Not even the dampening, miserable weather could put a lid on my enthusiasm for today. For today was the day that I was to meet and attend a cooking lesson held by Adriano Zumbo, creator of the most sublime cakes. Held as part of the Balmain Rozelle Food Week (April 21-27) this Wednesday night Adriano held just two classes for some very lucky people.
The elusive Adriano Zumbo
Trained in Paris at Ecole Lenotre, Adriano has also represented Australia in the Wold Cup of Patissier, the “Coup de Monde de la Patissier” and the “Chocolate Masters” yet those of us that await his new season’s creations like eager groupies at his small but perfectly formed patisserie only know of his friendly staff, as Adriano himself remains an elusive character. Not so tonight.
The recipe
It’s wet and rainy this Wednesday night at 6pm yet there are 20 eager students huddled in the entranceway. Each one is given a clean tea towel and apron as tonight’s class, Gateaux de Voyage is a hands on class making a coconut and coriander cake as well as a tart filled with caramel, lemon curd, praline feulletine noisette and topped with chocolate mousse and chocolate swirls. In the flesh, Adriano is much younger than you’d expect. I pictured an older grumpy but tortured egotistical artistic genius but he a young, smiling and modest guy with an eyebrow and upper ear piercing who looks like he’d be right at home at a music festival or sitting at an inner city cafe. The crowd tonight is a fairly even mix of women and men, some couples, some mums and daughters, even two of my old university professors are there and of course food lovers and I’m chuffed to hear that some are NQN readers-hello!
Adriano asks everyone to introduce themselves and explain what they do for a living to break the ice. After that, people group off into 4 groups of 5 people, each team making their own coconut and coriander cake and then making parts of the multi layered tart.
The first supply to materialise is an enormous hunk of butter on a blue plastic sheet – a good 50cm cube which was taken to with a large knife by the various groups to get their supply. I am somewhat fascinated by this enormous chunk of butter-I realise too fascinated when I get home and realise that I’ve taken 7 pictures of said hunk of butter.
Yes another pic, but it was huge!
Supply room
For the rest of the ingredients they are directed to the storeroom, a neatly stacked and ordered room.
Gordon Ramsay would be proud
There’s also a sign reminding everyone of cleaning standards, something Gordon Ramsay would only be too proud of.
I also see the beginnings of the famous Miss Marple crepe cake!
Everyone starts mixing and beating and I survey the kitchen. Adriano and his team of 4 is on hand to give advice and to ensure that everyone is following the directions that they’ve been given. Bowls are passed out and everyone is busy busy busy.
I look around and notice all of the equipment. There’s a thing that looks like a linen press or a piece of gym equipment which I am told is a pastry machine which stretches and rolls pastry. There are also three Kitchenaids of the heavy duty variety and another large mixer. At one end of the room is a huge prover set at 32 degrees for dough and at the other end two multi tiered ovens.
There’s also a huge dough mixer and I also see the enormous dough hooks that go with it.
I ask Adriano how his inspiration process works and he explains that he is at first struck with inspiration for a look which he then pairs with a list he has of flavours that he feels will work well together. Inspiration can come from anything and everything and of course like a writer or an artist, when he wants inspiration, it refuses to come. He is never short of ideas though, hence his being able to come with up a new collection every 3 or 6 months and his next collection for Winter may be out in June this year. And for those of you who want to see a cake runway show, do go to the Adriano Zumbo Appreciation Society Facebook page. When he feels that he has enough people interested, he will do one!
Tonight, they’re making two variations of the cake, a coconut and coriander butter cake and a lime and basil butter cake. Adriano shows a lady how to roll up the basil leaves together in order to cut them easier.
Buttering tins
Dusting with shredded coconut
Filled with cake mix
The mix for the cake is almost done and the tins are buttered and then dusted with shredded coconut and then filled before being popped in the oven.
Now onto the tarts! The first step is to make the caramel, lemon curd and the chocolate caramel mousse. It turns out that the chocolate caramel mousse didn’t quite come together so a fast chocolate mousse was used instead. Whilst each group does a different filling, one group starts trimming the ready rolled uncooked pastry. These are then filled with liners and then pie weights and baked dark until beautifully crispy. And I do love these tarts shells more than a person should love pastry.
One of the things that most Zumbo lovers appreciate is his attention to detail and his unfailing refusal to use the same details or decorations across his cakes. Indeed it is astounding how many individual components are made to create one single cake, at least 5 or 6, let alone the range of cakes that his patisserie produces. Ever since my first try, I’ve been hooked on the look and the taste of these fabulous creations.
