Great British Chefs Masterclass

We recently had the pleasure of attending a Cooking Masterclass hosted by Great British Chefs, the first of a series they are running. The event took place at The Cookery School at Little Portland Street in London and was led by Graham Hornigold, Executive Pastry Chef of the Hakkasan Group. He was also accompanied by Daniel Pearse, Head Pastry Chef of Hakkasan London and his Sous Chef Juan Pablo Colubri.

It was a fantastic evening that brought together a selection of food bloggers, press and other members of the food industry to learn how some of Hakkasan’s classic desserts are created. The evening involved us helping to cook the dishes, in addition to watching the chefs demonstrate some key techniques. We also got to taste each of the dishes, which as a Kitchette (with a particularly sweet tooth) was obviously a very difficult task, but we took one for the team and tried them all.

The first dish, a delicious selection of mango treats, was designed to cleanse the palette from strong flavours, like chilli or strong cheese. Made up of mango crisps, fresh mango, mango purée, mango sorbet, sweet curry croutons and poached lime segments, it cleverly clears all savoury flavours from your palette; plus who knew curry and mango would make for a brilliant flavour combo?

Desserts - Great British Chefs Masterclass

Next we all got involved in the making of the lemon and sesame tart, we particularly liked the contrasting textures of this dish, combining a sesame sablé base and crisp meringue with a smooth lemon filling. This was followed by Graham’s personal favourite the rhubarb and custard, Hakkasan’s take on a classic crumble. The showstopper element of this dish was a white chocolate shell filled with custard, designed for the diner to crack open it cleverly adds to the complete dining experience.

The final dish (we ate a lot of dessert) was the apple tarte tatin. The chefs used a brilliant Korean machine to create lasagne style sheets of apple, which were then layered with caramel. This was another deliciously tasty dessert, but mainly we were excited about discovering this awesome gadget and now want one.

Overall the Great British Chefs Masterclass was a great evening that gave us an insight into how Graham and his team create their amazing dishes. Great British Chefs certainly kicked off their new series of events on a high (quite possibly of the sugar variety), and we look forward to trying out the recipes for friends and family.

You can view a short video from the night below, put together by Great British Chefs. To find out more about Great British Chefs Masterclasses visit their website.