Teaches French Pastry Fundamentals

Dominique Ansel

Meet your new instructor: James Beard Award-winning pastry chef Dominique Ansel. Step into Chef Dominique’s bakery as he shares his vision for the class—to teach you the fundamentals of pastry and a curated selection of stunning desserts.

Introduction

Learn Chef Dominique’s unlikely path from a working-class town in Northern France to the pastry kitchen of a Michelin-starred Manhattan restaurant—and finally—his very own bakery.

Dominique’s Journey: Beauvais, Boulud, and the Bakery

Chef Dominique believes that there is a precise moment in which a dessert is at its best. Learn how to make mini madeleines, pillowy cakes that can be baked and served within five minutes—when they are at their peak.

Mini Madeleines

Chef Dominique teaches you how to make a vanilla sablé shell that serves as the base for a set of stunning fruit tarts in the chapters to come. Learn to fonçage and blind-bake pastry dough for a tart shell that serves as the optimal canvas for endless variation.

Fruit Tart Base: Vanilla Sablé Shell

Pastry cream is an indispensable part of a baker’s arsenal. Learn to make Chef Dominique's classic version, and how to apply the infusion technique to create complementary flavors.

Fruit Tart Filling: Pastry Cream

Chef Dominique teaches you to make a simplified strawberry jam that you’ll use as a robustly flavorful second filling in the strawberry fruit tart.

Fruit Tart Filling: Quick Strawberry Jam

For Chef Dominique, presentation is one of the most important elements in making pastries. Learn his techniques for selecting, slicing, and glazing fruit, and how to build a beautiful strawberry tart that will impress your family and friends.

Fruit Tart Finishing: Classic Strawberry Presentation

Chef Dominique demonstrates his creative methods for piping pastry cream and peeling apples, as well as how to incorporate color and pattern to assemble an apple tart that is as visually arresting as it is delicious.

Fruit Tart Finishing: Modern Apple Presentation

A favorite of Chef Dominique's, biscuit is a French-style sponge cake that is light and gluten-free. Learn Chef’s tips for mixing, baking, and cutting perfect biscuit layers that will be used to build a delectable chocolate mousse cake.

Chocolate Cake Base: Biscuit

Learn Chef Dominique’s method for making light and airy meringue and his technique for piping wonderfully crunchy meringue kisses. These mini meringues will be used in Chapter 12: Chocolate Cake Finishing.

Chocolate Cake Accent: Swiss Mini Meringues

Chef Dominique’s silky dark chocolate mousse relies on smooth ganache and lightly-whipped cream. Learn his techniques for perfectly textured mousse that can be enjoyed on its own or as a layer for chocolate cake.

Chocolate Cake Filling: Mousse

Learn how to assemble the cake, coat it with a stunning, slate-black mirror glaze, and top it with mini meringues for a finished dessert as intricate as it is whimsical.

Chocolate Cake Finishing: Assembly & Presentation

Chef Dominique demystifies tempered chocolate by demonstrating two techniques that result in chocolate bonbon shells with a magnificently glossy finish.

Bonbon Base: Tempered Chocolate Shell

Learn how to make creamy, rich ganache that can be infused with flavors—like the banana-passionfruit variation in this chapter. Then, learn how to fill, cap, and unmold perfect bonbons.

Bonbon Filling: Dark Chocolate and Banana Passionfruit Ganache

What the omelet is to savory chefs, the croissant is to pastry chefs. Learn the techniques that make for golden, flaky croissants – like dough lamination and making starter – and watch as Chef analyzes croissants from his team around the globe.

The Perfect Croissant

Dominique takes you inside his New York bakery to share the origin story of the dessert that launched a thousand imitations – the croissant-meets-donut mashup Chef coined the Cronut® – and how you can use emotion to create your own memorable pastries.

Case Study: The Cronut®

Chef Dominique concludes his MasterClass by showcasing some of his most inventive creations from Dominique Ansel Bakery and leaves students with parting words of encouragement and inspiration.

Thinking Creatively About Pastry

Dominique Ansel Teaches French Pastry Fundamentals

Observing pastry perfection

Find the right fruit for the job

How to break from tradition

Whip your cream carefully

The keys to cake aesthetics

Why chocolate and water do not mix

The many layers of a croissant

Chocolate Mirror Glaze

Gain new skills
in 10 minutes.

Unlimited access to 180+ classes
delivered in bite-sized lessons.

Teaches Cooking I

Gordon Ramsay

Gordon Ramsay Teaches Cooking I

Teaches Cooking Techniques

Thomas Keller

Teaches Cooking Techniques I: Vegetables, Pasta, and Eggs

Thomas Keller Teaches Cooking Techniques

Teaches The Art of Home Cooking

Alice Waters

Teaches the Art of Home Cooking

Alice Waters Teaches The Art of Home Cooking

Teaches Cooking

Wolfgang Puck

Wolfgang Puck Teaches Cooking

Teaches Cooking II: Restaurant Recipes at Home

Gordon Ramsay Teaches Cooking II: Restaurant Recipes at Home

Teaches Cooking Techniques II: Meats, Stocks, and Sauces

Thomas Keller Teaches Cooking Techniques II: Meats, Stocks, and Sauces

Teaches Wine Appreciation

James Suckling

James Suckling Teaches Wine Appreciation

Teaches Bread Baking

Apollonia Poilâne

Apollonia Poilâne Teaches Bread Baking

Teaches Texas-Style BBQ

Aaron Franklin

Aaron Franklin Teaches Texas-Style BBQ

Teaches Modern Italian Cooking

Massimo Bottura

Massimo Bottura Teaches Modern Italian Cooking

Teaches Cooking Techniques III: Seafood, Sous Vide, and Desserts

Thomas Keller Teaches Cooking Techniques III: Seafood, Sous Vide, and Desserts

Teaches Mexican Cooking

Gabriela Cámara

Gabriela Cámara Teaches Mexican Cooking

Teach Mixology

Lynnette Marrero & Ryan Chetiyawardana

Lynnette Marrero & Ryan Chetiyawardana Teach Mixology

Teaches Modern Middle Eastern Cooking

Yotam Ottolenghi

Yotam Ottolenghi Teaches Modern Middle Eastern Cooking

Teaches Gardening

Ron Finley

Ron Finley Teaches Gardening

Teaches Modern Japanese Cooking

Niki Nakayama

Niki Nakayama Teaches Modern Japanese Cooking

Teaches Southern Cooking

Mashama Bailey

Mashama Bailey Teaches Southern Cooking

Teaches Indian Cooking

Madhur Jaffrey

Madhur Jaffrey Teaches Indian Cooking

Teaches Intuitive Cooking

Roy Choi

Roy Choi Teaches Intuitive Cooking

Teaches Tracing Your Roots Through Food

Michael W. Twitty

Michael W. Twitty Teaches Tracing Your Roots Through Food

Teaches Modern Vegetarian Cooking

Dominique Crenn

Dominique Crenn Teaches Modern Vegetarian Cooking

Teaches Intentional Eating

Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan Teaches Intentional Eating

The Greatest of All Time

GOAT