilised jars (see here).
We use this in the Lemon Trifles here, or you could substitute it for the blood orange cream, made using the same technique, that is used in the tart here. It also makes a good filling for choux buns, mixed in a ratio of one part curd to three parts crème pâtissière (see here) or Chantilly cream (see here).
Lemon curd is very simple to make: you just need to make sure that you let it thicken gently in a bowl over your pan of barely simmering water, watching and whisking all the time. If it goes too fast it can turn into scrambled egg, but if this starts to happen you can still rescue it by taking the pan off the heat and pushing the mixture through a fine sieve into a clean heatproof bowl. Put this over your pan as before, on a low heat, and carry on.
You can keep the curd in a bowl in the fridge (covered in clingfilm) for 3–4 days. Or pot it while it is still hot, in sterilised jars, in which case it will keep for up to two months. I sterilise my jars by putting them through a dishwasher cycle, then into a preheated oven at 100°C/gas ¼ for 15 minutes to dry out completely.
MAKES 2 SMALL (200G) KILNER JARS
zest and juice of 3 medium unwaxed lemons
2 large eggs
200g caster sugar
125g unsalted butter
1 teaspoon cornflour
In a heatproof bowl, whisk all the ingredients together, then put the bowl over a pan of barely simmering water, making sure the base doesn’t actually touch the water. Whisk constantly over a low heat, moving the mixture around the bowl so that none sticks to the sides. Once it starts to become a little thicker than double cream, continue to whisk for one more minute then take off the heat.
To test that the mixture is ready, scoop a little of it with a teaspoon and push it against the inside of the bowl near the top. It should stay put without dripping. If it doesn’t, put it back over the heat and whisk very briefly for another minute at a time, until it passes the test. Either pot into sterilised jars while still hot, or leave to cool, then put in the fridge until ready to use.
You can buy special dehydrators for drying fruit, or a plate-warming drawer is fantastic for the job. Alternatively, dry your fruit after you have been using your oven and have switched it off. Slice the fruit and arrange on a non-stick baking tray or, better still, a silicone mat, then wait until the temperature has gone down to around 80–90°C before putting it in the oven. Leave overnight, and by morning the fruit should be ready: dry, but not brittle. If it still has too much moisure in it, turn your oven back on to the lowest temperature possible and leave in for a while longer.
The fruits that I mainly dry in this way are apples, bananas and pineapple, but you can also experiment with slices of mango, papaya, strawberry – whatever you like.
APPLE:
Don’t peel them, just slice horizontally, about 2mm thick. Ignore the core, just cut through it. The pips will fall out after drying, and the slices look more attractive with little holes in the middle where the pips have been.
BANANA:
Use firm ones with their skins verging on green, rather than very yellow ones, which will be too soft. Peel them and slice them on the diagonal, 3–4mm thick (if you slice them too thinly, they will lose their shape and be difficult to use). Rub a little lemon juice over the top of each slice before drying, as bananas turn dark very quickly.
PINEAPPLE:
Cut the skin off and then slice crossways – about 5mm thick. Take a small pastry cutter and use it to stamp out the hard centre, then you can dry the rings whole, or cut them into wedges.
Don’t underestimate the power of a little dusting of cocoa powder over cakes or puddings. Where you have chocolate icing, try dusting half of it, using a small, very fine sieve (you can even dust through one of the many stencils you can buy at baking shops). If you want a sharp edge, lay a sheet of baking paper over one area of the icing, then dust the remaining area and lift off the paper – you will be surprised how the contrast of shiny and matt creates a smart effect.
In France, chocolate shavings and curls are known as copeaux, and they are a very effective way of adding some drama to a cake or tart.
Have ready a piece of clean marble, or a heavy non-stick baking tray – the idea is that warm chocolate goes straight onto something cold to set it.
Break some good chocolate of your choice (it can be dark, milk or white) into chunks, put them in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water – make sure the water comes close to the bottom of the bowl but doesn’t actually touch it. Keep the heat very low so that you don’t get steam into the bowl, as this can make the chocolate become dull-looking and stiff. Keep stirring all the time and let the chocolate melt slowly, then remove the bowl from the heat and pour it onto your marble or baking tray, spreading it out with a palette knife to about 2mm thick (no thinner, or it won’t roll).
Leave at room temperature until set, but not completely hard, then take a wide spatula or metal scraper and push it through the chocolate. The further you do so the more the chocolate will roll up into curls and ‘pencils’.
You can achieve easy, eye-catching patterns on tops of cakes and mousses, or fillings for éclairs, just by piping one of the creams here using different shapes and sizes of nozzle. The tiniest dot of coloured food paste added to your icing, but just streaked through rather than mixed in thoroughly, will give a two-tone effect.
As with choux pastry, the first thing to do is be comfortable with filling a piping bag (see here). Then experiment with different nozzles. I have a collection of metal ones, because when I first started baking these were the only ones available, and there is something quite pleasing and permanent about metal. However, metal nozzles can get squashed out of shape if you are not careful with them, whereas plastic ones tend to hold their form better. Both do a good job, though, so it is up to you which you go for. The more you try out different ones you will discover that just by moving your wrist differently, you can make all kinds of new shapes. It is difficult to give specific names to the nozzles I have used for the examples in the picture here, as each manufacturer tends to have their own, but below is a rough guide:
1. This shape, known as rosace, is made with a large star nozzle. You need to squeeze and turn the wrist quickly in an anti-clockwise direction.
2. This is a wide ribbon nozzle. The skill here is to start at the top and work downwards, moving the nozzle forwards and backwards, forwards and backwards, in a wave-like motion.
3. This shape is made using a small star nozzle with tiny ‘teeth’. Squeeze and lift up again straight away. The more pressure you use the bigger the shape.
4. A small petal nozzle can be used to create a single tear, or a woven effect. Start at the top and then move the nozzle repeatedly from right to left in a figure of 8.
5. A large plain nozzle can be used to make these shell-like shapes by squeezing and pressing downwards then dragging the nozzle slightly towards you.
6. A small shell nozzle can be piped in the same way as number 4 above.
