Desserts: Individual Plated vs. Non- Individual Bakery Style

When I arrived at Citizen Cake in 2000 I had only restaurant experience in my pastry tool belt. As broad as my knowledge base was, I had not met the "refrigerated pastry case," and I needed to climb the steep curve of learning that which is the three tiered case. Cold on the bottom and room temp on top, the concept is that all things sweet can live together and be seen by the customer as one habitat.

Arriving at the "new," (second) Citizen Cake when I did, meant that all the equipment was still gleamingly new and hand selected by Elizabeth (Falkner) to house her and Sara's (then Cameron now Ko) incredible cakes and sweets.

I was a little frightened. What would keep? How long would it keep? How would moisture affect tart shells? Which tart dough survived best? Would my whipped cream need stabilizers? Would caramel bleed? Would ganache crack? Would meringue weep?

Sugar is hygroscopic. Simply, it means that sugar attracts moisture. This may be your "aha!" moment-- notice that I always say not to put your cakes or pies in the fridge? Or why pastry chefs cry when they see chocolate in refrigerators? Ever notice how much a croissant is changed once it gets microwaved? Bread?

Moisture attacks baked goods, in no uncertain terms. That light flaky crust you miraculously managed today, or over the years perfected? Get it near the fridge and you may well have store-bought it pre-made. Ick. Talk about soggy... There's almost no going back.

Unless you have a craving for chilled pie, then of course I get it. I love me a cold piece of fried chicken. So you see, I'm not so strict afterall.

If you have the best toaster in the world, as I do, you can defrost bread  right from the freezer and get it to arrive at a slow, low toast. This toaster also does well with frozen latkes, or potato pancakes for you non-Yiddish speakers, cold pie, or that morning bun from the day before.

But back to pastry cases.

Where I'm consulting now, we have a deli case. It has a cold "floor" and there is a hidden fridge/low boy underneath for back up stuff. Then we have something for room temperature goods. Like cookies and brownies, or the cake(s) I am loathe to introduce to the cold moist place.

In a restaurant we have all sorts of space for the cold, the not so cold (don't tell the health department), the freezing, the very freezing, the room temperature, and the something between room temperature and inside the oven.

If a kitchen has "return air," which it should by OSHA law; but doesn't always, if the said business is really old and a lot has been grandfathered in, and it's cold outside: no matter how many ovens are on, it will be cold in the kitchen-- well in the morning at least. We need return air because the ventilation system, aka the hoods, (should) draw up a lot of air really fast.

What, pray tell, does this have to do with desserts?!

Temperature is very important to Pastry Chefs. We're not cranky for no reason. Everything has to be just so! When we are introduced to new homes to store our precious sugary children we must wring hands a few times and worry. Are they dressed warm enough to be out in the snow? Will the older kids pick on them? And so on.

I am consulting in a 27 year old business not designed for sweet things. Or not designed for delicate sweet things. In a restaurant our (many) components land on a plate in one-two time and when someone places an order they get their plated dessert (usually) in under 10 minutes. Desserts fly out the door, and if the pastry chef is very good and paying close attention to more details than even the chef who tells them to pay attention to, then they will end up with a very strict station, meaning that they will have no or little waste.

At Aziza I ran at 0% waste.

It can be, so stop your moaning.

A plated dessert is a thought-out frame wherein that which is placed within it's confines creates a journey. It takes you somewhere, this dessert. Maybe it brings you home to the South, sets you down on the porch to shell beans and watch the fireflies come up. Or it takes you to Thailand, where you've never been, and introduces you to your lithe guide who speaks softly about his river boat and the humid mornings. It's possible the dessert wakes you up and makes sense of a confusing world, if even for an instant. The flavours of a dessert might both remind you of your childhood and help you step into adulthood.

Maybe it's silly, or serious, or strange, or exotic. It could be downright confusing or absolutely dreadful. Perhaps you live in the camp where cucumbers and tomatoes are not fruits and so you leave angry at the stupid pastry chef. Or you only like chocolate but became intrigued with the kaffir lime and verbena granita, lemon basil ice cream and fresh raspberries and it rocked your world. Think rose and lavendar are only for soap? Or have you had a sliver of rhubarb tart with rose geranium cream? A Provencal honey-lavendar ice cream?

