Book your place at the advanced pastry academy at ŠKMER and learn to make celebration cakes and petit fours with French pastry chef Valentin Sanchez.
PASTRY ARTS ACADEMY – 16–27 November 2026 | 16:00 – 21:00
ŠKMER Culinary Academy, Jobova 2, Split
One of the three instructors at this year’s Pastry Arts academy is once again Valentin Sanchez, who will lead a separate module on high-end French pastry, alongside Albanian chef Sokol Prenga and ŠKMER’s pastry educator Ivana Bradarić. Sanchez is a well-known French pastry educator, holder of the BTM, CAP and BEP pastry diplomas earned at one of France’s leading culinary schools, with years of experience running pastry teams in France and the Netherlands. 
Who is Valentin Sanchez
Today Valentin runs Pastry Agency, a pastry consulting and training initiative through which he teaches masterclasses in contemporary haute pâtisserie around the world. At the ŠKMER Culinary Academy he will teach a hands-on masterclass on desserts for dessert tables.
Masterclass theme: celebration cakes and petit fours for events
This intensive hands-on masterclass focuses on cakes for special occasions, and on petit fours and bite-sized desserts such as tartlets, babas, macarons and chocolate-based sweets, which are an essential part of any dessert buffet. Participants will make four different celebration cakes, each with its own fillings, flavours and construction, and decorate them using modern techniques.
“We will make four different cakes for special occasions, each with different fillings, flavours and construction. We will decorate them with modern techniques, using sugar paste, pastillage, isomalt, flowers and fruit to give them a distinctive, elegant look. We will also make decorative elements to add to the presentation of the petit fours. Together we will go over the basic techniques and also explore more advanced methods. Consistency, refinement and elegance will be what gets top results, in both taste and appearance. At the end of the masterclass all the creations will be presented at a dessert buffet, and we will finish with a tasting so we can fully experience and judge the desserts we have made,” said Sanchez, who has taught at ŠKMER in previous years as a pastry educator from the French École Ducasse.
Workshop details
Dates: 16–27 November 2026
Time: 16:00 – 21:00
Venue: ŠKMER Culinary Academy, Jobova 2, Split
Booking and information
📧 info@skmer.hr
📞 +385 99 319 89 61
🔗 Pastry Arts Academy – full programme details
ŠKMER Culinary Academy training programmes were developed within the project Kompetencije za izvrsnost u ugostiteljstvu (Competences for Excellence in Hospitality), supported by the Ministry of Tourism and Sport, to build professional knowledge step by step, make Croatian hospitality more competitive and raise the standards of the culinary profession.
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