Using the heat gun
So it’s with fascination that we watch Adriano create the chocolate swirls – the flourish to top off the tart. The whole process to make the 16 or so swirls takes about an hour from start to finish yet his patience is unwavering in the pursuit of the perfect flourish. It starts with heating the chocolate and getting it to the correct temperature. Adriano heats it to 50 degrees then drops it by 23 degrees, he of course knows this by feel and by instinct but most of us would be doing this by the thermometer. he’s looking for the perfect “crack”when the chocolate breaks with a glossy finish. When the chocolate needs more melting, he uses the heat gun again.
After that he sprays large sheet of acrylic with the coloured sprays, a relatively new product from France which is a huge time saver in his kitchen. Adriano says that Paris is is really the place to go to learn about the craft although there is a cooking school in Chicago run by two French chefs that also does an excellent job.
Once dry, these are then cut into strips
He then dollops a measure of melted chocolate and then using a comb runs it through touching the acrylic to make the lines.
He lifts it off and then semi dries it .
Each piece is then cut in half and twirled around and let to set in the fridge into a curl shape.
The tarts are then filled firstly with the liquidey caramel, then a light sprinkle of salt flakes, and then the praline disc.
They are then filled with lemon curd.
And then topped with piped chocolate mousse before receiving their last flourish-the chocolate swirls!
We learn that these tarts are a one off not sold in the store and created specially for tonight’s event which makes these delicious morsels even more special. One bite into the crunchy crust and praline, sweet caramel but tangy with lemon and dark chocolate I’m reminded again of how much I love the textural and flavour balance of Zumbo cakes. And when we hear the pop of champagne corks and are handed some bubbly, suddenly everything gets even sweeter.
The cakes are cut up and everyone takes pieces of the cakes and tarts home in a large white cake box. Everyone thanks Adriano and his lovely team for having us, it seems we are all happier for the glimpse into the Zumbo kitchen and to meet the man himself and his team.
For more events see the Balmain Rozelle Food Week program guide here (pdf).
To visit and join the Adriano Zumbo Appreciation Society Facebook page, click here.
To download the recipes click Adriano Zumbo Coconut and Coriander cake or Adriano Zumbo chocolate caramel lemon tart
Adriano Zumbo
296 Darling Street
Balmain NSW
Tel: +61 (02) 9810-7318
Open: 8am-6pm Mon-Sat
8am-4pm Sunday
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25 Comments | Add your own
lucky lucky lucky you! THe man makes masterpieces! I’m back to syd on Tuesday and after this week’s dramas (car accident and graduate apps) I think i deserve an Adriano Zumbo treat! Would have loved to sink my teeth into that tart! And something about that butter just makes me want to grab a knife and spread my toast with it. Yummy stuff. Thanks NQN!
How lucky! Getting to go behind the scenes to see such delicious cakes being made!
Yes, lucky you! I stumbled into his patisserie by chance when I was up in Sydney and loved it. If I lived up there, I’d sign up for that class in a heartbeat – and not just because AZ is a total spunk!
Hi Maria-He certainly does and I was really impressed with the fact that he spent an hour just getting one decoration right. That’s dedication! I hope you’re ok?! A car accident is an awful thing to go through so definitely give yourself a Zumbo treat. As for the butter, that was way more interesting than a hunk of butter should be but I think it was just so iceberg like I was fixated
Hi Cappucino-I did feel very lucky indeed! It was like being invited into a couturier’s workshop!
Hi Mutemonkey-Haha I think a few of the mums were interested in Adriano for their daughters. One managed to suss out that he didn’t have a wife…
Hi Lorraine – it was a fascinating night, wasn’t it? I love the detail in your photos and that you got Adriano’s thought process on paper. The chocolate mousse on my tarts has collapsed the morning after, but it is still so yummy. Must sign up for facebook now!
Excellent write up! Very insightful, and nice photos. Funny that you were fascinated by the block of butter. That blue plastic makes me flinch whenever I see it. I used to have to cut up blocks like that (they’re 25kg) for the hot section to make their mash with (due to some weird twist of logic, because it was a dairy product, it was the job of the pastry section to cut it up!). They went through a lot of butter!
