MOVING PAST PASTILLAGE....I promise !!

 You'd really think that all I had done in the past 3 months is make pastillage...... But the truth is....I've been very busy doing many other things.

Pastillage has become my stress reliever !

When quiet I make the dough and as soon as possible thereafter I cut the pieces.
Colouring, painting, spray painting and putting everything together can occur at any point in time past this when i get the chance and when I need the stress relief.

Some days you just want to paint. ! and be left alone with your own thoughts. (a little difficult when in charge of 16 other chefs in the section, but possible)

This past three weeks have seen the airbrush on the link and so I had to resort to the old style paintbrush and chocolate piping bag for colouring and markings.
Still, I have no complaints for I believe the pieces still worked out wuite nicely and proves that not all modern techniques are required to achieve the age old art of pastillage.

I found the stencils for music notes in an art shop in LA, I love the way they look

And to those wondering, yes this is the last I'll post on pastillage.
Enough has been said and done in this art form for a life time.
Next posting will be a return to other sweet arts.
Happy ending to the year 2011 and may 2012 bring amazing new opportunites to us all.

Pastillage Playtime

In the space of a month I have played with more pastillage than I think I have in the past ten years. Its one of those things where you always wanted to do it, had the ideas, but never the time.
Well now I have succeeded and fullfilled a recent desire, to play in Pastillage.
Ever since a friend of mine who owns a publishing company, Beverley Dutton, of B.Dutton Publishing. Squires and Squires Kitchens fame told me of a book she had published called "THE MASKS OF PROFESSOR AGOSTINNO DESSI", I had always thought that masks and pastillage would go hand in hand.
Art is a form, paper mache and pastillage are our mediums and so I got creating. And just as Beverley had fallen in love with the masks of the famed Professor, I too have fallen in love with the form of the mask in the artisitic sense of Pastillage.
I hope some of you agree and like the efforts of the past month .
If you like the original masks of Profoessor Agostinno Dessi then you can go to http://www.squires-shop.com/ and buy the book, you can travel to Italy and see the real things or you can simply enjoy the sweeter versions in photo form that I have added here.
 Enjoy my friends and Sweet dreams !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Je T'Aime

HAPPY NEW YEAR...a little early

THE RED BARON IN A DOG FIGHT

THE JESTER

MORE MASKS

Simplisity always wins the day and I love this piece for its simple form. Coloured rock sugar forms the coral at the base.

THE ZULU WARRIOR

PRODUCTION IN THE KITCHEN OF PASILLAGE PIECES

NOTHING LIKE MAKING 20 CENTREPIECES INA DAY

Creative Juices Are Flowing Again... A Week With Pastillage

Pastillage for those who do not know, is basically, modelling clay for adults, while for the modern pastrychef it is simply one of the sturdiest and greatest mediums we can make for ourselves that will dry and set up beautifully and hold together for display pieces. The following is what you can do in the space of 8 days, and you can achieve much more than this if you have greater capacity for drying than I had over the past week. 8 days is about the minimum amount of time one needs as it does take a few days for the Pastillage to dry, before colouring, painting or air brushing and before sticking everything together.

Let the following work be the guide to your own creativity...Pastry is such a fun trade...Don't you agree !!

The recipe used for the pastillage is one that was given to me back in the early 90's by EWALD NOTTER when i was doing Sugar Work classes with him in Josefstrasse, in Zurich, Swizerland and some of the designs are from his templates also. The Masks are based on Venetian character masks from the theatre and are formed over a plastic mask which was bought in a craft store in LA, while I was there recently. Pretty much everything else you see from the roses to the discs is free formed. The peacock is based upon one of those snappped together plywood sets...but its a work in development...not happy with the outcome and so will make it again probably next week. I'll post pics when its perfected.



Birthday Cakes, Birthday Cakes, Birthday Cakes !!!!

I have fun making birthday cakes, for a singular reason!!  I love to see the faces of the children when they receive them and see their cake for the first time. It truly makes their day, and truly makes my heart leap with thanks for being in this industry.
Although we are paid to make them, it feels great to create something based upon a request and to meet the expectations of the client.

One thing though that has long rubbed me a little the wrong way is the expectations other people have of Western - non-European Pastrychefs.
You see, as a pastrychef from Australia and working internationally, (there are quite the number of us out there now in major positions around the world these days), everyone expects us, to not only know International modern patisserie on just about every level, as well as chocolate tempering, sugar work, pastillage, ice-creams, breads and plated desserts, but they also expect us to knock out a birthday cake within a few hours notice (or less!)

 So ! You might say..... You are a Pastrychef after all !! Right!!
Yeh, but does anyone ask Pierre Herme to knock out a celebration cake of novelty proportions for 100 kids on a Friday afternoon??
Does Christophe Michalak get asked to stay late and make a cake for 20 adults ??
 I think not.!!
Seriously it does not bother me, as much as this blog may seem to state, but it is the in-equality of the country of origin that still bugs me a little all these years later.

