| A little while back, I reviewed a hot new restaurant. It
had an open kitchen, so I could see the cooks—all men—toiling away.
Despite their obvious hard work, the result was ho-hum—until dessert, when
before me was placed a slice of banana-chiffon meringue cake. It was a beautiful
trifecta of moist banana cake layered with banana cream and crunchy meringues.
It was revelatory. When I asked the server who had made this piece of culinary
art, he shrugged. “The pastry chef.” I asked him to point out who
among the chefs whites it was. “Sorry,” he said, “she quit this
afternoon.” I began a quest to locate this ethereal genius and in so doing
uncovered a cadre of her talented “sisters” who are imparting their
divine touches on pastries in our midst.
Rebekah Pearse
Owner/Pastry Chef, Nectar
Pearse enjoys the visually delicate nature of pastry and what she calls the “emotional
and philosophical side” of the industry. She feels she’s succeeded
when she sees the satisfied looks on her customer’s faces and when her ingredients
have been manipulated as little as possible. She’ll make her own fromage
blanc to transform it into a cheesecake and she’ll top it with macerated
raspberries and fresh buttermilk ice cream. In the fall, she’ll cook as
many pumpkins as her kitchen can handle so she can make squashy things all winter.
For something even more unusual and inspired, how about Scotch ice cream, made
with a good single malt?
Hometown Calgary
Favourite ingredient Ripe seasonal fruit of any kind.
Baking disaster Trying to make cupcakes for a special event.
“There are great cupcake bakeries out there. We don’t do cupcakes.
I made 12 batches and none of them worked.”
Jennifer Norfolk
Owner/Pastry Chef, Brûlée Patisserie
“I like to know the rules,” says Jennifer Norfolk. “Then I can
break them.” Like all good pastry chefs, Norfolk loves the scientific exactitude
of baking and its need for absolute accuracy. And growing up in an environment
of baking women, it was natural for her to gravitate to the doughy side of the
kitchen. In the spring of 2006, Norfolk took over Brûlée Patisserie
(a bakery that was founded over a decade ago by Rosemary Harbrecht, another female
pastry chef). Norfolk says she prefers baking fruit pies and tarts to cakes, even
though she is known for her beautiful wedding and birthday cakes (including a
carrot-butter cake that can be construed to be healthy and decadent at the same
time).
Hometown Montreal
Favourite ingredient Butterscotch and caramel. When she was introduced
to the Argentinean caramel dulce de leche, she thought she was in heaven. “It’s
what you eat by the spoonful at midnight, standing in front of the open fridge
door.”
Baking disaster Accidentally doubling the salt in a recipe for
lemon pound cakes. All eight went in the garbage.
Baking advice “Never bake when you’re angry. You
can taste it.”
Karine Moulin
Pastry Chef, Hotel Arts
Karine Moulin once baked babas au rhum based solely on a diner’s story about
having the boozy dessert at a Parisian bistro. And she replicated the dish flawlessly—I
know, I was the diner. Her Chocolate and Chai Marquis oozes with rich layers of
Valrhona chocolate infused with chai tea, and her île flottante can bring
tears to your eyes. And while she’s been a chef, she moved into the pastry
section to let loose creatively. To innovate, she says, “You have to know
the classics, the basics of how things work. Then you can create variations.”
Hometown Quebec City
Favourite ingredient Valrhona chocolate, for the “beautiful
quality.”
Favourite pastime Baking bread. It relaxes her. “I’ll
even pull the dough out of the bread mixer to finish kneading it by hand.”
Alexandra Chan
Partner/Pastry Chef, Bistro Twenty Two Ten
Working with partner/chef Jason Armstrong, Alexandra Chan shares the kitchen duties,
but it’s in the desserts that her genius comes out. Like when her beloved
sugar is combined with couverture chocolate for a flourless chocolate-almond cake
with a creamy chocolate mousse and warm caramel sauce. Or when she is making white
chocolate bread pudding with sour cherry sauce and a shot of crème anglais.
Or...you get the idea.
Hometown Edmonton
Favourite ingredient Chocolate and sugar. “Lots of sugar.”
Baking disaster In her first pastry chef job, Chan had to whip
up zabaglione for a huge group. She created the sugar-egg mixture in a large pot
but had no way of evenly heating something that big without scrambling the eggs.
Fortunately, the meal was so satisfying, no one wanted dessert anyway.
|
Nectar
