PASTRY PREDICTIONS FOR 2020

Forecasting the future of desserts

By Michael Costa

Looking ahead to 2020, the prospect of uncertain times is leading diners to seek refuge in nostalgia and simplicity on dessert menus. That’s just one trend identified by our panel of pastry pros, who serve a spectrum of guests across various operations, including resorts, country clubs, freestanding restaurants and cruise ships. Here’s a deeper dive into some of those prominent trends impacting the pastry profession next year.

Nostalgic Noshes

Faithful renditions of timeless desserts like fruit tarts, apple pie, molten cake, pâte à choux (éclairs, cream puffs, profiteroles), strawberry shortcake, carrot cake, bread pudding, key lime pie, skillet cookies and more will make up the top trends of 2020, according to our experts.

“Dessert nostalgia is a byproduct of people’s stress due to what’s happening in the world and their lives, so they retreat to what’s familiar because it’s comforting,” says Adam Thomas, executive pastry chef at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colo. “It’s up to us to perfect those desserts as they were originally intended, unmanipulated, so we can give our guests the truest versions of those classics they crave.”

Customers also want recognizable dishes in 2020, and not a chef’s interpretation or deconstruction of a classic. “Presentationwise, we’ll see fewer garnishes on the plate and more focus on the main item. says Natasha Capper, CEPC, executive pastry chef at Piedmont Driving Club in Atlanta. “In the past, we’d have multiple components, but nobody wants to guess what’s on their plate right now.”

Asian Accents

Pastry chefs will highlight Asian flavors in 2020, using ingredients like matcha, miso, yuzu, ramen seasoning, black sesame, red beans, Okinawan black sugar and more, incorporating them into the familiar framework of cakes, ice cream, gelato, covered cherries, macarons, chocolate bars and table breads.

“Matcha is everywhere — I joke there’s matcha fever going around,” says Daniel Godoy, fleet executive pastry chef for Holland America Line’s cruise ships. “Matcha adds a unique flavor and color to recognizable desserts. For example, we’ve created a popular green velvet cake, which is a matcha version of red velvet cake, and we flavor the frosting with yuzu concentrate.”

Dory Fung, a consulting pastry chef for several notable restaurants in Houston and a pastry instructor at Houston Community College, created a hit focaccia for a restaurant incorporating ramen seasoning and sesame oil into the dough. “A lot of people recognize and anticipate Asian flavors today, so we can experiment a bit,” she says.

Vibrant Colors

Social media has influenced the way food is prepared and presented around the globe, and in the world of pastry, that could even lead to an increase in vibrant colors via food coloring.

“It’s crazy to see food coloring trending in dessert because a few years ago everybody avoided it,” says Fung. “Today though, everybody wants those neon colors for Instagram. However, too much food coloring can make a dessert taste chalky and bitter.”

The same focus on color is trending in weddings for 2020, according to Yohan Lee, executive pastry chef at the Nassau, Bahamas-based Grand Hyatt Baha Mar, which hosts about 200 weddings a year.

“Wedding parties lately are looking for very bright Pantone colors on their cakes and desserts, and they want those photogenic pops of color to personalize their wedding experience,” says Lee, adding that the most popular wedding cake requests for 2020 have been ombre cakes with graduated colors of either coral, violet or blue.

Frozen Future

Several of the pastry chefs we interviewed say ice cream and gelato rank as the most popular items on their menus, and they say soft-serve ice cream in particular will be the next frozen treat trend for 2020.

“We’re seeing places that don't normally produce ice cream, gelato or soft serve ramp up their production, and that’s in line with the overall trend of simplicity and nostalgia for 2020,” says Thomas.

Taste of Technology

Edible and 3D printers are expected to be more affordable in 2020, so more pastry chefs can take advantage of technology to create custom molds, cookie cutters, edible logos, and photos — like selfies seen on top of lattes or bubble teas — and apply them to desserts.

An edible printer uses sugar sheets as paper and food coloring as ink to replicate images created on a computer, which can then be transferred to items. When a printed selfie is placed on top of a latte, for example, the sugar dissolves, leaving the “ink” picture floating on top.

“We no longer pipe ‘Happy Birthday’ or ‘Happy Anniversary’ in chocolate on celebration cakes; instead, we use our edible printer for a special message, and place it on a hard chocolate back,” says Thomas. “The result is a much cleaner but still edible presentation.”

A food-specific 3D printer, which differs from a regular 3D printer and one that uses non-edible materials like plastic, is another trending option for pastry chefs in 2020. Ingredients like chocolate, dough or sugar can be printed into custom designs. “The ingredients must be mashed, liquified or processed to fit inside the machine,” Fung says. “After that, you can print some pretty cool shapes, like a lifesized hollow chocolate banana.”

Specialty Diets

Our experts predict that dairy-free milks, such as oat, cashew and coconut milk, will become more popular in 2020, as well as natural sweeteners like monk fruit or locally harvested honey, as consumers look for lower-sugar, veganfriendly desserts.

“Many in our industry view specialty diets in 2020 as a challenge instead of a headache,” says Thomas. “We want to figure out how to make desserts that are gluten-free, sugar-free and dairy-free without sacrificing taste or texture.”

Classical

The name “coquilles St. Jacques” literally means “shells of St. James” in French, surely the most elegant way of saying “scallops.” In the U.S., the term refers to a dish of scallops, usually poached in white wine and placed atop a purée of mushrooms in a scallop shell that’s covered with a sauce made of the scallop poaching liquid, and then gratinéed under a broiler.

