COMING OF AGE - DUBAI's GULF FOOD - Pastry Perfection

I have visited several food exhibitions in the past few years and have even read comments about some European competitions of this very year that stated the level of entries was not up to scratch, for the global stage.
Personally I believe that we all have so much to view on Facebook, Google and Blogs that our day to day acceptance of new desserts and pastries is so high, that when we go to international competitions and exhibitions our expectations are merely far too grand. After all we have all probably watched the YOU TUBE videos of the creations before us, being prepared in training videos on the internet just days or weeks before.
A surprise is not one when you have seen the product being prepared now is it!???

So imaging my surprise this year when at the Gulf Foods exhibition in Dubai and seeing the high calibre of desserts on display.
I comment about the desserts and not other items such as cakes, wedding cakes, or centerpieces because ,well they have their place in the world but I don't believe a wedding cake can really be judged by chefs-even pastry chefs. There are just some things that are too open for personal opinion in this subject. After all I've been asked by some brides in my own businesses to make some modern creations which I know full well a judge would be horrified at, yet the brides in my store were willing to pay several thousand dollars for the privilege.
One mans trash is another treasure right !!
A wedding cake can only be judged on techniques, most of which are aged and to be judged well usually is so overly garnished in these techniques that no modern bride would want the thing near her wedding.

And don't forget Im talking the Middle East . I have close friends who have businesses based upon Wedding Cakes and in their region the older techniques are definitely still modern.
IF we are going to have a Wedding cake competition then shouldn't the thing be about 4 metres high and made mostly of styrofoam with 800 portions cut in the back kitchen for the guests !!
Is technicality to be judged or pure creativity.
Most of you will say that the answer is somewhere in the middle, but based on judging parameters and guidelines I prefer to argue not. Another subject which I find little personal favor with are bread centre pieces. Few modern buffets use them, even fewer do them well and in reality the best are made from salt dough not bread at all.
I get it, but I don't.
I'm a lover of the intricacies. I love centerpieces of chocolate and sugar for it proves the correct use and understanding of both mediums. Crystallised or blotchy sugar shows incorrect temperatures or handling as does bloomed chocolate which can't be hidden or forgiven. New techniques and infinite detail are still being created and blowing away our minds year after year in both realms, I just don't see the same advances in new age salt dough techniques.
Of coarse all personal opinions and I am well aware there will be opposition.
But this blog is about the brilliance of pastry in Dubai in 2012. I just wanted to show (albeit a few weeks late) some of the entries and to loudly say congratulations to the pastry staff and their chefs of DUBAI and the GCC for their top work, dedication and advancements over the past few years. The Middle East was once seen as blip on ones resume, today any resume of worth shows at least some time worked with the Gulf Region.  Our region is now renowned for its high standards, its pushing of the envelope in all areas of creativity and those of us that do work here all well know that some of the worlds most creative chefs, are born in the GCC and greater MENA region.
There was once when you had to whisper, I work in the MIDDLE EAST, there was a time people even feared coming here, but today all chefs can proudly scream I AM FROM THE MIDDLE EAST, and people will show us their attention.
Well done to all those who competed in 2012 in Dubai.
You have much of which to be proud .

Something Simple or a Classic Revisited

Much of what we do as pastry chefs is simply about satisfying the customers desires. Sometimes that means we cook the basics, cupcakes, chocolate mousse and the usual eclairs etc. On other days it means we cook the luxuries which the customer may indulge themselves with on special occasions otherwise known to us in the industry as the classics, Concorde and opera coming quickly to mind. On other occasions the customer allows us the creator to advise them of what they will eat next, this is where our creative genius can truly come into play and create the most amazing new ideas they have not yet conceived for themselves but which we believe and hope will become tomorrow's classics.

Once a classic, the dessert is renowned for what it is and lucky be the chef who change that and live to see the day. A Concorde after all is not a Concorde if you change the sum of its parts and like wise with almost any other dessert. If you want chocolate mousse you want a good solid rich yet melt in the mouth chocolate concoction, not something that comes with an iPod, a smoke gun and a slight scent of chocolate served with globules of chemical gastronomy.

If you do change a classic then you need to change the name. Opera needs to include what the creator Gaston LeNotre intended, coffee, buttercream, sponge and chocolate. I do not mind if all these are served on a plate in different methods and it is titled something like "Ode to Opera" for it does contain the basics of the original dessert. You can play with the service method but those basics are a must. If you add a flavor or recreate the dish completely using few of the basics then you best call it something else.

The reason i mention this is that recently I have seen in paris such things as Raspberry Opera, and while only a personal reflection, the classic contained no raspberry and therefore this is not a creative tweak, but a complete new dish.
To highlight my thoughts I give you a recent plated version of Opera, which sticks to the original conception just merely presenting it differently, albeit with additional chocolate garnish, mango and papaya purees and chocolate fondant.

CLASSIC OPERA served for a function

I also give you the new flavored varieties which have been renamed. But a rose by any other name may be still a rose but Opera made from Apricot or Raspberry does not make it an Opera. The original of these was created by a great French patissier when he created Le Roi Soleil (The sun king), in my kitchen I have expanded this and now serve the four kings. Each king having his own cake and I also do a version (not photographed here-you'll have to come by my shop - soon to open- to see it) which is in fact the four kings together. Why the originator called his the Sun King I have no idea, I can only assume that by the way we make it , it is because it is a totality of Citrus when masticated. Lemon syrup, lemon hinted sponge, lemon ganache and lemon glaze all create perfection. As do Le Roi Pistache, Le Roi Qamr-El Deen and Le Roi Framboise.

LE ROI QAMR-EL-DEEN (The Apricot King) OPERA REVISITED IN APRICOT AND CARAMEL

LE ROI FRAMBOISE (The Raspberry King) OPERA REVISITED IN HOMEMADE RASPBERRY JAM, CARAMEL AND  WHITE CHOCOLATE

So while much of what we do is to merely pleasing the customers and giving them what they desire, it does not really take that much to be the creator of something new. Serving a dish in its original form just makes it sexier based on the function or number of guests in attendance and if cooking for yourself in your own store, tweaking a classic can give you something completely new and you may end up creating a whole new line of creations for your self - in this case all four of them.
Long live the Kings.

More Pastillage

Sorry but have to post these for my own sake. These are the works of the team over the past few days and some are truly amazing  especially the planes. I love working with creative people.

Ode to a Holiday

I recently ventured to a resort town in the Philippines, 8 hours north of Manilla for an extremely restful and relaxing vacation, yet even on holidays I found myself musing over local goods and produce.
I guess you can take the chef out of the kitchen but you can never take the kitchen out of the chef.
Having worked on cruise ships for years also i found it nice to visit the land where so many of the chefs I have worked with are from.
The following uses UBE (which is a sweet potato) in Ube Palvaron ( a kind of unbaked cookie and when crushed very tasty and similar to streusel but extremely soft and buttery.
The dessert is Ube Palvaron, chocolate fondante, chocolate mousse flavored with lemon grass and a chocolate ganache with a hint of kalamansi lime, chocolate microwave sponge, served with fresh berries and 70% dark chocolate sugar sticks.
This offers and amazing cross section of flavors and textures and makes me so glad that I travelled that far north of Manilla to experience Ube in all its forms.

And they think we do nothing on our vacations !!! huh !

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.