I only realise how strange some things that I do are when I get strange looks from Mr NQN-and he himself had an oddball upbringing. Case in point, I was talking to Mr NQN and a friend.

“Well, you know like when you used to put freezer bags on your feet as a kid and try to pretend to go ice skating across the carpet in your bedroom…”

I looked up and they looked at each other heads and eyebrows cocked as in “Who’s the crazy over there?”. Well apparently they swore black and blue that they had never done that. Surely I can’t be the only one that did that can I? But apparently I was. I admit to a mild obsession with snow and ice, only really because we had none. Icebergs, snow and ice skating were all things that lucky kids got to see and do-never mind the fact that I hated the cold. But cold from a distance seemed much more appealing.

Are you as excited slash exhausted as I am that Christmas is coming up any day now? Or are you one of those fortunate ones that have pre-planned everything and for whom Christmas will be a breeze? Well this cake might be for those of you in both camps. Because while it looks terribly complicated, it is one of the best cakes to try for an introduction to cake making or if you are thinking to progress to making a round or square wedding or birthday cake.

The reason why is because a round or square cake needs to be absolutely level in all respects (using a spirit level is not uncommon). However, the iceberg is meant to look angular and you can actually never go wrong with any shape that you make for an iceberg. As Margie Carter points out, no two icebergs look like!

And she should know-she is the original co founder of Planet Cake (along with the fabulous Faye Cahill) and features in their current television series. She sold the business on to Paris Cutler who now owns Planet Cake. Margie now teaches at Whimsical Cakehouse which is also co-owned by former Planet Cake teacher Linda Harden. Phew, did you get that? Basically, that just means that they’re cake mad much like all of the other students at the class-I mean I thought I was a cake enthusiast but these people know everything about cakes. Thankfully they don’t make me feel silly if I don’t know as much as they do and are happy to share their knowledge.

One Saturday morning I made my way to Whimsical Cakehouse’s location in picturesque Dolan’s Bay. Set in a residential area with the waterfront as a sparkly background there are a maximum of eight students per class. Apart from their regular teachers they also bring out decorating superstars like Peggy Porschen, Kaysie Lackey, Jacqueline Butler and Debbie Brown who are coming out next year and who will teach students their secrets. Everything is provided including aprons and today we will learn how to construct an iceberg, ganache it and then place fondant on it and then use gum paste to create the adorable figurines-and I had no idea how I was going to make one of those penguins but they ended up being quite straightforward. Margie is instructing the class while Linda facilitates it or is the “kitchen fairy.”

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There’s only one thing that can provide comfort when you wake up at 8am on a cold, windy Sunday Spring morning. When you look over to see the glowing red numbers read 14 degrees and mumble “What happened to Spring?”. The normal instinct is to huddle under the covers with a loved one. However as my loved one Mr NQN was snatched from me at 3am that morning to go into work I consoled myself with my second loved one, chocolate at a chocolate class at Coco Chocolates newest chocolate school in Mosman.

I’m on my own driving and remarkably arrive incident free across the bridge at Middle Head just past the cafe at Burnt Orange. There are a range of buildings and the Coco Chocolate school and “cellar door” is located at number 21 which faces the carpark. On a sunny day (not today) the lawn area outside is where kids can play and should you want to while away the hours and nibble on chocolate coated strawberries, a glass of Bollinger champagne will set you back a mere $28!

As Mr NQN was called in for work, I asked his sister Amaya if she wanted to join me at the chocolate class and delighted, she accepted. It’s raining heavily in fat hard drops or even horizontally at times and yet all five of us students can’t imagine spending this rainy spring day anywhere else. We start off with a hot chocolate (or coffee or tea but really, who is going to say no to a hot chocolate?).

Nutmeg hot chocolate

I choose the fragrant nutmeg hot chocolate to take the cold edge off the day. Today’s class is an all day class and on the last Sunday every month Rebecca Kerswell the owner of Coco Chocolates who has two boutiques in Sydney and two in the U.K. and are the exclusive chocolatiers to Harvey Nichols and Jenner’s in Scotland. And interestingly, Jenner’s said no to a Haggis chocolate but they’re working on bringing one out here instead! There are all day classes on the last Thursday and Sunday of each month and half day classes are on the last Wednesday and Fridays of the month (except December for both class types). Today’s class is a level 1 class where we cover hand tempering, an almost lost technique of tempering couverture chocolate. The children’s classes are held every Tuesday during school holidays.