Remember your first souffle? Churning ice cream on a summer day with rock salt? What did your face say when the first homemade marshmallow melted on your tongue? Did you covet the first shortbread baked to correct golden brown? What were you wearing when that first croissant exploded down your front in shatteringly buttery flakiness? How many berries ended up in your bucket hat first time bush berry hunting?

Sweet things are just that.

Sometimes, just for fun, when strangers ask me what I do for a living, I answer,

"I'm in the pleasure business."

When you think in a plated dessert way it's hard to get into the groove of tarts waiting in a glass case, or cookies for the sake of the lone cookie, or ice cream to be sold on it's own, and not sidled up to a cake or part of a 14 component dessert.

At Poulet I have begun experimenting with plated dessert ideas translated into whole cakes which will be cut up in 6-10 pieces. It goes something like this ~

I think about fall... Buttered pecans. Brown butter. A back log of egg whites. Persimmons, pears, pomegranates, grapes. Fall fruits. Warmth. Comforting. Color: orange and muted tones. Textures slightly contrasting. Sweet/Subtle. The colors of autumn's foliage. A light cake like Angel Food cake to use up the whites. Vanilla. Caramel.

And then I make this: Light Vanilla Cake with Toasted Pecans, Brown Butter Pastry Cream and Autumn Fruits. One day it's Fuyu persimmons, Comice pears and pomegranate seedes tossed in a smidgen of caramel syrup, the next day it's strawberries and red grapes. I even give it a name, just like on a menu: Autumn Cake.

At a fancy restaurant the plated version of this would be fancier of course, but it would deliver the same emotion, the same sensation.

And being that I seem to be on a cake roll, I have almost mastered a lemon-yogurt cake I premiered yesterday. Meyer lemons do so well with cakes. Their zest's perfume the whole cake and the juice is not so tart that the glaze on top needed a lot of sugar.

In the neighborhood? Whether you seek a plated or a slice, stop in for one of these composite creations.

Comments

[kudzu]

This is brilliant, Shuna. I have never considered baking my forte, but now that I have a dependable oven and guidance/inspiration from your blog I feel I am ready to begin exploring -- just in time for cold weather! And thanks for your enrhusiastic recommendation of a toaster oven. I'm in the market and didn't quite know where to go,

Sweet.

[shauna]

This is fascinating, Shuna. There's so much to your world that is not part of mine. This is part of the reason I love writing so much -- we can share each other's passions.

[maura]

Great entry!

Brown butter pastry cream? I must try this.

[misha]

Shuna,

Thanks for the inspiration. I miss you and all your adolescent influence. The markets are just not the same without you and all the farms we so proudly patronize and espouse the virtues of.
xo

[Sean]

"In the pleasure business" sound so ... tawdry. :-)

I envy your patisserie prowess. I've never been much of a dessert maker, tho heaven knows I can consume my weight in sweets. But you inspire me, as always.

[Kat]

what a wonderful journey that post was...thank you...thank you. I shall now be introducing you to peeps as the pleasure chef. and when they ask me what that means I will say, "because she makes the world delicious!"

[Teri]

Shuna, one of my favorite work experiences was working for two short years for a Pastry Chef who now has his own shop in the Castro District of SF.

He taught me how to make bread and so much more. I love to watching his attention to detail from across the kitchen. I still cannot believe I used to make batches of croissants from scratch, ciabatta, panetone at Christmas, hot crossed buns at Easter and 250 baguettes daily for restaurant service.

What you say about bread and microwaves and the refrigerator is true and I am always telling that to people. What I did not know was the reason. So thanks for this post! All my education about bread was on the job, nothing formal.

Now that my family of two has returned to the Bay Area, I am experimenting with a sourdough starter at home. Of course, I am blogging about my progress.

[lee]

I have followed your Poulet posts from the beginning and I thought you were consulting for them but it seems to have lasted quite a while. Are you just coming up with recipes for them and when that's done you'll move on? As an ex-pastry chef I want to know more!

