Aleksandr nenoglyadov
Confectionery courses: pros and cons
There are hundreds of courses available, but one thing is not clear: do they worth their price or not?
Today, I would like to talk about confectionery courses. As you know, they exist in different formats: online and offline master classes, books, videos, and many others. The most popular are video courses with time-limited access and master classes with 1-2 days of hands-on practice. Prices for the latter can be mind-blowing though. If the author is a well-known pastry chef, it can cost you a minimum of $500-$1000 for a 2-day master class to learn how to make ganaches or a few bonbon designs.
Do they worth their price? As you might guess there is no obvious answer, but I would like to share my point of view, so you can decide yourself, what is the best option for you.
I have only one advice: be careful and avoid useless ones
Not every single course is good for you. You might have seen that some chefs draw your attention to courses with fancy techniques, such as applying difficult designs on your bonbons using colored cocoa butter. Though it might look attractive, it makes no sense in real business. Let me explain from my personal experience.
When it comes to big orders and small production capacity (especially if you work from home), it's impossible to spend a lot of time applying difficult designs on your chocolate moulds. Usually, you have 3-7 days to finish an order. You have a limited number of moulds, you temper chocolate by hand, and your airbrush is not so powerful to paint quickly. If your design consists of 5 colors, it will take you forever to temper and apply each colored cocoa butter separately. What I have to do is to reduce the number of colors to 2-3, applying simple designs, such as gradients, which look pretty effective as well if the colors are bright and the cocoa butter was tempered correctly.
When it comes to big orders and small production capacity (especially if you work from home), it's impossible to spend a lot of time applying difficult designs on your chocolate moulds. Usually, you have 3-7 days to finish an order. You have a limited number of moulds, you temper chocolate by hand, and your airbrush is not so powerful to paint quickly. If your design consists of 5 colors, it will take you forever to temper and apply each colored cocoa butter separately. What I have to do is to reduce the number of colors to 2-3, applying simple designs, such as gradients, which look pretty effective as well if the colors are bright and the cocoa butter was tempered correctly.
One thing is for sure: you can achieve perfection in chocolate art on your own.
You see the point. Sometimes the price for the course is based on a beautiful picture, but not real value. Maybe you have already faced the same feelings. But you may ask what to do instead. How to learn? The good news is that if I, being a self-taught chocolatier, was able to run my own business and make huge orders for big companies, then you definitely can.
All you need: desire, chocolate, and the Internet (some books might be useful as well).
All you need: desire, chocolate, and the Internet (some books might be useful as well).
With a good level of motivation, you will achieve whatever you want
There is a ton of useful information about chocolate tempering, ganaches, and confectionery in general. Blogs are also a useful source of knowledge. And it's free. Once you get a theory, start practicing. Make mistakes, try to find information to understand why it happened, repeat. Plus, this way, your knowledge won't go anywhere over time. You will gain more persistent experience than with 2 days of master classes and save money on ganache courses.
I'm a big fan of new technologies and believe that good software can make the most of difficult work for us. That's why I constantly work on improving my recipe manager application along with modern AI features, such as ganache solution software, which is already much cheaper than any courses and brings much more value to any individuals or businesses.
That being said, spend your money wisely! A marble plate might be a better choice when it comes to spending money at the very beginning.
That being said, spend your money wisely! A marble plate might be a better choice when it comes to spending money at the very beginning.
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