Natalie in Melbourne: Serge Alexandre's chocolate bonbons class

Sat 7/9/13

Yes, I'm back from Newcastle & family time to continue pursuing the dream. For those of you on face book, you would have seen my post from Wed 4/9/13. For those of you not on face book, the story goes...
on Wed morning I was handed the amazing opportunity of attending Savour's guest chef chocolate class, commencing the following day. Around 4 times a year, Savour invites guest chefs, generally from Europe, to come to Australia to teach classes & share their knowledge & expertise. Currently, the guest chef is Serge Alexandre from Belgium.
Belgium is renowned for their couverture chocolate & is home to the brand Callebaut, which is available in Australia & has even been introduced into supermarkets. Both Kirsten & Serge are ambassadors for Callebaut.
Serge Alexandre is a highly regarded chocolatier & patissier. In 2004, Serge Alexandre competed as a member of the Belgian pastry team in the World Pastry Team Champioships held in Las Vegas. This is the same year Kirsten competed in this competition with the Australian team & scored gold for her chocolates. The Belgian team, however, fared better than Team Oz, taking out the silver medal overall behind the Americans with gold. Serge also won the inaugural International Belgian Chocolate Award for his chocolates. This competition is now the World Chocolate Masters, which is due to be held at the end of October in Paris, with Deniz Karaca representing Australia. Serge is also an MOF (Meilleur Ouvrier de France), which is a prestigious French title awarded to outstanding artisans in their field, as judged through competition & is a title that is retained for life. This title is only awarded to native Frenchmen or artisans that have worked in France for a minimum of 5 years. Since these wins, Serge has been a jury member at championships. He now operates a pastry & chocolate shop in Belgium & a chocolate shop in Japan. He works alone & does 16 hour days, varying his shift times seasonally to carry out production at the optimal temperature for chocolate, as his premise is not air conditioned. He also produces macarons, entremets, petit gateaux, croissants & brioche.
I found him to be an extremely humble man considering the awards he has won. He considers fame a short-lived thing & that up & coming chocolatiers have more knowledge & skills than he had at his peak. He was extremely generous sharing his knowledge - everyone had a chance to try all the techniques. He believes that people need hands on experience to learn, rather than simply watching & was very patient. It was an amazing experience & I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity.
Serge's philosophy with regard to chocolates is simple flavours of supreme quality. He believes the flavour should be strong enough to be immediately recognisable. Along with the idea of simple flavours he believes a chocolate shouldn't contain a multitude of flavours, 3 at the most. Each flavour should dominate at a different time on the palette, along the principle of notes in wine or perfume.
So, what did we produce?

Photo: front row from L-R:

Coffee

Honey

Pistachio praline

Raspberry mint

Citrus with spices

Back row L-R:

Caramel passionfruit

Crunchy praline

Crispy 4 spice praline

Earl grey

Peanut

We also produced a curried hazelnut praline, cinnamon, a lemon hazelnut moulded chocolate & rochers (almond clusters) in dark, milk & white chocolate.

The texture of each chocolate was a standout, being smooth & rich & the flavours were strong & definitely recognisable, upholding his belief of instant recognition.