Pastry Building Blocks with Stephanie Hersh

Dates: Tuesday 10th January.

Regular Cost: $ 135.00

Earlybird: $ 120.00

Maximum class number: 12

Venue: Mt Hutt College. 

 

About the Course

This hands-on course will teach some of the "building blocks" that create a strong foundation for baking and pastry making. In the morning, participants will learn how to prepare beautiful and flavourful puff pastry dough and pate a choux cases. They will also master the tricks of preparing ganache, lemon curd and pastry cream. Then, after a lunch break, they can watch the magic as all the pieces are artistically put together to form impressive and delicious delicacies! This promises to be a fun and informative session and there will be recipes and a variety of filled and decorated pastries to take home.

About the Tutor

Stephanie Hersh was born in Newark, New Jersey USA. In 1983 she graduated from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA with a BA in Theatre/English/Anthropology and then went to study at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. During the two-year program, she worked a 5-month apprenticeship with Marcel Desauliners at the Trellis Restaurant in Williamsburg, VA. In 1985, she graduated from the CIA with an AOS for Culinary Arts, and she then moved to the Boston, Massachusetts area to work in a hotel restaurant.

While in Boston, she ran a small pastry/catering business and taught cooking classes to pre-school children. Stephanie also taught cake decorating and pastry classes to adults. In 1996 she received a Masters of Gastronomy from Boston University, and has given several lectures on Food History and the importance of Gastronomy.

Stephanie has been an active member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals for many years. She has participated at annual conferences – leading culinary excursions, participating on panel discussions, and serving on several committees. She received her CCP certification in 1999.

As a National Board Member of the American Institute of Wine & Food, Stephanie helped to form committees and set up planning to further the educational goals of the AIWF. She also taught pastry and baking courses to culinary students at Santa Barbara City College.

Stephanie's career path has spread in many directions, and she was thrilled to serve as the full-time Executive Personal Assistant to Julia Child from 1989 until Julia’s death in 2004. It was a very exciting and rewarding position, indeed! In August of 2004, the offices of Julia Child’s Kitchen were closed. Stephanie shifted to New Zealand, where she completed a graduate studies program at Canterbury University.

She now holds a GrDiTL for Primary School, and is teaching in the Christchurch area. It is her hope to be able to find a food technology teaching position so that she can continue to share her passion about all things culinary. In the meantime, she teachs occasional cooking classes for children and adults in the Christchurch, NZ area.