Whims of Fancy - Plated Desserts

For the pastrychef there can be no greater fun than the plated dessert.
Like no time in the past thousand years have we seen such artistry in plated concepts than the past decade thanks to the likes of Heston Blummenthal and Ferran Adria, Pierre Herme and so on. Their philosophies and concepts make us all relook at visions, taste, texture and presentation.
As a close friend, mentor, Executive Chef and fellow food blog enthusiast, Paul Britton stated just yesterday,"I want the picture to reflect the dish, not just be a plate of food".
 Check out his food blog for amazing photos of the savory side of life, truly amazing stuff.   (http://paulbritton.blogspot.com/)

For those of you deciding eventually or not to become pastry chefs, let me tell you what an amazing career it is and secondly tell you that the different types of pastry chefs one can be within a singular trade name is amazing.
There are those who are first and foremost dedicated to training and elevating the trade, they are often career competition entrants or cooking school teachers, lecturers etc.
In the kitchen itself, there are those who work for restaurants and elevate the trade with momentary visions of splendor in the form of Plated desserts. There are Sugar Work specialists, sugar pulled, blown, cast you name it that can work it. There are chocolate specialists, petit four specialists, friandise, petit four sec, sucre, sale, etc etc.
There are you pastry chefs who simply do production in larger factories, pastry chefs for cafes and bistros who do a little of everything and hotel pastry chefs who work the kitchen , the budget and the crew as well.

I have had the pleasure of working almost every level over 30 years. I unashamedely state that I am a production chef. I love the thrill of organising a crew to produce amazing food and love the rush of so many different things being prepared all at the same time. I specialise in multi- tasking , and love it.
In 1980's I started in restaurants making plated desserts, I moved to hotels and eventually became a lecturer and did numerous competitions, Corporate pastry chef, private pastry chef, restaurant, hotel and consultant have all been in the titles on my business cards over the years.

Still to this day I love every aspect of the industry.
Plated desserts though hold a special place in my heart though. I enjoy them and I know they will be enjoyed. 25 years ago I remember putting a piece of rosemary onto a dish as garnish because we had run out of mint. I was summarily reamed out by my Executive Chef for mixing sweet and savoury and for not thinking. Today I adore rosemary in my desserts, perhaps because of that event.

Salted caramel and rosemary tartlet with rosemary and vanilla creme chiboust with a smear of italian meringue

My desserts DO NOT feature the espumas, and the airs, the clouds of aroma and the wafts of hand picked vanilla beans picked on the left side of the highest mountain tops of Kilamanjaro by certified eunics.

Perhaps if I worked in the truly high end restaurants and houses of fine gastronomy they would, but I don't.
As I stated before I am a production pastry chef.
And whilst I know that the airs, gravels and espumas can be done for thousands, I prefer to make simple, taste amazing. Thats the old school in me. I do not suggest that the others aren't fantastic, but I spent years on ships and the majority of what I do now is to try and work out a dish that can be produced in the kitchen foremost and sent to the plating area almost complete. The plating of such dishes should be achievable in under 5 elements. Touch a plate 5 times and times this by 1000 or 2000 plates and you need a lot of hands to complete service. Simple, fast, sexy, is a mantra I subscribe to.
Like I said there are so many different types of pastry chef in the world, and this is me. I like to work nice dishes but make them achievable for thousands in the fastest time frame possible.
We all have our need, space and requirement in this industry, thats what makes Pastry so amazing. We can all do the same trade, have the same skills, yet never work on the same type of projects throughout our career.

Here are yesterdays plated desserts. I wish you could have tasted them !!

Fauborg Pave with Argmanac soaked apricots and apricot, peach, apple, raisin and white vinegar chutney

Spiced chilli chocolate ganache with chocolate fondant, caramel chocolate macaroon, onion ring and chives

Chocolate almond perspective

Caramel Chiffon tartlet with green tea and guava coulis and draped white chocolate lattice

For my friend Jason gavin, the 2011 Plate of ten Chocolates.     Ball of four chocolates(4) (Caramel chocolate mousse, brownie,dark chocolate and glaze) on a carre chocolat with puffed rice(5), three chocolate soils (8)(caramelised white chocolate, chocolate sable and spiced chilli chocolate crush) with a chocolate sauce(9) and grau de cacao tuille(10).

Lychee and Kumaradeen delice with salted white chocolate shards with caramelised white chocolate and acacia honey