All posts tagged: pastry

French pastry chef crowned world’s best aims ‘to be world champion every day’

French pastry chef crowned world’s best aims ‘to be world champion every day’

Published by Sam Flores

The smell of warm bread hangs in the air at one of Benoît Castel’s patisseries in Paris, where the newly crowned world’s best pastry chef was hard at work testing new recipes. His fingers covered in cookie dough, the 54-year-old with salt-and-pepper hair had returned to his usual routine as an “artisan-retailer” after the International Union of Bakers and Confectioners (UIBC) named him World Confectioner of the Year last month. “I have a mission: to be the world champion every day in my shop for my customers,” he said, eyes twinkling. At the helm of several establishments in Paris, Castel has never strayed from his motto: “It’s all about the product.” Watch moreWorld’s best pastry chef Nina Métayer: ‘We Need Cake!’ Three years after fellow French pastry chef Nina Métayer was crowned champion, Castel received the UIBC award presented annually to a leading figure in the profession in recognition of their career and contribution to the trade on July 14 in Singapore. “Our work is no trivial matter, every day we make things that people put …

A cutural stroll through Paris with musician Alice Taglioni and pastry chef Jessica Préalpato – Paris des arts

A cutural stroll through Paris with musician Alice Taglioni and pastry chef Jessica Préalpato – Paris des arts

Published by Sam Flores

This week on Paris des Arts, meet two artists who refuse to be put in a box. Actress Alice Taglioni shares her love of the piano, and Jessica Préalpato, named the world’s best pastry chef in 2019, reinvents afternoon tea in four different courses. Alice Taglioni is best known for her roles on the big screen, but she’s stepping into new territory with her debut classical album, DNA. The piano has been part of her life since childhood, a passion she’s never let go of. “People often project what they imagine me to be,” she says, “based on an image, on the roles I’ve played. With this album, I’m delivering who I actually am, even if it’s in a very unconscious way. I think it’s inevitably tied to a sensitivity that’s entirely my own.” Jessica Préalpato grew up around pastry, her father being a baker, but it was her years in the kitchens of haute cuisine that sparked her desire to do things differently. Working alongside Alain Ducasse, she developed the concept of desseralité: desserts …

‘Morning Baker’ celebrates pastry chefs who opened L.A. bakeries

‘Morning Baker’ celebrates pastry chefs who opened L.A. bakeries

Published by Sam Flores

The sky is still a dark indigo-purple at 5 a.m. over this eastern stretch of Hollywood Boulevard, where Thai Town and Little Armenia overlap. Located directly across the street from Jumbo’s Clown Room, neighborhood bakery-cafe Friends & Family looks blue-hour quiet. But the morning crew is nearly two hours into the week’s biggest “bake.” That means preparing a thousand baked goods of nearly 50 varieties, most of which will fill the pastry case by the time the doors open at 8 o’clock. Co-owner and baker Roxana Jullapat — who has just published her second cookbook, “Morning Baker: Recipes and Rituals for Breakfast and Beyond” — watches over a rotating oven that holds two nearly six-foot racks of 30 sheet trays filled with croissants. She left behind a career as a fine-dining pastry chef to open Friends & Family nine years ago with her partner, Dan Mattern, and helped lead a whole-grain baking revolution. Croissants fill the bakery case at Friends & Family, which baker and co-owner Roxana Jullapat opened with her partner nine years ago. …

‘A crunchy, blistered, golden-brown pillow’: the best supermarket puff pastry, tasted and rated | Pastry

‘A crunchy, blistered, golden-brown pillow’: the best supermarket puff pastry, tasted and rated | Pastry

Published by Sam Flores

Puff pastry is made by wrapping a block of fat (ideally butter) in a sheet of dough, then rolling it out, folding it over itself, and repeating the rolling and folding process several times more. This creates dozens of thin layers of fat between each layer of pastry. It’s skilled, arduous work, but that’s where ready-rolled puff pastry comes in. This miraculous product makes baking your own pastries, vol-au-vents and upside-down tarts very simple indeed. The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. I baked a small rectangle of pastry from each brand for 10-15 minutes at 180-200C (or according to the manufacturer’s instructions). I noted the height of the rise as well as the lamination (the separation of layers), texture, flavour, ingredients and value relative to quality. The flavour profile of most of the pastries was pretty neutral (a sign of ultra processing), but a couple of standouts had a natural sweetness and nutty flavour. The texture varied wildly. All you need to …

My search for the perfect Danish pastry in Copenhagen | Copenhagen holidays

My search for the perfect Danish pastry in Copenhagen | Copenhagen holidays

Published by Sam Flores

Open sandwiches (smørrebrød), meatballs (frikadeller), crispy pork belly (stegt flæsk) … There are many must-eat dishes for food lovers visiting Denmark, though perhaps nothing springs to mind as readily as the Danish pastry. But how are you supposed to choose from the countless bakeries on offer? And once you have decided which to visit, which pastry to eat? As a long-term resident of Copenhagen and pastry obsessive, I took on the Guardian’s challenge to find the best Danish pastry in town. Let’s get started with the shocking fact that Danish pastries are not actually Danish. In Denmark they’re called wienerbrød (Viennese bread) and made using a laminated dough technique that originated in Vienna. There’s also no such thing as a “Danish” in Denmark – there are so many different types of pastry that the word loses meaning. What we know as a Danish is a spandauer – a round pastry with a folded border and a circle of yellowy custard in the middle. Then there’s the tebirkes, a folded pastry often with a baked marzipan-style centre and …