How Much Chocolate Can You Stand?

Valentines day is coming up and so instead of (....or in addition to) missing my significant other....I drown my sorrows by attending chocolate demonstrations.

So far, all of the "Cordon Bleu Invites" have been Chefs de Cuisine (though one brought a pastry chef with him). But today we had our first special presentation devoted to patisserie, or more specifically, to chocolat. First, let me swoon....voila is the picture of the chef.



Before I commit emotional infidelity, its not because he looks good. (He's married by the way) Its his COLLAR! His Collar? Most chefs have a simple white collar (see picture of me a while back). But Chef Bruno Lederf has a Blue White and Red collar...this unique collar signifies that he is L'un des Meilleurs Ouvriers de France (MOFs). This is roughly translated as "One of the Best Workers in France."

But being an MOF carries a lot of respect. There aren't that many of them (though, its a pretty big society since there are MOFs in almost all trades, like woodworking, architecture, and culinary arts) and the "final contests" to be elected into the society are held only once every 3 years. Julia Child described the title MOF as being a PhD in a trade, but really more selective since very few people are inducted into the society every 3 years.

So, long story short...I was next to culinary genius today.

Now for the yummy stuff.

Chef Lederf made:

Yusu Flavored Entremets (A fancy way of saying a citrus type flavored dessert) ~ 8 servings
Chocolate Candies (Bonbons de chocolat): Tender Passion ~12 servings
Chocolate Verrine, Tropical Caramel, and Piedmont Hazelnut Crisp ~20 servings

Before I go into the good part of all of these recipes I calculated some statistics for the 40 servings of desert...

There are:

1lb (More accurately 12 grams* per serving) - Sugar (in all its forms, including powdered and "inverted")

2.4 lb (More accurately 28 grams per serving) - Cream (in all its forms, including whipped and heavy)

1.8 lb (More accurately 21 grams per serving) - Chocolate (in all its forms, including cocoa powder)

* I know I'm switching from metric to english weights, but 1/40th of a pound just doesn't make sense for most people, and I'm lazy to convert to ounces....I am also using the approximation that 1mL~1gram this is a very rough approximation, but it saves a lot of conversion time since some of the measurements in the recipe are listed by weight and others by volume

So hence the question - How much chocolate can you handle? This was what each of us had to eat after the demonstration:


I ate everything that was on ONE plate...but even I felt kind of sick after so much.

Funny about the demonstration, we started with the room about half full (for comparison, it was overfull when the *** michelin chef came to speak), but by the end of the demonstration aka tasting time, we nearly doubled in size!

Here are the pictures of the final products...enjoy the artwork, without the calories!

This is made entirely out of Chocolate....(he didn't make this during the demonstration, this was part of his entry in the MOF competition)

If you look closely, you'll see that each candy actually has a small tint of gold...

If you want to see some more edible artwork, check out This Site for pictures from the MOF chocolate competition last November. ...I suggest doing this before a meal and not after (otherwise you'll be digging for any remaining chocolate you have at home).

Bon Appetit!
Daria