Workshops — Boulangerie + Pâtisserie

Croissant Baking Class — Mastering the Art

Two hours, a very patient pastry chef, and a great deal of very good French butter.

The experience

More than a staple of daily life here, baking bread is a ritual – a symbol of the French way of living, and of eating, which UNESCO has seen fit to list as world heritage.

Today is really about the croissant – and its chocolate-stuffed cousin, the pain au chocolat.

In a professional pastry kitchen a few steps from the Champs-Élysées, the patient, friendly chefs at Studio Pâtisserie walk you through viennoiserie from the very beginning: the dough, made from scratch, and then lamination – that patient business of folding butter into pastry, over and over, until you have more layers than you’d care to count. Along the way you’ll learn why resting and proofing matter quite so much to flake, flavour, and rise (and why your last attempt at home may have come out a little flat).

The butter is AOP, which is to say protected by French law, and the chocolate is Valrhona. Neither is strictly necessary. Both make a difference you can taste. You leave with a box of warm croissants and pains au chocolat, a method you can actually repeat, and a new respect for your neighbourhood boulanger.

We fell in love with the baking workshops at Studio Pâtisserie after an afternoon spent making éclairs with our family, and couldn’t wait to share them with you. We love that their little locations evoke Parisian charm, tucked away from the crowds, and that the chefs have an illustrious background, having studied at Le Cordon Bleu.

The studio

A professional pastry kitchen housed in a little out-of-the-way alcove that evokes Parisian charm, a few minutes’ walk from the Champs-Élysées.

The ingredients

AOP butter, Valrhona chocolate. The good stuff, in other words.

The bake

Croissants and pains au chocolat, boxed and still warm.

The chef

A patient, friendly professional pâtissier, trained at Le Cordon Bleu, with experience in notable French kitchens.

Enquire

Hungry to learn?

Pick a date on the calendar, or tell us about your group for a private class.

Les infos