Learn to create perfect pastries, beautiful baked goods and show-stopping sweet treats with Leiths’ 12-week Introduction to Patisserie online course & certificate.
Specialist Course
Intermediate
Certification
You’ll learn a wide range of professional patisserie techniques and skills from Leiths’ expert chefs, including pastry work – choux, shortcrust and pâte sucrée – cake preparation and decoration techniques.
Throughout the course, you’ll be creating show-stopping desserts, marvellous meringues, tantalising tarts and petits fours to impress. You will conquer macarons with passion fruit ganache, individual tartes au citron and a classic brownie with a salted caramel twist.
By mastering timeless methods, you will be armed with the confidence to adapt and add your own personal style to bold recipes and be able to identify and navigate your way through any problems which may occur during patisserie preparation.
To cover all the skills and recipes in 12 weeks, the course will run at a professional pace with 4-6hrs of cooking each week. You’ll be making a large quantity of treats – so be ready to share your creations with your friends and neighbours!
★★★★★
Leiths School of Food and Wine has “seen oodles of students start up their own businesses or work in Michelin-starred restaurants.”
Kate Hilpern, The Independent
This 12-week course will teach you patisserie proficiency, guiding you through timeless techniques and methods that every baker and pastry chef worth their salt will intuitively employ in a modern kitchen.
Each week, you will unlock a new batch of video-based sessions that take you step-by-step through the process of cooking everything from pastries through to truffles. With Workshop's unique hands-on method of learning, you'll be cooking from day one with no need to read pages of theory in advance.
By joining the course, you will have access to the following through the Workshop app:
In addition to the core aspects of the course, you will also get:
Average cooking time: 4-6 hours per week
Don’t run out of eggs!
Every week, you’ll cover a different skill and require a variety of ingredients. Ensure you’re ready to go by planning well ahead, and use our handy equipment and ingredients lists (sent to students when they enrol) for each unit.
You’ll learn to make shortcrust pastry by hand and by machine. You’ll make sweet pastry for frangipane tarts, and savoury pastry for courgette and ricotta galette.
Choux pastry is a fundamental pastry in patisserie. You’ll be making sweet-filled eclairs and savoury cheese choux with truffled mascarpone filling.
Garnishes and toppings for cakes and desserts can help to elevate your dishes. You’ll learn to use needle shreds, chocolate shards, honeycomb, and chocolate rubble. You’ll use 3 essential patisserie techniques involving sugar syrups, caramels, and melting chocolate.
There are three methods to making cakes, which you'll learn in this unit. Using the creaming method, you’ll make lemon and elderflower cakes garnished with needle shreds. You’ll make the ultimate chocolate cake using the rubble you’ve made previously. Finally, you’ll make a swiss roll filled with cherry and mascarpone, using the whisking method.
Dive into baking indulgent salted caramel chocolate brownies, a tear and share bread accompanied by some flavoured butter, and some delicious muffins. All these bakes take about an hour and rely on artificial raising agents, so speed is of the essence!
Perfect your chocolate chip cookie recipe and learn to make a seeded cracker bread called lavosh, and a biscotti.
First, you’ll make meringue kisses with classic Swiss meringue. Then, you’ll move on to make a pavlova. Finally, you’ll make classic French macaroons flavoured with passion fruit and white chocolate.
Pâté sucrée is a rich and delicious pastry with a biscuit-like snap to it. You’ll learn to make it by hand and with a machine, to make biscuits and some tart cases with a professional finish.
You’ll be making buttermilk pannacotta with raspberry gel and pâte sucrée biscuits. You’ll also be making a cold yuzu soufflé with a crunchy sesame tuile. In making these recipes, you’ll learn how to use three setting agents; leaf gelatin, powdered gelatin, and agar agar.
Petit Fours are small bite-sized confectionery or savory appetizer. We'll be making salted butter caramels, lemon sherbert marshmallow, chocolate truffles with a variety of coatings.
Welcome to the penultimate unit. You’ll learn how to make a light and fluffy Genoise, decorated with the chocolate shards you made before, filled and covered with a light, meringue coffee buttercream.
In this final unit, you’ll be making breakfast pastries with ginger crème pâtissière and pears. You’ll be using a lot of the skills you’ve learnt in the previous units and also learning about laminated dough.
You’ll learn to make shortcrust pastry by hand and by machine. You’ll make sweet pastry for frangipane tarts, and savoury pastry for courgette and ricotta galette.
Choux pastry is a fundamental pastry in patisserie. You’ll be making sweet-filled eclairs and savoury cheese choux with truffled mascarpone filling.
Garnishes and toppings for cakes and desserts can help to elevate your dishes. You’ll learn to use needle shreds, chocolate shards, honeycomb, and chocolate rubble. You’ll use 3 essential patisserie techniques involving sugar syrups, caramels, and melting chocolate.
There are three methods to making cakes, which you'll learn in this unit. Using the creaming method, you’ll make lemon and elderflower cakes garnished with needle shreds. You’ll make the ultimate chocolate cake using the rubble you’ve made previously. Finally, you’ll make a swiss roll filled with cherry and mascarpone, using the whisking method.
Dive into baking indulgent salted caramel chocolate brownies, a tear and share bread accompanied by some flavoured butter, and some delicious muffins. All these bakes take about an hour and rely on artificial raising agents, so speed is of the essence!
Perfect your chocolate chip cookie recipe and learn to make a seeded cracker bread called lavosh, and a biscotti.