The next level 2 to be held around Christmas (dates to be announced) sounds very exciting as students will learn how to paint and decorate chocolates using a spray gun and cocoa butter as well as caramels and pralines and decorate the butterflies above! And the biggest hit of them all is the children’s classes where kids learn how to make chocolate freckles, frogs and chocolate nests with students as young as three years old. Although Rebecca tells us that one student asked to make the rose creams and told her that she only liked dark chocolate!

Rebecca started her career as a chocolatier ten years ago and studied at the Valrhona school for chocolate in Lyon. Hand tempering on marble (nor granite as many kitchens use) is somewhat of a dying art. At a Manchester chocolate festival they asked people how many hand temper and only three people put up their hand. Most places temper chocolate using large machines. Here at Coco, she hand tempers and uses single origin Valrhona chocolate and organic ingredients.

Cocoa beans come from a cacao tree which can grow anywhere but only bears fruit 20 degrees either side of the equator.  The pods are roughly the size of a football and inside the cocoa pod the cocoa beans are encased in a sweet, white coating. Larger companies simply wash off this coating but the coating apparently has a wonderful pineapple and honey flavour to it and they sometimes makes liqueur from it. Ideally, for a wonderful tasting chocolate, they steep the cocoa beans in the white coating and allow the sugars from the coating to infuse into the beans giving it a sweet flavour. And once this is done the best way to dry the cocoa beans is in the sun although many places use something similar to a big air dryer.

The next process that amalgamates everything together is called conching. It is the most expensive process in chocolate production as they pay per hour for the conching process which is the mixing process that ensures that the chocolate has a smooth finish. Cheaper chocolate  is conched for only five hours whereas more expensive chocolate is conched for a period of three days. Conching brings the particle sizes down so the cheaper chocolates are grainier whereas the more conching is done, the finer the chocolate. And it is called conching because originally the paddles that used to mix everything were shaped like conch shells although they are no longer shaped that way.

Cocoa nibs

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When I told Mr NQN that we were attending a Barilla cooking class he answered “Oh cool, am I teaching it?” You see whenever I go away my darling husband subsists solely on Barilla pasta and sauce. Every night he sticks his hand into the box of goodies that Barilla have kindly supplied him with and picks out a pasta and sauce. So he considers himself a bit of an expert cook as far as pasta cooking is concerned (and yes I know, it’s just boiling water and adding pasta and then sauce but let’s not ruin the moment for him please? ).

Chef Luca Ciano

We arrive at the Annandale location where pictures of Barilla’s chefs line the walls. Each class has a maximum of 16 students with ours having 12. There is antipasto and a glass of Prosecco waiting for us and the class goes for 2.5 hours. Each class has a theme and because Easter is almost upon us, tonight’s theme is Easter with dishes such as torta pasquilina (egg pie), pappardelle pasta with goat ragu & chestnuts and colomba with mascarpone & brandy cream.

The chef Luca Ciano who greets everyone with his friendly and personable manner tells us that he will be demonstrating one dish (which we will be eating) and then demonstrating two others which we will then go back to our benches to recreate. He tell us that in Italy, Easter is second only to Christmas in popularity. Eggs and roasted lamb or goat are common elements there (lamb as a symbol of birth and the shepherd) and the official Easter cake is the Eastern Dove or Colomba which represents peace.

Luca who goes back home to Italy twice a year to keep abreast of trends, starts off by showing us how to make a ragu. Now being a Barilla class they do talk about their product but this is actually the only recipe that they give that has Barilla products. And Mr NQN gets a bit nervous as the poor dear honestly thought that we were going to a class where we boiled pasta and put the sauce on top. I know, you can laugh, I did!

Here the two products that they use are the Napoletana sauce which has been cooked down and he tells us is made of 100% Italian tomatoes and the egg pappardelle. He starts off with the soffritto base which is made up of onions, garlic and carrots and provide a base for the sauce. A ragu can cook for hours if you start the sauce from scratch but he tells us that this recipe can be done and dusted within an hour.

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