 If I were French, few would ask me to make a Novelty cake!! They would suffice with the words Happy Birthday draped over one of my more alluring Entrements.

Luckily, although not anywhere near perfect, I have been blessed with the opportunities to practice my Birthday cake skills over the past few years, making up to 50 cakes a year. Small numbers perhaps , had I had my own patisserie, but big numbers for our little operation.
Of course , If i had a Patisserie, I would never say no to any one of these cakes if I was asked to prepare them. For just like Wedding cakes, cakes of these styles can fetch top dollar.
Last minute orders with just hours notice, costing even more.
Thanks for stopping by and hope the cakes that I have produced this past year are of some interest to you all.

 I watch the challengers on Food Networks, Cake Challenge programmes and believe easily, that our team would stand an amazing chance at winning the big bucks.
Pity someone won't cough up the airfare for me and my guys to head to Vegas, and where does the invitation come from anyway??
Or are they just a little scared of the Antipodean pastrychefs and the skilled Pastry guys here in the Middle East, proving how masterly we have
become over the years !!!
Mmmmmmmmhhhhh !!!

 This car, is modelled out of chocolate fudge cake and sprayed with chocolate. Seats are white chocolate modelling chocolate.

 Anyone need advertising cakes !!!
Pastrychef avaiable to fly anywhere !!! ha ha ha, for the cost of a ticket of course. !!! and a few days off at the other end of the production schedule. !

 Birthdays, anniversaries, whatever the reason, its really nice to have some fun with whatever the occassion. I love this Wedding Anniversary cake. Simple, Sexy and of course chocolate mousse cake ! YUMMMMM

Thanks as always for stopping by and sorry for the delay in posting new pics of food lately.
Hope to have more to share with everyone soon.
Regards always

The Four Musketeers Disband

The Four Musketeers have finally disbanded after all these years. six to be exact. One of the most amazing teams in food, friendship and comaradery, it will be extremely difficult for any of us to ever relive or attain any where near the force that our combined cooking genius and skill attained.

They say that "self praise is no praise at all," but as usual this saying is quite the crock of the proverbal, working where we did, I can only state, that, " if you don't praise yourself, then ain't no one else going have the decency to do so, especially when you all agree at how fine the cuisine is."

All good things though, do come to an end, and as we all depart for different shores, it is done with a heavy heart. We will all flourish in our new positions, we shall all stay in touch and we will all move on in life, but inside us all, we will undoubtedly all continue to look back at our past 6 years together as one of the fonder memories of our culinary careers.

Another perspective of the Four Musketeers can be read here by our esteemed Executive Chef, Paul Britton's blog (http://paulbritton.blogspot.com/2011_08_01_archive.html)

Birthdays

It's funny that as a pastry chef I have actually received very few birthday cakes in my life after having left home in my teens.

Most people become afraid to give me one , girlfriends or acquaintances shy to bake me a cake or decorate one considering my occupation.

But few realise is the thought that counts. Just like a gift, I do not require the most extravagant or the most expensive, I just like to be remembered like everyone else.

If I had chosen finance as a career, would people be afraid to give me cash , if I had chosen cars or mechanics wouldn't they relish in the fact that giving me subscriptions to auto magazines, tools or car parts would make me joyously happy.

So why can't they just see that a pastry chef just wants to be shown love by receiving a birthday cake, each and every year. Perhaps twelve  months between dates is just not long enough to plan the surprise.

In total I can remember just two birthday cakes in the past 10-15 years. There was the lamington birthday cake given to me after a hard weekend in the Yarra valley by gracious hosts and vineyard owners, Brian and Denise Love and there was a chocolate mousse cake prepared by my Executive Chef of my current employ, he even wrote the Happy birthday himself.

Having made so many cakes myself over the years there is nothing I like myself more than a simple cake of roses. But I like making them out of pastillage so thats only for my satisfaction. I love to start with a lump of gum paste and end up with a rose as perfect as nature (or better). But truly I have come to enjoy making cakes with a theme for one reason. To have a birthday cake and to have a cake given to you which expresses your own likes or loves of that moment on your life ( we always change as we grown older) is an amazing feeling. I think it would be amazing to grow up and look back at your yearly birthday cake photos and remember the year you loved dinosaurs, the year you thought about cartoon characters, your first car, first love, a pet, a friend etc. A birthday cake should reflect the child inside. Even if you are 42.

As a pastry chef, some months there are few and others we seem to have all the birthdays in the world. This month I have three. Lucky !! From a simplistic old style old fashioned roses for a girls on a classic round cake to dinosaurs and interactive volcano to something from my childhood-Mr Men inspired.

