I am not a shock jock pastry chef. I don't create desserts using strange ingredients just for the sake of doing so, like so many of my colleagues in the industry.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The biggest challenge of being a pastry chef is that, unlike other types of chefs, you can't throw things together at a farmer's market. When you're working with baking powder and a formula, you have to be exact. If not, things can go wrong.
Pastry is different from cooking because you have to consider the chemistry, beauty and flavor. It's not just sugar and eggs thrown together. I tell my pastry chefs to be in tune for all of this. You have to be challenged by using secret or unusual ingredients.
Chefs are artists, and I couldn't be happy with my art if I was forced to use cheap ingredients.
Don't put too many chefs to work. Sometimes they get too involved in the ingredients and are of no help.
As chefs, especially pastry chefs, your creativity plays such an important part in your daily work. We truly do have a blank canvas to work with every time we create a new dish.
I'm not a trained chef, so I end up making stuff up. It either turns out brilliant or an absolute disaster. I just go for it.
I love to make pies - pot pies, quiches, savory tarts, fruit pies. I use an old-fashioned pastry blender with wires and a wooden handle. I never use a recipe.
You don't have to do everything from scratch. Nobody wants to make puff pastry!
I have a terrible tendency to lick my fingers when I cook. So much so that I got a telling off from my pastry teacher years ago, who said it would hinder my prospects.
I do not like a quiche with wet, undercooked pastry underneath, and that is that.
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