The chemistry of pastries

Eighteen veteran chefs from India crowd around fritter talent Eric Perez as he empties a tray of ice on a tabletop. “If he pours chocolate on it, it will precipitate due to H2O from a melting ice,” Chef Anees Khan, owner of Bandra’s Star Anise Bakery and a member during a four-day baking programme during Macaron Pastry Training Centre in Bangkok, thinks to himself.

Chef Anees Khan, owner of Bandra’s Star Anise Bakery, learnt a scholarship behind timing, heat and measurements, during a four-day baking programme in Bangkok. Pics/Sneha Kharabe

But, Perez, who founded a propagandize in 2004 after a stately career opposite a world, has other plans. He covers a tabletop with purify wrap, before pouring a chocolate for tempering.

This is one of a many tricks that a participants mastered during a workshop, hold from Jul 4 to 7.
“A prepare goes about doing a same things day in day out, and starts to rest on settlement instead of temperatures. But, elementary and effective procession is a key, as Perez puts it,” says Khan, who assimilated a category to hold bottom with what was trending in a fritter world.

Chef Khan has reinvented a mille feuille, a flaky fritter with vanilla or caramel cream, by giving it a softer bottom  

Perez, who is half Spanish and French, started his baking tour during a age of 15 in Toulouse, France. At a programme, he had a hands-on training designed for a group.

On day one, a organisation was divided into 3 teams. The teams would emanate desserts over a subsequent 4 days. “The propagandize runs a patisserie outward a premise. Most of what we done was sole off a counter,” says Khan.Individual recipe folders and consummate instructions incited a bakers into scholarship students, as timing, heat and measurements became a crux of each process. “As we weighed and totalled ingredients, Perez celebrated from a distance,” recalls Khan, whose initial charge was creation a exemplary macaroon on a religeiuse choux pastry. “We even schooled to emanate one in a form of a rectilinear cylinder shape.”

Perez, who has worked during hotels such as a Ritz Carlton (1988-2000), and has won a china and bronze during a Coupe du Mondepastry World Cup hold in France in 1996 and 1998 respectively, has a complicated plating proceed to exemplary dishes.

That could be a reason since he creates tiramisu in a microwave, says Khan. “I told a prepare that traditionally one whips a egg yolks and sugarine in a double boiler. In a microwave, there’s a high possibility of overcooking a egg,” narrates Khan. But, Perez astounded him. All it took was heating a eggs for dual mins in a microwave, while whisking it twice during unchanging intervals, after that it went into a blender for another dual minutes. Perez explained that a eggs should be baked above 65°C, to kill a salmonella, says Khan.

Creams and meringue
Revelations didn’t finish here. The group also schooled elementary things like regulating water-absorbing pectin instead of gelatin. “When we make layered desserts, my preserve covering would infrequently give out water. This is since gelatin doesn’t catch water,” says Khan, adding that he can now put a new doctrine to use.

He also attempted his hands during creation Italian meringue. “Unlike a French meringue, where we whip adult egg whites, sugarine and overlay in almond powder, here, we need to prepare a sugarine in H2O during 118°C. This is afterwards combined to a egg white, while it is in a blender,” he adds.

Around town
While a sessions were hold from 9 am to 4 pm, Khan spent his evenings visiting patisseries in Bangkok. “I realised that internal bakers do not rubbish time on elaborate flavours and offer what a business want,” says Khan. Mumbai desserts, on a other hand, do not have graphic flavours. “Now it boils down to elementary offerings. And that is what we will see in a new menu subsequent month,” says Khan.

Some existent dishes on Khan’s menu will get a blast of change. These embody a mille feuille — a flaky fritter with vanilla or caramel cream. “Till now, a bottom used to be hard, though we am going to give it a melt-in-the-mouth soothing base,” says Khan, who is also formulation a caramel cheesecake, a passion fruit-raspberry cut dessert and a religieuse (choux pastries). “Now, my resoution is to play satisfactory by each degree,” he says, revelation he has systematic a set of thermometers for a kitchen. And, on his wish list of kitchen “toys” is a blast freezer. “I can’t wait to examination with solidified garnishes,” he signs off.

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