[Teri]

Oops, so sorry about that. I know it seems like a blatent ad for my other blog, but WordPress remembered my URL from a previous visit.

The blog that has my sourdough posts is on this comment.

Please forgive!

[Dr. Biggles]

Wow,

I'm so going to go home and accidently break my toaster oven and that that beast. Wow.

Biggles

[tbtam]

Sitting here wishing I lived in SF and could take one of your classes, and that I had the time to bake....

Just wanted to say again how much I love your blog...

[Raspil]

excellent post. xoxo

[Malini]

Thank you for the interesting insight into the twin sections of the pastry profession. I could always feel a sense of tension when pastry chefs from the different sections meet. Each seemed to think that the other had it easier!

[chronicler]

Ah, pure poetry. I after a year at the bakery I understand so much better, your words. I enjoy you so much. You truly are an artist.

[Roger]

I have been trying to create "patisserie" style desserts for a resort in Goa, India this week as a chef consultant. It is a real challenge to create the right texture and consistancy in baked goods and confections to stand up to the demands of a new patisserie case. I like the poetic way you describe how your sweet creations adapt to their new surroundings. I am also trying to keep my precious sugary children in their new homes safe from the big bullies and the harsh new environments. Like Shuna my first transition from restaurant pastry chef to patisserie pastry chef was also at Citizen Cake. It was a great learning experience.
The popular palate in India has not been exposed to bittersweet chocolate (or real chocolate at all for that matter, ever try "dark mass" instead of "dark chocolate"?) Also the trend of savory elements in dessert or a pinch of salt in desserts is a strange concept here. When I gave some Scharffenberger and Valrhona bittersweet chocolate samples to some chefs and culinary students in India, they thought it was a substitute for diabetics. The "dark chocolate" (really "dark mass" made without any cocoa butter, just a little cocoa powder, vegetable oil, lots of sugar, vanillin, and lots of artificial stabalizers, colors, and flavors) tastes more sweet than regular milk chocolate.. ... anyhow I am trying to introduce these flavors and concepts, you know... fresh local, seasonal, artisian, pure, instead of artificial, canned, factory made mixes, etc. It is a challange for sure.
Thanks for the inspiration Shuna. I have introduced eggbeater to some of my Indian students, so they can see that I am not the only insane one!

[Roger]

I have also seen plenty of hard work laminating dough and creating starters and proofing, kneading, steaming...etc. go down the drain, all by the work of a little box of electromagnetic waves of radiation.. the Microwave.

[Malini]

I agree with you Roger. I had a tough time selling my simple dark chocolate brownies in Bangalore. But, things are improving slowly and steadily. With more people traveling they are saying no to the dry as dust squares of brown slabs passed off as brownies!

Interestingly bitterness is not considered as a favorable taste sensation in India. Great efforts are usually taken to mask it. People are slowly realizing that it can beautifully cut through the cloying sweetness and complement the taste.

[shuna fish lydon]

What an incredible wealth of comments! thank you for validations and insights.

Lee-- I wanted to answer your question. It's a little complicated my "consulting" at Poulet. But I continue to be there on a "light"basis = not a ton of commitment. Because it works for me and them to be so close and things are easy in a way.

What I have found is that all consulting jobs are different. It depends what the business 1. wants 2. needs and the most important: 3. is receptive to.

Some change takes longer than others.

I think I mostly just love that I have a simple place to bake a few days a week. And then I do the harder work in a quiet, stealth sort of way.

I hope this, somewhat, answers your question.

[Sergio]

Having tasted all of the aforementioned baked goods, I can vouch for their status in the upper echelon.

[Julie O'Hara]

You couldn't possibly give up the lemon-yogurt cake recipe, could you? I was just searching for a lemon cake recipe two weeks ago and wasn't really pleased with anything. Thanks!

[shuna fish lydon]

Hello Julie,

I may in fact give up the lemon yogurt cake recipe, as I feel I am on my way to perfecting it. But the holidaze and my classes will slow me down here a bit. If I haven't posted it by mid December, light a little fire under me... !