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In kitchens everywhere, you’ll find unsung heroes. Chefs who beaver away at their jobs, thinking nothing of creating masterpieces, on a daily basis, that would bring Mary Berry to her knees.
This Christmas we’ll have miniature chocolate pine cones and mince pie Viennese swirls
The popularity of programmes such as Great British Bake Off and Masterchef: The Professionals, have given us an insight into the long hours and levels of detail that go into making desserts, puddings, cakes and afternoon teas. Just a spot too much water in caramel or a too-warm kitchen can lead to disaster. The wrong levels of ingredients in an ice cream mixture could literally lead to a meltdown.
We went to visit one of the best (and least known) pastry chefs in Manchester, Kerrie Hacquoil, who creates sweet magic in Harvey Nichols Second Floor Brasserie. We managed to persuade her to come out of the kitchen, along with Head Chef Matthew Horsfield, for a chat over their newly launched autumnal Afternoon Tea.
The Harvey Nichols Afternoon Tea is arguably the best in town. It’s also fantastic value at only £20 per person (Champagne version £28) considering the amount of detail that goes into creating it, and the fact that it includes unlimited leaf tea or coffee. It’s also one of the prettiest, with rows of delicious treats waiting to be discovered inside each compartment of an open-sided wooden box.
Kerrie and her team continually change each element three or four times per year to reflect the seasons and we went along last week to try the present version. The current Afternoon Tea selection will feature on the menu until December, and then Kerrie and her team will start to introduce little festive fruit cakes and mince pies. “This Christmas we’ll have miniature chocolate pine cones and mince pie Viennese swirls,” Kerrie told us, “we like to prepare the classics and add a modern twist because our customers want a traditional afternoon tea, but Harvey Nichols strives to innovate and be ahead of the game.”
Kerrie learnt her craft in the teaching kitchens of South Trafford College before working at various reputable restaurants across the region including The Lowry Theatre, where she worked with Stephen Saunders, and Lounge Ten with Robert Owen Brown. She settled in to Harvey Nichols nine years ago, running the section and has been working with Head Chef Matthew ever since.
We asked Kerrie what typical characteristics a good pastry chef needs: “You’ve got to be passionate and creative to make sure colours and textures are right,” she says, “you also need to go outside the boundaries by testing flavour combinations to work out the right balance. You need to be precise with the basic recipe and have a great attention to detail. If it’s not right, you can’t use it. Like any chef, you also have to be clean, neat and organised when working in a team.”
Does she think the recent surge in interest in baking over recent years has helped to bring new pastry chefs into the kitchen? “The Great British Bake Off has made it cool to be a baker, but home baking is different to being a professional pastry chef. It’s not just about piping icing onto a cake, it’s the way you do it; the angle can make a real difference. What we do is more about balance and time management,” she says.
We were curious about typical day in the life of a Harvey Nichols pastry chef, so Kerrie told us: “We begin each day by going through the fridges, we put the deliveries away, and then see what events are on. We do a lot of outside catering for events at the Cathedral and inside catering as well. If any of our brands need anything making especially for an event, we’ll do that. Then I can get to cooking. We start by preparing the Afternoon Tea, as that usually takes the longest, and then we prep the desserts on the À la Carte menu. We’re constantly prepping throughout the day.”
Is Afternoon Tea at Harvey Nichols an everyday thing or more of a treat? Head Chef Matthew jumps in, “lots of people come here to celebrate birthdays or anniversaries, but we get a lot of people who enjoy coming in for the Harvey Nichols experience as part of a day out shopping. But we’re a destination restaurant too, we have our own lift on the Cateaton Street entrance and people like to come up here and spend the afternoon enjoying the views from the Second Floor, watching the world go by.”
We asked them to describe the Afternoon Tea, while we tucked in. “It starts with a selection of sandwiches and savouries,” said Kerrie, pointing out hot smoked salmon and cream cheese in a baguette wedge, a roast ham and mustard sandwich, coronation chicken wrap, cucumber and cream cheese finger sandwich and a brie, pear and ginger chutney en-croûte. We also enjoyed a traditional prawn cocktail with Marie Rose sauce.
On to the sweet treats, beginning with sultana scones, with clotted cream and a little jar of Harvey Nichols strawberry jam. “We’ve played around with the type of flour we use in the scones in order to get the perfect texture,” reveals Kerrie. “Then we have this sticky toffee Battenburg cake wrapped in almond marzipan. We’ve used different types of sugar in both sponge mixes to create the characteristic two-tone squares, while still maintaining the same texture.”
We ask her to reveal more secrets, “We also have a baked lemon set cream in a sweet pastry tartlet which we’ve brushed with a layer of white chocolate. We’ve topped this with two types of blackberry meringue; Italian and French to offer different elements of texture, with a fresh blackberry on top,” she tells us.“There are a couple of different macarons, but we always like to add an element of surprise. The chocolate macaron is filled with ganache and a surprise caramel centre. When we make fruit versions, we fill them with ganache and some fruit semi-gel.”
Finally, we make it to the final element; a small jar of tiramisu using ladies fingers soaked in ground Illy coffee and whisky syrup, layered up with brown sugar jelly, coffee mousse and crème Chantilly.
Harvey Nichols Afternoon Tea is available every day 12-5pm
Luxury Afternoon Tea £20 | Champagne Afternoon tea £28 | Includes unlimited leaf tea or coffee
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