Anne-Marie Galea gets to experience some hands-on fun at a specialised chocolate masterclass led by Le Meridien St Julian’s head pastry chef, Shawn Zammit.

With a newly-revamped kitchen, Taro at Le Meridien, St Julian’s, has a simple mission statement: to offer delicious, creative, yet uncomplicated food which will have you coming back for more.

Indeed, the small, yet tightly-knit, team of chefs are not only young and dynamic, but their enthusiasm is visible and very infectious.

Before being given an apron to equip me for my journey into the magical world of chocolate, I sat down with executive head chef Adrian Buttigieg as well as head pastry chef, Shawn Zammit, and we spoke about what makes the world of chocolate and pastry so special.

“Pastry needs a lot of patience because it is a very precise science, it’s not like chopping up vegetables, everything has to go in exactly the right place. Attention to detail is key.”

Indeed, although the cocoa beans themselves are nothing great to look at, it seriously is a case of what’s on the inside that counts when it comes to these brown nubs which have made men and women the world over weak at the knees for centuries.

Pastry needs a lot of patience because it is a very precise science, it’s not like chopping up vegetables

After drying the beans from the outside, they are exported far and wide and turned into sugary or bitter confections for people to enjoy. Of course, not all cocoa beans end up going into our tummies and in fact, some of them actually end up coating our skin in the form of cocoa butter.

Renowned for its great attention to quality and detail, Le Meriden’s kitchens use a variety of high quality strawberry-flavoured white chocolate, plain white chocolate, milk chocolate and bitter chocolates of different percentages in order to set off the various nuances and flavours in their food. Their chocolate is also used for decoration purposes in the form of centrepieces which are made in-house and can take up to a week to create thanks to the intricate detailing that Shawn uses.

Indeed, the only person I know to be more passionate about chocolate than I am is clearly Shawn, who gives me an enthusiastic rendition about what his craft means to him personally.

“I don’t mind the time and patience that chocolate needs. In fact, it’s an unparalleled pleasure to be able to make things from scratch and infuse them with my own creativity. What I love most about chocolate is its malleability and the different ways in which one can use it. In order to make sure that I get the best possible results out of it, I make sketches of all the centrepieces I create before I start working on them.

“Once the drawing is made, I slowly start to compose all the different pieces that are going to go into it and then it’s just a simple or not so simple matter of putting everything together. Of course, although you might start with one set of ideas, it takes trial, error and a lot of patience to put everything together. If something in the composition doesn’t work or doesn’t gel, I put it aside.

“Although people might not appreciate how much work goes into this, it is extremely gratifying to see their amazed faces when the centrepiece makes an appearance. At the end of the day, it’s so much more than constructing something edible. It’s art.”

Having seen what he does in the kitchen and even getting my own hands dirty, I was truly able to appreciate how much goes into making even the smallest praline. Unlike some chefs in many other places, those at Le Meriden make everything from scratch and even endeavour to use moulds which are innovative and completely different from the norm, so as to further bring out the uniqueness of their brand.

In order to maintain the sheen of the outer layer of chocolate, these moulds are never scrubbed and are, instead, wiped down using tissues, before and after they are used. After the moulds are wiped, the chocolate is melted, making sure the chocolate does not exceed a temperature of between 28°C and 30°C.

In order for Shawn and I to be able to ensure this constant temperature was maintained, we broke pieces of chocolate and threw them into the mix in order to help cool it down and routinely checked the temperature with a confectioner’s thermometer.

Indeed, although the cocoa beans themselves are nothing great to look at, it seriously is a case of what’s on the inside that counts

It was only after the optimum temperature was reached that we were able to pour the melted chocolate into the moulds and let it set in the kitchen fridge for about 15 minutes. When the chocolate set, an in-house made chocolate and hazelnut filling was piped into the open shells and the moulds were put back into the fridge again.

The whole process of reheating and achieving the right temperature for our molten chocolate had to be repeated so that we could make the bottom of the pralines. Once they had set, we dusted them with some edible ruby dust till they looked like glowing buttons.

Of course, the pralines are just a small part of Le Meridien’s extensive chocolate repertoire. Another highlight of the wonderful morning was witnessing the coating of a gateau in a special chocolate mixture which literally made the surface of the dessert look like glass. After the glaze had dried, Shawn let his creativity burst out in full force and decorated the surface with autumnal berries and chocolate curls that he had made earlier using nothing but a simple tool and acetate sheets.

My time spent in Le Meridien’s kitchens was not only an objectively lovely learning experience, but I was also truly impressed with the organisation and enthusiastic zest which went into both the food as well as into making me feel welcome. I left the hotel with a smile on my face and a divine box of pralines that we had made together. It was empty by the time I got home!

Chocolate Mousse

For the mousse:
250g dark chocolate
250ml milk
250ml whipped cream
8.25g gelatine sheets

For the glaze:
450g sugar
260ml cream
150ml water
150g cocoa powder
25g gelatine sheets

Soak and squeeze the gelatine in ice cold water. Boil the milk, add the chocolate and soaked and squeezed gelatine and mix well to combine. Leave to cool. Whip the cream until semi-whipped and fold your ganache into the whipped cream.

For the glaze: Boil the liquids and sugar together and add the gelatine (this gelatine must also have been previously soaked and squeezed in ice cold water). Add the cocoa powder and blend them well together. Sieve to avoid having any lumps in the glaze.