I'm not a cake expert, I far prefer the rigors of making a gorgeous entrement or macarons, but these attempts at keeping both adults and children happy, have been catalogued so even I do not forget how to do them again in the future.

Happy Birthday to anyone enjoying one this month . Peace, Love and Happiness to everyone else.

Classic
old Style but fast and effective

Dinosaurs around an active volcano

Mr Men inspired cake

Rewards for Good Things

Some things in life truly surprise you. They are few and far between but they happen.

Someone recently queried my sanity at spending the Bd 20,000 or $75,000 on publishing Arabian Dreams on limited release, throughout just the Middle East. My reply, was , well "I BELIEVED IN THE PROJECT."

Many of us who cook, never invest in ourselves throughout our career . Yet we are our greatest tool. We are not about knives, but about ourselves. A chef does not stand back and point to his expensive knife box and say,"There, that is the sum of my career".

This is not my "ouevre", I believe there is more inside me yet to come, but its pretty dam close. If the remainder of my career I do nothing more than sit back and reflect upon the pride of the effort my team where I work,  made to help produce the dream which was ARABIAN DREAMS, then I will truly be blessed anyway.

I am not a religious person to any great extent, but I do believe if you put good things out into the universe you will be rewarded. (A harsh lesson a GM I know is currently learning on the opposite end of that scale)

ARABIAN DREAMS has definately been a good thing and has been accepted into the universe by thousands of people. Not only has the book become the BEST ARABIC TITLE COOKBOOK IN THE WORLD and on the list of TOP 57 COOKBOOKS of 2011 but it has also sold far greater numbers than I ever hoped for.

If "Success is based upon the amount of risk you are willing to stomach", then risk I did. 

Today Arabian Dreams is to be found in Abu Dhabi at Blossum Cakes store, In Egypt through the Egypt Chef's Association, In England through Squires Kitchen store and On-line, through Lebanesebooks.com can be found in Australia through Fred Mayer imports NSW, and throughout the Middle East in Jashanmal bookstores, booksarabia.com, and in all good bookstores (including Waitrose supermarket in Dubai) through the Middle East.
Starting this week ARABIAN DREAMS has been lucky to garner some truly blessed PR at the hands of amazing magazines. Three full pages in Spinney's FOOD magazine, Dubai, a whole 4 colour pages in HELLO magazine MIDDLE EAST Edition July 23rd publication and more in Dubai Voyager Duty Free magazine and we hear soon to come to Tabloid Saturday in the GULF NEWS newspaper.
Ten months it has been released now and yet sales continue to climb and PRess becomes greater every passing day. To those who joined the Arabian Dream and the most amazing book i have ever been part of, thank you from the bottom of my heart. This book is not about personal gain, but about proving that REAL CHEFS still have a voice in this world. Many publishers prefer home economists and designers who barely cook, because CHEFS are too professional (yes I have a dozen letters from publishers stating that). ARABIAN DREAMS was born, produced, written , photographed and paid for by a team a CHEF who had a belief that the words and the food meant something and deserve to be set free into the universe. Rewards for good things are truly a blessing,

For those of you who do not live in the MIDDLE EAST, please try and get your hands upon a copy to view photos of amazing food, the read the words of Gary Rhodes about the beauty of the Middle East and to read the text from myself and my team who labored over this book of New Age Middle Eastern Concepts.

Before you judge the Middle East based upon news broadcasts, learn about its history and its culture and especially its food. Do not be swayed by politics or fighting. Yes its bad, but there are millions more people working hard within the Middle East who are surviving and trying to tell the world how amazing this place really is. Like any country, there are problems, but below the surface and below the headlines, the people, the culture and the food are an absolute blessing. Even we who live here, are sometimes blinded by its sands. Yet take a day off and most of us wonder at why we would ever consider to leave its shores.

Inside the kitchen we have no boundaries, other than the limits of your imagination and your skill. Step inside a Middle Eastern kitchen and you will find the true United Nations, the absolute Gulf Co-operative Council and a world of absolute freedom.

Thank you to everyone for your interest in ARABIAN DREAMS and may all your DREAMS come true.

Spinney's FOOD magazine available throughout Dubai and the UAE August 2011

Third page of Spinney's FOOD Magazine Middle East 

HELLO Magazine Middle East Edition July 23rd 2011

ARABIAN DREAMS, now selling in Cairo through the Egypt Chefs Association, In Paris at the Librarie Gourmande, In Abu Dhabi at Blossum Cakes, Jashanmals bookstore in Bahrain and also in stores in UAE, Dubai, Qatar and Kuwait. Call Swiss Food in Bahrain for a copy in Qatar or Bahrain or go online at Amazon.com, Lebanesebooks.com, Squireskitchens.com and Booksarabia.com.