Hi NQN. You inspired me to look up AZ’s website and thought you might like to know he has linked your past review in the media section. Congrats & love the reviews
Hi belle-Thanks! I thought I should ask him as much as I could as I didn’t know if I’d get to speak to him again as he’s never in the shop. I was luckier with the mousse, it was fine, I stuck it towards the back of the fridge where it was colder and it was good. And a great thing to eat for breakfast too
Hi Y-Thanks! I’ve never seen a hunk of butter that big. Ahhh ok 25kg is it? It doesn’t sound like you have very fond memories of the blue wrapped butter which I suppose you wouldn’t if you had to cut it up day after day. I’m sure the novelty of it would wear off for me then too!
Hi H-Yes it’s great, I saw it and was very excited to see that. Thankyou and do visit his store if you get the chance. It’s well worth it for the drool factor alone!
I can’t believe I missed such a great opportunity! I had no idea there was this class going. But thank you for your brilliant reportage. I love those chocolate curls!!
Hi Lori-I almost missed it myself! You’re more than welcome, I knew that people would be interested to see how it all works there. The curls were so time consuming but spectacular!
sorry, what do those sprays do?
Hi NQN! I was at the same course as you! *gasps* I had sooo much fun and just felt like a little sponge the whole night just soaking up his knowledge and thought process behind it all..AND….HE WAS SO NICE!!! Like you I was anticipating a grumpy artistic genius behind his creations but was so pleasantly suprised! mind you…I’ve never been to his store (a mortal sin according to many of the Zumbo followers I met on the night!) and only just happened across learning about the course (I have no idea why but I was on the Balmain Chamber of Commerce website…my eyes drew to “food week”…I think this generally happens to people remotely interested in the foodie world…then saw Patisserie course and thought oh that so sounds like my kind of night!)..after finding out about it I did a quick google on Zumbo which lead me to your site…next on my list is to try and recreate that gorgeous passionfruit tart..mind you…i still must visit the store!
Would love to put them in an album!
Love the photos too! Any chance I can get my hands on some of those??
this looks like it was so fun and so delicious, would LOVE to go to something like it…wonder if they have classes like that here! that tart looks sublime. i love the combination of flavours…so unexpected but suddenly making my mouth water quite uncontrollably. wonderful!
Hi Hayley-the sprays would colour the chocolate that you melt and dry against it. However since we used dark chocolate, it didn’t really show up. It would work on white chocolate better.
Hi Catherine-Hello fellow class goer! You’ll love his store, I’m going there shortly to order some cakes for my birthday. It’s fairly small but it has the most beautiful collection of cakes!
Sure, if you click on the images, you’ll get a larger image and that should be printable quality!
Hi airy fairy-If your favourite patissier doesn’t hold classes, perhaps you could ask them if they would?
Yes I am always so pleasantly surprised by his flavour combinations. They’re always so harmonious and delectable!
At last, I get to this post!
What an experience!
I’d be taking pictures of that butter too!
I went to the post you linked to.. when you were choosing cakes in the shop. I don’t know how you did it?! Just too many delights and works of art and cake descriptions that read like unimaginable delights!
I’ve always wanted to take a “master class”.. or some kind of famous chef class, but never have. I guess it’s a cost I’d have to budget for.
I must admit I was curious about the outcome/taste of those “one off” cakes. I was wondering how all of those flavours would work together.. but you seemed to think it was a hit! I was enthralled by how those chocolate curls were made (with the colours).
The cake tins look the same as my banana loaf tin.. or very similar.. so now I believe the label that said it was a “professional” tin.
What a bonus to take home some goodies. Did they taste ok the next day and the next?
Thanks for giving us this special window into the kitchen of Adriano Zumbo! Great you had a good time
Hi Maria-I admit I am a butter fetishist. I just love the flavour of butter. It’s so hard choosing cakes there, the easiest thing is to just get one of everything but that would be to the bank balance’s detriment.
I was comforted to see others having the same dilemma when I went in the store last weekend. I usually think of myself as fairly decisive but I’m a dithering fool when I get in there.
Yes the professional tins are so sturdy, I have only one professional tin and it’s batterproof!
They did taste great for a few days afterwards. I guess because we were getting them as soon as they were made
I had a great time, thankyou!
Ilove cooking.I want learn acooking because i
I’m so greedy I wish I signed up for this one too. I went to the 2nd one which was fabulous…I wonder if we were using the same block of butter…
Hi zaki-Cool!
Hi Nat-Hehe I wish I went to all of them quite honestly
Did you make something different? I think the first day was jam making. Hehe I don’t know how much butter was left. I hope the whole block wasn’t used on just ours! 
I leave in egypt ana I want learn acook because love cook
So how does one score a chance to learn from him? Seriously..
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