Tasting notes

Learning the art of perfect pastry

WHEN I ASK EXECUTIVE chef Jeanphilippe Blondet how many cheese

gougères are made every day at his restaurant, Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester, he answers in terms of baking trays. ‘We make 20 trays for each service,’ he says, which tots up to about 1,000 of the Gruyère puffs (a signature bite at the three-michelin-star restaurant on London’s Park Lane), made with choux pastry.

Otherwise known as pâte à choux, this is the dough behind eclairs, profiteroles and the gravity-defying

croquembouche, and it’s a patisserie discipline that is considered variously as fiendishly difficult (earning it an entire episode of Bake Off) and ‘one of the simplest things to make’ (thanks, Delia).

Certainly it is an art to master, requiring butter melted with water over heat to be beaten like mad with flour to a paste, then cooled slightly and beaten again with eggs to a glossy, pipeable mixture. Once baked, the pastry is light and dainty.

Blondet can even remember the first time he made choux, aged 14, at school. ‘I didn’t respect the recipe,’ he recalls, ‘but I practised a lot at home and, with a bit of magic, ended up with something very light and crispy.’

Blondet and Ducasse’s pastry chef, Thibault Hauchard, now teach others in the kitchen, and will share their expertise with the public in a one-off class. Guests will learn how to make the savoury gougères as well as chouquettes (a sweet version coated in coarse sugar), and choux au craquelin, featuring chocolate cream and a crumble top. Blondet will be, ‘making sure the process is perfect’. Success, surely, is a choux-in.

The Art of Choux, 29 October, £250pp; to book, call 020-7629 8866 or email alainducassereservations@ alainducasse-dorchester.com