Course Category: On-Demand Class

Decadent Candy Bars

In this Online Live Class, Chef Melissa Coppel turns chocolate bars into a conduit for flavor exploration! Using intriguing combinations reminiscent of childhood favorites, popular recipes, and even savory classics, Chef Melissa creates recipes that inspire you to transform your favorite flavors into bold products.

The class will cover 3 recipes, starting with “Hazelnut Almond Praliné followed by  Brownie, and Coffee Ganache and Marshmallow “Tarts”. It will also explore more complex flavor profiles, such as an Italian-inspired “Strawberry Parmesan and Balsamic Bar” and an American-German-inspired “Pretzel Praliné and Beer Caramel Bar”. Whether it’s alcoholic beverages, snacks, cheeses, or more “traditional” sweets, this class takes quirky ingredients and reimagines the flavors we traditionally associate with chocolate products to create delicious results.

Caramel Oats Mendiants

Traditional mendiants are made with dark chocolate and topped with nuts and dried fruits. But while Chef Melissa loves these rustic French treats, she knows that for a vegan chocolate lover, another dark chocolate bite just won’t cut it! In her decadent version, Chef Melissa creates nutty, molassey oat chocolate shells with brown sugar. She fills each shell with vanilla bean and coconut caramel, and finishes her mendiants with a rich layer of dark chocolate and a crunchy pecan.

This brief recipe is a unique way to start inventing your own vegan couvertures and see chocolate from a new perspective!

Blueberry Tart | Plant Bases

Moist, flavorful, light, and fluffy, Lauren V. Haas’ plant-based Lemon Blueberry and Chocolate Tarts integrate a burst of textures and flavors. The zesty, fresh flavor of a soft lemon sponge cake (paired with a Meyer lemon curd) creates a beautiful and colorful contrast to the soft and purple blueberry compote and meringue in these dome-shaped tarts.
The recipe also includes a cocoa sablée base that you can use in your production, and a blueberry and blackcurrant chocolate that can be turned into tangy and perfectly fruity tablets and ganaches.
This tart is a concise masterclass in learning and formulating the basics of plant-based pastries such as meringues, cakes, chocolates, garnishes, sablée dough, decorations, and compotes!

 

The Truffle | Plant Based Recipe

As luxurious as the real thing, these vegan, truffle-shaped, petits gâteaux accentuate the fruity notes of Evocao’s WholeFruit Chocolate with a velvety aquafaba mousse.
A smooth and generous layer of bright orange tangerine confit (made using the entire fruit) provides a classic citrusy contrast that complements the chocolate in this recipe perfectly.
Chef Haas adds a base of chocolate and cacao nib dacquoise, and an Extra Brut cocoa crumble, to these glazed, plant-based “truffles” to create a true cacao experience!

 

Enrobing Techniques-OD

Join Chef Melissa as she guides you through 11 essential tips for perfecting the enrobing process in this two-part class. You’ll gain valuable insights and techniques to ensure your creations are flawless every time. If you’re still wondering whether or not to pre-crystallize your fat-based fillings and ganaches before enrobing, or if you have no idea what a top or bottom “Chablon” is for, she’ll cover those topics as well!

Then, in the second half of this class, Chef Melissa will show you the settings of her enrobing machine depending on the product she is enrobing and point out some of the problems you may run into when using the enrober. You can also expect some of the production-friendly decoration techniques she likes to use on her enrobed bonbons.

This class is for anyone who bought an enrobing machine and thought it would magically solve all their problems but can’t seem to get a great final product. This class offers a clear and concise approach for those eternally looking for that perfectly squared, sharply cut, shiny molded bonbon!

Creamy Cacao Butter Basics

Our School’s Special Granola by Melissa Coppel

Seeding with creamy cacao butter (aka “silk”) is our favorite, no-fuzz, pre-crystallization, or tempering technique. In this free techniques book and video, Chef Melissa teaches you how to make and maintain this convenient and essential ingredient, which you can easily prepare with any cacao butter you have in hand. If you always thought tempering chocolate was a cumbersome, long, messy process, with this guide we want to show you it doesn’t have to be anything of the sort. This concise course is the perfect first step to making and pre-crystallizing your chocolates, ganaches, and fat-based products!

 

Plant-Based Pistachio Strawberry Tart by Lauren Haas

This Plant-Based Pistachio Strawberry Tart is vibrant in both color and flavor. Chef Lauren Haas skillfully incorporates the diverse textures of pistachios into her recipe with four layers of pistachio.

Each tart has a pistachio chocolate ring, followed by some pistachio pastry cream, a pistachio crumble, and a pistachio praliné. The perfect treat for any pistachio lover! Each piece is topped with sliced local strawberries to add a delicate touch of freshness to these colorful desserts.
 All of these technical and decorative details are representative of Chef Haas’ precise and sophisticated eye for ingredients, textures, and visual touches, which have become a hallmark of all of her vegan creations.

 

Plant-Based Cherry Tart by Lauren Haas

In her plant-based Cherry Tart, Chef Haas calls to mind (and palate) the natural flavors and colors of this bright red stone fruit. With Black Forest notes, the tart features a cocoa streusel base topped with chocolate cherry mousse –made with aquafaba– and a glazed morello cherry compote sphere.

The recipe includes detailed instructions for making the tart’s chocolate ring and an edible chocolate cherry stem. All these technical and decorative details are representative of Chef Haas’s precise and sophisticated eye for ingredients, textures, and visual touches, which have become a signature feature of all her vegan pieces.

Hazelnut Rocher

These rochers are inspired by Chef Melissa’s obsession with hazelnuts. They are crunchy, nutty, and easy to customize. If the ultimate Ferrero Rocher is what you or your customers are craving, look no further, this is it!

 

Cassis and Parmesan Bonbon

Some treats come from the most unexpected places. Well, we have Cacio e Pepe to thank for these ones! Chef Melissa’s latest molded bonbons showcase the saltiness – and slight heat – of a crunchy Parmesan cookie and the intense sweetness of a deep purple cassis and cherry ganache. The recipe includes all the steps for making the shells, pre-crystallizing the colors, and decorating the molds: truly exceptional!