Le Cordon Bleu-trained pastry chef and expat Molly Wilkinson has relocated to Versailles from Strasbourg and is dreaming up new opportunities for those of you in Paris interested in baking.
Join her at her 19th-century Versailles apartment and master the art of French pastries. This is all about the experience … and acquiring new skills.
Not convinced? Check out the elegant recipes on her Molly J. Wilk website, and on Instagram.
• Bastille Day Creampuff Workshop
Saturday, 13 July, 1:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Versailles
What you will learn:
- The ins and outs of Pate a Choux
- Piping techniques
- How to make pastry cream
- The different ways to flavor pastry cream – we’ll make vanilla, blueberry, and raspberry
- Chantilly Cream
- Decorating and filling cream puffs
- Tips for how to change the base recipe to make gougeres
- How to make chouquettes
MAXIMUM NUMBER OF STUDENTS: FIVE
CLASS LENGTH: 3.5 HOURS
PRICING: 120 EUROS/PERSON
From Molly:
Do you hear the French National anthem? Well, I’ll be playing it at least once during this class and turning up all the good French tunes. Grab your beret, a striped shirt, and maybe a mustache if you’re feeling it, and allons-y let’s celebrate France (1 day early)!!
Light as a cloud and so decadent: Cream puffs with fresh berries from the market and a sprinkle of gold luster dust.
Pâte á Choux is an interesting hot pastry dough. It’s actually made in a saucepan! We’ll pipe our own cream puffs and learn the tips and tricks of baking these beauties for a cooked through, golden brown, puff, just ready for a gorgeous filling. And oui oui it is! We’ll make vanilla bean, blueberry, and raspberry pastry creams to pipe on the inside. Then it’s all about the decorating with fresh berries, luscious whipped Chantilly cream and of course sprinkling on some beautiful edible flowers for that finishing touch.
We’ll also dabble in chouquettes, one of my favorite treats. These one-bite wonders are like eating sugar clouds. Boy are they good!!
The class will end with styling and a photo session and of course a tasting! As we devour our treats, we’ll sip Marie Antoinette tea made from produce from the King’s Royal Kitchen Garden (Potager du Roi) located just around the corner.
After class, I’d suggest wandering around the city for a bit, and then going to the Chateau for the evening musical fountain show that’s followed by fireworks. A perfect magical end to the day!
Everyone is encouraged (not obligatory at all) to dress in your favorite French attire. Beret optional.
Each student will go home with a box of their creations and the recipes.
About Molly Wilkinson:
Ever attracted to all things sweet, Molly left her marketing career in Texas to become a certified pastry chef at Le Cordon Bleu Paris in 2013. She worked for several pastry shops in Texas including Bisous Bisous Patisserie, voted best bakery in Dallas in 2015, before returning to France.
Since then she has helped open a Mexican restaurant (her other love) and worked at Chateau de Gudanes.
Molly’s classes are located between the Versailles Chateau gates and the Rive Gauche Versailles train station, about a 5-minute walk from each (and only 30 minutes from the Eiffel Tower).
Molly is also a pastry chef for hire, traveling to events to do the pastries. If you have a wedding or event in France or elsewhere, contact her at: [email protected]
She also posts her recipes on Facebook, which you can see here.
You can see her Dispatches post here on how she got the Profession Libéral visa in France.
