The class was extremely tiring but very rewarding and we got great value from the class. We spent 6 hours making croissants and Danish pastries. I ended with 5x boxes of pastries to take home with me. The class size is small and intermittent and you’re working in a small tight space in a commercial bakery. Joel was an excellent teacher and helped everyone along the way especially as kneading, folding and turning the dough required some effort. Joel was very knowledgeable and explain the many reasons why a particular ingredient or technique is used. He openly shares his recipes when asked as his bakery makes everything they put into the pastries, from the pastry creams to all the various fillings and glazes. I would recommend this class to anyone wanting to come to learn. Our class even had a 12 year old budding Junior Masterchef in the making. It was overall a very enjoyable Sunday afternoon spent baking delicious French pastries.

The class was part educational and part entertaining. The teacher showed as many photos of past students and celebrities alike that took the kintsugi classes. There was a dedicated venue for the classes and the location was very central in the CBD, although parking maybe in an issue if driving. The class allows you to have a taste sample of what is involved in kintsugi without a lot of time commitment. I liked the practical nature of the class where we come away with a beautiful piece of our own handiwork. I appreciate the philosophy behind the art form. I would recommend if only to understand the principle behind the form.

I liked the venue although parking was difficult. The teacher was well prepared and we had our equipment and paper to work with and were able to start immediately. The class is just a taste tester for what calligraphy is like and it was sufficient to gauge whether you like doing calligraphy or not. The teacher worked with each individual student to encourage and correct the technique. Perhaps Ella could also offer a package of items needed for further calligraphy practice that the student can purchase for home use like the 230g writing paper, set of different font style templates which we could use for home practice. I would have purchased a ready packaged set of materials that we could continue to practice with at home. Although the teacher provided some websites where we can source materials, I like to make things easier for myself and would have just purchased directly from the teacher. I’m not sure if there is a further course that Ella offers after this if we wanted to continue our calligraphy journey. It wasn’t mentioned and I’m not sure how to progress myself at home.