Thomas Haas Teaches Home Baker To Pastry Shop Owner

Pastry Chef Thomas Haas shares the journey that took him from baking in his basement to building an award-winning pastry shops. Prepare for stories from every part of his life: from his apprenticeship at 16 to the most challenging day in his career, to the toughest lessons he's learned and how he eventually grew his professional career in Michelin restaurants, 5-star hotels, large production bakeries, and competitions.

Learn some of Thomas's core pastry and life philosophies, including working on your mindset, the importance of daily goals, a consistent approach, and how to pace your pastry evolution.

Thomas introduces you to his approach to menu planning, keeping in mind your kitchen abilities and location. He will show you how to create your unique identity and ensure customers know what to expect from your shop. 

"Production efficiency is the Achilles of every artisan operation." 

Thomas explains how to plan your kitchen space with an efficient workflow in mind. He shows his own kitchen's drawing plan and helps you determine yours no matter the size of the space available to you.

In pastry, according to Thomas, you have unique opportunities to build up your financing by using various options. In this lesson, he shares 10 ideas to help you finance your pastry journey.

Thomas believes leadership skills can be learned, a belief he explores in this lesson.

Thomas believes that you can deal with any issues and setbacks that come your way with the right mindset! He asks, “What makes you happy?”. Once you have answered that question, you will stroll the philosophical path with Thomas to explore the mindset around success and his deep value of embracing yourself.

Productive teams are built on good, effective systems combined with productive minds. Strong teams are built on positive team spirit and a culture where people believe in what they do. This lesson will show you how to bring different characters together, judge a team based on effort, and build productive and strong teams.

We live in a fast-moving world where it can feel almost impossible to keep up with all the marketing do’s, don’t’s, and changes. Still, marketing is a skill that comes naturally to Thomas, so in this lesson, he reveals the strongest marketing tactic you can use to advertise your pastry shop. Yes, even stronger than social media! But before you start with marketing, he helps you identify your shop’s unique secret sauce.

Set your menu goals with Thomas and choose a balanced dessert selection built around flavors and textures that are accessible to you. Scroll through some pie charts, and pick the “pie slices” that speak to you the most.

Chef Thomas teaches pastry fundamentals, starting with Vinoisserie and the foundational importance of laminated dough. He goes through the unique method of inverted dough that makes the most delicate pastries while sharing his principles of working with two kinds of flour, gluten development, creating the tension, and shaping the dough.

Continuing with pastry fundamentals, this lesson focuses on creams - an essential part of a baker’s arsenal. Learn to make Almond Orange Cream for the Pithivier, the importance of following the ingredient temperatures for fat, and the water emulsion process within the cream.

Learn Thomas's tips for binding the dough, egg wash, scoring, creating a crusty surface, and finally achieving a magical multiplication of layers for your Pithivier goodness. 

Together with Thomas, make the increasingly popular multi-layered Kougn Amann with yeast-based laminated dough—the second pastry of the Viennoiserie fundamentals—and learn the importance of baking and caramelization.

Chestnut Mont Blanc is a favourite patisserie dessert of Chef Thomas’s! The lesson will begin with a light, classic Pain de Genes sponge recipe made by Thomas, including tips for minimizing production steps for higher efficiency. It will finish with a Cassis Cream made without starch that still achieves the silkiness and creaminess of a real classic.

Learn Chef Thomas's method for making light and airy Rum Bavarian. Throughout the lesson, you will hear about the history and servings of sabayon cream, how to whip for less time and achieve higher volume, and the importance of waste in production. The lesson will finish with Chestnut Paste and variations of piping techniques.

Chef Thomas outlines how to make a classic Black Forest dessert in a modern verrine serving while maintaining respect for its flavor profile. 

Dessert in a glass! Inspired by Thomas's past working in Michelin Star restaurants, you will learn how to embrace your skills and creativity by using as little recipe guidance as possible for this dessert. Thomas will show the importance of cream (fat) coming before the cherry (acid) when degustating.

Enrobed Chocolate is one of the 3 chocolate-making techniques you’ll learn in this class. In this lesson, Thomas takes you through the unique process of merging your pastries with other ingredients, like liquor. He shows how you can infuse your cocoa in oakwood for special Oak Barrel Infused Whisky Paste, following the steps for liquor infusion, forming the chocolate bar, cutting, and enrobing.

In the second chocolate-making technique shown in this class, Thomas shows us Naked Chocolate. He speaks to the simplicity of cacao in its purest form by making a rich ganache, followed by tips on avoiding the incorporation of air in various ways to control the shelf life of your chocolate.

The final lesson in our chocolate trilogy is Casted bonbons — a technique you can’t go without. You’ll learn how to hide the creamy caramel filling on the inside of the bon-bon, with added tips on creating various caramel gradations.

Chef Thomas demystifies tempered chocolate with an easy and effective way of tempering in a bowl—waste-free, hassle-free, and no clean-up required. He lets us in on the secret to an effective and glossy finish on the delicate bonbons and shows how to temper with your senses.

Thomas creates the exquisite gloss seen on modernly decorated bonbons with the latest handmade stamping technique. Follow his lead to stamp, spray, cast, fill, close, unmold, and of course, enjoy!