First, you’ll make meringue kisses with classic Swiss meringue. Then, you’ll move on to make a pavlova. Finally, you’ll make classic French macaroons flavoured with passion fruit and white chocolate.
Pâté sucrée is a rich and delicious pastry with a biscuit-like snap to it. You’ll learn to make it by hand and with a machine, to make biscuits and some tart cases with a professional finish.
You’ll be making buttermilk pannacotta with raspberry gel and pâte sucrée biscuits. You’ll also be making a cold yuzu soufflé with a crunchy sesame tuile. In making these recipes, you’ll learn how to use three setting agents; leaf gelatin, powdered gelatin, and agar agar.
Petit Fours are small bite-sized confectionery or savory appetizer. We'll be making salted butter caramels, lemon sherbert marshmallow, chocolate truffles with a variety of coatings.
Welcome to the penultimate unit. You’ll learn how to make a light and fluffy Genoise, decorated with the chocolate shards you made before, filled and covered with a light, meringue coffee buttercream.
In this final unit, you’ll be making breakfast pastries with ginger crème pâtissière and pears. You’ll be using a lot of the skills you’ve learnt in the previous units and also learning about laminated dough.
Once you've met all the requirements to complete this course, you'll receive a verified Certificate of Completion.
Take a look at what previous students have said about their experience with Leiths Online, with reviews ranging from young cooks celebrating the start of their journey, to professional chefs successfully advancing their culinary skills.
Leiths Online Cookery School is a winning partnership between Leiths School of Food & Wine - the esteemed cookery school - and education technology pioneers, Workshop.
From its London school, Leiths has been equipping aspiring cooks with the skills to flourish in the food world since 1975. Through Workshop's unique hands-on learning experiences, Leiths is bringing the best of in-person teaching directly into people's kitchens around the world.
Putting the learner first is a founding philosophy common to both organisations. High-quality content delivered by top educators in the cookery world, tailored expert feedback and a close community network make it a joy to learn with Leiths Online.
Before enrolling, feel free to request a tour of the course below and you'll see how Leiths Online reimagines the learning experience.
Your class will be moving forward at a pace of 1 unit per week, however after each unit is unlocked you have the freedom to complete each session entirely at your own pace. You will also have the ability to schedule your sessions for times that suit your lifestyle.
This course has been carefully designed to make sure the advantages of real-world learning experiences are still embraced online. You will therefore be taken through the subject matter week-by-week to give you the chance to digest what you’ve learnt whilst progressing at a steady pace alongside your classmates. Unlike a real-world course though, you will also have the opportunity to revisit sessions and practice whenever and wherever you like!
Shortly before your course start date, you will be invited to introduce yourself to the rest of your class via messaging on the Workshop app.
Each week, your class will unlock a new unit encouraging you all to cook the same dishes within the same week. At the end of every session, you will be asked to upload a photo of your dish, which your class and mentor will be able to view, like and provide feedback on.
If you would like a taster of the step-by-step online video format, we recommend you try the Leiths workshop “Mastering Sauces: Hollandaise”, which you can access for £9.99 here. This simple workshop is representative of the way in which you will complete cooking sessions on the course.
You can contact your mentor directly through the app at any time, and will receive a response within 48 hours. Your mentor will also be able to grade and comment on your photo uploads with any feedback they may have.
You’ll be able to log into the Workshop app and access your class group discussion shortly before your start date so that you can chat away and get acquainted!
With 1-5 practical sessions to complete each week, you can typically expect to be cooking for around 4-6 hours per week – depending on the recipe (and the student!).
Some recipes may take up to a day to complete when we take into account things like cooling, setting etc. Preparation is key!
Please be mindful to read through recipes and timeplans thoroughly as some recipes will require advanced preparation and setting time. And always make sure you have given yourself enough time and think about weighing up and cleaning down when planning your cooking sessions.
Yes, we’ll send you a full equipment list before the course starts. Make sure to ask your parent or guardian to keep an eye on their emails (including the spam folder) for this!
There’s no need to worry if you have a family holiday booked or have to miss a week or two during the course. You’ll have access to your course dashboard, and the ability to contact your Leiths mentor, for 6 months from your course start date. This means you’ll have plenty of time to catch up if you need to.
You’ll have access to your course dashboard for a total time of 6 months after your start date.
Units (including video sessions and supporting materials) will become available week-by-week as your class progresses through the course.
All Leiths Online courses are 18+ or require parental consent for those between 13-18. The exceptions are our Teens courses, which are exclusively for 13-18-year-olds.
The accreditation weekends at Leiths school in London have a wine element to them and are only for those aged 18 and over.
There is no assessment at the end of your course. Instead, you will be required to upload photographs of your creations after you have completed each session (regardless of the quality of the physical outcome).
Once you have uploaded a photo for every session on the course, your mentor will confirm that you have completed the course and you will be awarded your certificate. This will be emailed to you by Workshop and attached as a PDF for you to print off at home.
If you book your place over 30 days before your course start date, you can cancel your booking and claim a full refund within 30 days of your purchase. If you book your place within 30 days of the course start date, you can claim a full refund within 14 days of your purchase.
We strongly encourage every student to finish their course within the allocated access period, as this ensures you stay on track and make the most of your learning experience. However, if you believe you need additional time, we are able to offer 3-month extensions at a cost of £100.
We review every case individually so if you need to request an extension please reach out to us at support@workshop.ws.
Please be aware that with a course extension, you will receive less regular contact time from your mentor as the usual course access period will have expired. To receive a certificate, you will still be required to photo uploads and complete any assessments if applicable.
