TWISTS on the CLASSICS

Pastry chefs are reinventing holiday traditions this time of year

By ACF Pastry Chef Robert Wemischner

When it comes to holiday desserts, there is a fine line that pastry chefs must navigate between respecting tradition and reinventing the classics. But as audiences grow increasingly adventurous, now’s the time to go all out on a (frostingcovered?) limb. Here are some examples of ACF members and other chefs doing just that.

Pastries

Sure, around this time of year, people expect their bûche de Noël, or yule log, to look just like that — a log — and one that’s coated in chocolate, rolled and filled with buttercream or mousse and perhaps topped with some meringue mushrooms or other creations. But ACF Pastry Chef Lauren Haas, lead chef at the Chocolate Academy North America, completely reimagines this wintertime treat.

“I like to stay true to the presentation but change up the flavor profile in this classic,” she says, creating a matcha tea-infused sponge cake for the base and adding yuzu and white chocolate to the light and airy buttercream filling. For a classic galette des rois, Chef Haas creates a thin cylinder of dark chocolate as a holder for the rolled cake.

“I use two layers of puff pastry to enclose a choice of nontraditional fillings: pecan/chocolate and apricot/almond chocolate cream.”

Cookies

Taking inspiration from a classic Linzer cookie, Chef Haas decorates her version with a chocolate disc studded with a raspberry gelée made by mixing a flavorful fruit puree with a touch of gelatin for a melt-in-your-mouth effect. “I am not a true traditionalist; my goal is to amplify what is good and create a modern version of a classic,” she says, starting with Cacao Barry’s Evocao™, a whole-fruit chocolate made from 100% pure cacao fruit, as the base. The chocolate, she says, “lends a fruitiness and acidity” not only to her Linzer-style cookies but also to a “wide range of reinvented holiday classics, completely transforming them.”

At The Glass Knife in Winter Park, Florida, Executive Pastry Chef Kristy Carlucci , puts her own spin on snickerdoodles. “Our traditional and contemporary snickerdoodles gain some holiday pizzazz with a festive malted milk frosting and are popular on our cookie trays offered throughout the winter.” To make the cookies, Chef Carlucci uses a standard creaming method with room-temperature butter and sugar and then finishes with the dry ingredients. The frosting is confectioner’s sugar, butter and malted milk powder for a rich, nutty taste.

5 Ways to Transform Traditions

When teaching holiday desserts at Brightwater: A Center for the Study of Food at Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville, Arkansas, ACF Chef Marshall Shafkowitz encourages his students to “let their imaginations soar” when creating new riffs on the classics. Here are some of his suggestions.

1. Focus on familiar flavors but change the form and presentation of the dessert. For example, infuse a basic custard or pâte de fruits with gingerbread flavors and spices.

2. Experiment with new silicone molds to give a new look to creamy concoctions.

3. Taste and experiment with a wider range of couverture chocolates, from dark to milk, white and fruit and nut infusions.

4. Feature holiday spices, such as cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and/or allspice, in a cake base that pairs well with the other elements of the dessert.

5. Research cookie traditions from other parts of the world and include some of what you find to build a multiethnic collection for holiday boxes or trays.

Sweet Breads

French-born bakery consultant

Chef Nicolas Nayener recalls his youth fondly and the times around the holiday table when brioche was a common part of the morning spread on Christmas Day. Today, Chef Nayener, who consults for Eurogerm USA in the Chicago area, reworks the brioche, laminating it with butter in true French tradition and then topping it with a piping of chocolate mousseline cream and a sprinkling of toasted almonds. He adds his own modernist twist by coloring some of the laminated brioche dough with a dark gray charcoal paste, made by mixing powdered edible charcoal derived from bamboo with a bit of water. “As a child growing up in France, the smell of hot chocolate and roasted almonds were very comforting during the cold holiday season,” he says. “The combination of buttery, flaky brioche and milk chocolate mousseline encapsulate that memory and make me nostalgic for those times.”

Chef Kevin Clemenceau , executive pastry chef at LAVO Ristorante in Los Angeles, takes inspiration from the strong holiday tradition of serving panettone at this time of year. But in his rendition, he presents panettone in three different forms on one plate: as a French toast made from the Italian bread soaked in a vanilla-forward crème anglaise and sauteed in clarified butter; as an unmanipulated slice of the fresh bread, topped with a tart lemon sauce and fresh orange suprêmes, in honor of the winter citrus season on the West Coast; and as a tuile made from paper-thin slices of the panettone. Chef Clemenceau is also known to use the sweet, rich bread as the base for a citrusy gelato. “With its sunny personality, the bread is perfect to feature on a plated dessert,” he says.

Custards

ACF Chef Vince Pianalto, a chocolatier and pastry instructor at Brightwater: A Center for the Study of Food in Bentonville, Arkansas, ventures away from his Italian roots for many of his desserts. Around holiday time, reinventing a classic flan, Chef Pianalto uses coconut milk and a citrus-deglazed caramel to brighten and lighten the flavor personality of this warhorse of the sweet kitchen. For the flan, milk, sugar and egg yolks are gently combined and poured into a caramel-lined baking vessel. The caramel itself is made by cooking sugar until it reaches an amber color. Then, fresh orange juice is added as a flavoring element to brighten the flavor and add moderate sweetness in this new take on an old classic. “It’s time to say that it’s OK not to be traditional; the consumer is bored and seeks new flavors and new iterations of the classics,” he says. At The Glass Knife, Chef Carlucci focuses on approachable flavors set into whimsical yet elegant desserts for her holiday menu. “In keeping with a holiday flavor palette, we have had great success with our eggnog-flavored panna cotta, which is presented in a glass jar, garnished with tiny meringue trees scented with balsam fir essence,” she says. “Gingerbread crumble and a black currant gelée add texture and tartness, respectively, to the dessert.”