I was booked into Gelato Messina’s Gelato Appreciation Class in May (as a Christmas gift) which started at 9.30am until 12.00 noon. I was looking forward to two and half hours of gelato-making and taste-testing. Some small tables had been set up inside and as I was there on my own, I was paired up with a gentleman who was also on his own (another Christmas gift). Each table was equipped with plastic taster spoons, napkins and a glass of water. The printed menus only displayed two desserts, which confused me as the ticket to the class clearly stated to skip breakfast! The two instructors (I’ve forgotten their names) from the Sydney store had driven down early that morning to conduct the class. The first instructor started off with some background of Gelato Messina, (did you know they started off as what we know as Gelativo?) before the owner started his first Gelato Messina shop in Darlinghurst, Sydney. We were also told that this was our chance to try all 40 Messina flavours at the end of the class!
We were told to not be shy in eating the desserts that were to come out while the instructors talked. The first dessert was a scoop of fior di latte gelato with olive oil, dulce de leche and sea salt. Interesting flavours and a very generous amount of house made thick dulce de leche.
We learnt about the differences between gelato, ice cream, sorbet and soft serve, caused by varying ratios of cream (butter fat), water, sugar and air. Soft serve has about 100-150% air giving it the very light and fluffy texture, while gelato generally has 20-45% air.
We learnt everything from the tonnes of chocolate and gelato made each week, interspersed with some footage on the television screen of Messina’s commercial equipment in the kitchen in Sydney, to the five gelato bases, the various ingredients that go into each gelato base, and where certain ingredients are sourced from across the globe. Did you know that Messina’s pistachios are picked from Mt Etna in Italy? As a tractor cannot be used on the side of the volcano, all pistachios are hand-picked! Vanilla beans are hand-pollinated in Tonga.
Our instructor talking about the five main gelato bases.
Set up on a bench in front of us was a Thermomix (a sponsor of Messina) where we got to watch a demonstration of strawberry sorbet being made. We got to try a sample of it in liquid form before being poured into the Thermomix and then the finished product as a sorbet (which we also got to try).
Slices of Messina’s boysenberry cheesecake arrived with a salted oat base, Chantilly cream, and boysenberry mousse. We’re told that they wanted to make something similar to a Sarah Lee cheesecake. Delicious.
Messina used to buy dulce de leche from overseas (Argentina?) but due to a trade sanction, this stopped so Messina ended up getting someone to teach them how to make it, and they now make their own. Similarly with chocolate, Messina make their own chocolate and even have their own version of Nutella, a chocolate hazelnut spread in a jar. We got samples of both the chocolate spread and dulce de leche.
All Messina gelato ingredients are weighed and packaged in Sydney, before being delivered to every store to be made. This ensures everything tastes the same in each store. We got to watch tiramisu gelato (one of my favourites!) being churned. There’s nothing like fresh gelato! It tasted like the regular tiramisu gelato but amplified.
And then a tiramisu dessert arrived – a huge slab of tiramisu served with coffee gelato. It was amazing. I love tiramisu and this was perfection. I think the airy mascarpone had a hint of coffee in it too which was a nice touch. I looked on with surprise around the room where half of the people in the class had taken one bite and left the rest on the plate. I guess you either like coffee or you don’t.
The most popular Messina gelato flavour is salted caramel, followed by pistachio praline. Other crazy flavours that Messina have produced include satay chicken, and nacho libre with avocado, corn chips, and tomato salsa.
It was good to hear that all Gelato Messina gelatos are no more than 2 days old. That’s because the anti-freeze agent they use only lasts about 2 days. Ever notice the syrupy separation of ice cream/gelato in other stores? It just means the anti-freeze agent has started to separate the ingredients. It’s still good to eat, but the agent has lost its oomph.
The second instructor, who works in the gelato cake department, gave us a demonstration of making the ‘Golden 8’ gelato cake. This cake consists of hazelnut gelato, hazelnut mousse, hazelnut fudge, chocolate coated rice crispies, chantilly cream, caramel sponge, finished with rocher glaze and gold velvet chocolate spray. You can actually order this online to pick up in the Braddon store. It’s quite expensive at $105 for up to 20 serves. Some samples came around of the liquid hazelnut fudge which was still warm and tasted like Ferrero Rocher without the chocolate. I could have drunk the entire thing! We also got samples of the chocolate-coated rice rispies used in the cake.
It’s not something I will ever attempt to do but here are some clips below.
Getting rid of those air bubbles is an important step
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Wrapping an even layer of caramel sponge around the dome.
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Finishing off with chocolate coated rice crispies.
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He made it all look so easy!
And of course, the gelato cake was cracked open and chopped up as our final dessert of the day. To be honest, I thought it was mediocre and much preferred the tiramisu dessert or the boysenberry cheesecake.
The class ran over time and the store manager had to open up the shop to the general public. I thought we would all get a fistful of tester spoons to go to town with samples of all 40 gelato flavours – kids in a candy store. But we all had to huddle behind the long gelato bench and asking for samples from the two instructors and the store manager. I ended up trying about 30 of the 40 flavours, leaving out the ones I’d already tried.
Some new flavours I discovered are the tostada dulce de leche (basically dulce de leche spread on toast, and turned into gelato!), Sticken to my Date (sticky date pudding gelato special that week!), macadamia crunch, and the blood orange sorbet as some new top picks. We all got a take-home 0.5 Litre tub of gelato at the end with our choice of two flavours. We also received Gelato Messina recipe book of all their gelatos (not that I will every try to make it).
For the gelato-curious, you can book your Gelato Appreciation Class online via the website. The cost is $160 per person.
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