In my opinion “Would you like a glass of champagne?” are the perfect words to hear at any time of day or night, and hearing them at 11am when at a class at Jean-Christophe Novelli’s cookery school was perfection indeed.
The school is located in Jean’s home, a stone’s throw from Luton Airport, the kitchen is the same one that he and his family cook and eat in every day around the huge bright yellow range. Considering the proximity to the airport it is remarkably quiet, I barely heard a plane. It was a remarkable day, 3 students and 3 chefs with lots and lots of hands on tuition.
Fortified with champagne, it was time to get down to the serious business of making some puddings to go with some of the many flavours of Carte D’Or.
We started with caramel, just sugar and water, for many deceptively simple, but fraught with difficulties – the basic rules are go slowly, do not stir and have a large basin of cold water handy.
After 15 mins one to one tuition with Jean, I was making baskets and spirals like a pro, a new and valuable skill. He also suggested flavouring caramel with a variety of aromatic spices, such as star anise, cardamom, vanilla and liquorice, which add another dimension of flavour.
For someone as passionate about his puds as Jean, he is also remarkably health conscious, we were shown some quick tricks to reduce butter and fat in several dishes, without compromising the taste in the slightest, my chocolate pots below were inspired by him.
Following the caramel I was set to work with puff pastry, making both apple and banana tart tartins, and was given a masterclass in sweet short crust. My pastry confidence has grown ten fold, due to engaged and interested teaching.
After a hard morning’s work, made easier by the freely flowing champagne, we sat down for a late lunch, delicious honey and cider caramalised pork belly with winter greens and gratin dauphinoise.
Puddings were accompanied by Carte d’Or ice cream. Delicious.
If picture tells a thousand words ,then a video tells several thousand more. So here is a quick film of the day! All the recipes shown can be found here.
Recipe: Healthier* Chocolate Pots
These chocolate pots use the last of the Christmas chocolates and cream.
A useful trick that I learnt from J-CN is that when making a chocolate pot you do not need to use 100% cream. Thin it down with some milk.
*Although I am calling these healthier, it may be more accurate to call them “not quiet as bad for you as they could be!”
Makes 4 Espresso Cup Sized Pots
50ml Milk
100g (Left Over) Chocolates – finely chopped
100ml Double CreamHeat the milk in a small pan until it is just simmering. Allow to cool slightly. Add the chocolate. Leave for a 5 minutes to melt the chocolate. Stir, and if needed gently heat to finish melting.
Allow to cool until just warm and stir in the cream. Mix well.
Pour into serving pots and chill for a few hours before serving.
The texture will vary according to the consistency of both the chocolate and cream.
Fuss Free Flavours was the guest of Carte D’Or. Many thanks to them and Jean, Trish & Felice for an amazing day.
Sending the slightly healthier chocolate pots to this month’s We Should Cocoa, where the theme is healthy! 
And Turquoise Lemon’s no waste food challenge where this month’s theme is cream.
I attended a Carte d’Or event at Jean-Christophe’s lovely farmhouse a while ago, and really enjoyed it. We made a range of desserts during our session, which we enjoyed after a delicious savoury lunch that had been cooking during the dessert-making. We did some sugar work, just basics and making spirals, but I think J-C was surprised at how thrilled we all were to learn this, so very cool that you did spun sugar baskets etc. too. The school’s a handy location for me, as I grew up in Luton and my parents are still there. Lovely rural location, surprising given how near to airport it is, no?
It is an amazing location, and so quiet considering how close to the airport it is. Remarkably quick to get to London too.
Helen, what is a left-over chocolate?
That is a good question. I actually bought them reduced in Waitrose!
Aw I feel I missed out by not going now – I do think it’s amusing you have an ad featuring JCN for Flora in your sidebar at same time although this is no doubt complete coincidence?!
I am sure there will be other opportunities to go Sarah! I’ve got the same ad. JCN does seem very health aware so I am sure he does really believe in and endorse Flora!
I’m so jealous! Sounds like an absolutely amazing day – I agree, anything that starts with a glass of champagne is going to be good :-)
Love the look of those chocolate pots too – I’ve got a whole box of Christmas tree chocolates that we didn’t eat (they were hidden in a cupboard under the stairs until after Christmas, it wasn’t us being restrained!) so it’s the perfect recipe!
I want to try the pots with choc covered caramels, I think they should taste amazing!
Holy moly – is his eye-liner tattooed on?! ;o) Love the caramel baskets. Looks like a fab day, especially for that pork belly!
The pork was amazing! And yes, more eye liner than I wear. Although he always wears it when being filmed apparently!
Ooh pure deliciousness. I mean the ice-cream of course. I couldn’t go to this either and was gutted as Luton is just down the road, so JC and I are practically neighbours! He he, I hadn’t noticed the eye-liner till it was mentioned, I was concentrating on the caramel baskets of course! Great video too, looks like a fun day, x
Sadly the video was not editted by me. I completely lack the skillz (and Mac and professional software).
What a wonderful day Helen!
It was such fun, great times and delicious food.
Looks like an amazing day!! Love the sugar work – have always wanted to learn. Great video too. Thanks for the tip about making healthier chocolate pots.
Once you get the caramel right the baskets are not too hard. Just lightly oil the ladle first.
Very jealous Helen!! Looks like an amazing day and bet you learnt so much
Lucky you Helen! Loved the video and what a great entry for Kate’s ingredient challenge too!
Lovely to meet you again the other day and what a wonderful lunch too.
Karen
PS: I am telling all my lovely friends who have me and my blog either listed on their sidebars or on their dashboards, that they need to change the url to http://lavenderandlovage.com now so you get all my latest posts and are up to date! Thanks! XXXX
What a fab day, Helen! Looks like lots of fun and very informative.
I’m going to try your chocolate pot recipe this weekend
Charlotte
Love the sound of the ‘slightly healthier’ pots, great use of leftover xmas choccies too!
Sounds like a fabulous day. How wonderful to get one-to-one tuition. And I’m very envious of your caramel basketing skills. The video was fun too – now learnt what a ladle is really for ;-)
WSC chocolate pots look really good and I do like that little cup and saucer. Thanks for participating.
I would love to try making sugar baskets. Thank you for the tip to water down the milk and for sharing this simple yet super yummy looking recipe.
Give them a go Kate, once you have the caramel right it is not that hard! Just a little sticky!