This rich appetizer isn’t as common on menus as it once was, though it is undeniably a French classic; two versions of it are included in Julia Child, HAAC, HHOF’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking , volume one. NCR asked Hari Pulapaka, CEC, to create two versions of coquilles St. Jacques as well.

“Before [I opened my restaurant] Cress, there was a ‘French-Vietnamese’ restaurant at our location. ... I recall seeing it on their menu,” Pulapaka says. “Having noted that, I’m sure chefs are using it as inspiration to create new dishes rooted in this classic.”

Modern

For a modern take, Pulapaka reworked the basic ingredients to create a more visually striking presentation. He puréed the scallop and butter mixture to a smooth consistency and served the seared and gratinéed scallops atop the purée. Artfully arranged pan-roasted mushrooms complete the plating.

“I am often inspired by the classics in the food I create for Cress. Having never served that dish specifically at Cress, I became interested in thinking through a modern interpretation,” he says. “A traditional version can be heavy. So, I lightened it and infused more of the scallop flavor into the Béchamel. In fact, I used an often discarded part of the scallop, its abductor muscle, for a scallop mousseline as part of the Béchamel. This is in keeping with my commitment to reduce food waste in my kitchen. Full-use kitchens are by necessity more creative.”

See the classical and modern recipes, as well as more photos, at wearechefs.com.

By Amelia Levin

Every four years in Germany, they return. Chefs of all ages and nationalities descend upon the country, bearing crisp, white toques and perfectly pressed jackets while quietly, quickly and meticulously slicing, chopping carving and plating. What appear after hours of hard work and toil are some of the most elaborate platters of cold and hot dishes ever seen, putting those iconic images of “The Last Supper” to total shame.

You won't see any baton passing or high dives here, but the “Culinary Olympics” is as heart-pounding a demonstration of sheer skill and artistry as any one might see on the world stage.

The Internationale Kochkunst Ausstellung (IKA) “Culinary Olympics” is one of the oldest, largest and most diverse international culinary art exhibitions in the world, dating back to 1900 and taking place every four years. Hosted by the German Chefs’ Association, IKA 2020 will take place in Stuttgart, Germany on February 14-19, the 25th edition of the highly anticipated competition.

Roughly 2,000 chefs and pastry chefs from more than 60 nations compete — against themselves and each other — in the week-long competition drawing crowds of fellow chefs and supporters.

The “Culinary Olympics” often fails to get press and attention it should. It’s important to note, therefore, that ACF Culinary Team USA has a lengthy history in the “Culinary Olympics” with teams participating as far back as 1956.

In 1960, only six years after American chefs first competed on the world stage, the "U.S. Culinary Team" (as it was then known) captured its first World Championship title at IKA. They returned in 1964 to rack up eight gold medals.

"Many visitors stood around our table and admired our display. 'So big, so American, so rich, so bold... They brought all this in their own jet,'" wrote Culinary Team USA 1964 team member Hubert Schmieder, AAC, in a piece titled "ACF Before the 1970s." "We did not place first, but... We set a style, we made an impact."

Perhaps it was partly that bold confidence that allowed Culinary Team USA to keep up a streak of medal wins throughout the next several decades. The fact that they're the best of the best — with something to prove — didn't hurt either. In 1988, Culinary Team USA would earn the World Championship title in hotfood cooking, establishing a new world record for the most consecutive gold-medal wins.

In 1992, the team broke from European tradition and prepared American food using American techniques, ingredients and style — a torch today's team still carries.

“Our country is a melting pot of various ethnic influences. Our organization is about chefs; it's about culinarians,” says 2020 Culinary Team USA Manager Reimund Pitz, CEC, CCE, AAC, himself an IKA gold medalist many times over. “The Team is a great marketing tool for the American Culinary Federation to share American cuisine with the rest of the world.”

Jesus Olmedo, assistant banquet chef at The Country Club in Chestnut Hill, Ma., chose to apply for ACF Culinary Team USA at the encouragement of mentor and former ACF Culinary Team USA Captain Joseph Leonardi, CMC. Olmedo first led the ACF 2016 Culinary Youth Team as captain before earning a spot on the national team at just 23 years old.

“Chef Leonardi [was] always involved with Olympics and competitions and showed me what’s possible and how much it can progress your career and advance skill levels and professionalism in the kitchen,” Olmedo says. “Being on the youth team helped prepare me for the national team, but it’s still a constant evolution and growth process.”

Indeed, competing in the “Culinary Olympics” involves a true flexing of culinary muscle, with all the necessary experience, expertise, creativity, drive and dedication required to succeed, so it’s no surprise that many Culinary Team USA participants go on to become true leaders in their field. This year’s team is comprised of six professional chefs — many of whom have certifications and significant competition experience — as well as one alternate. Each team member typically puts in hours of his or her own time to research and test recipes, and that’s not even mentioning the hours of travel and practice together in the kitchen. Oh, and everyone still has fulltime jobs to maintain.

“The Culinary Olympics really is a huge investment of time and energy and a big commitment, but it’s worth it for our professional development and our careers,” says Gerald Ford, CMC, executive chef at The Ford Plantation in Richmond Hill, Ga., and 2020 ACF Culinary Team USA captain.

All of the work and success doesn’t come without a tremendous outpouring of support, however, Ford notes. Through ACF, Culinary Team USA participants receive the support of full-time managers and a long roster of advisors and mentors, many of whom have competed in multiple IKAs.

“We have a very young team with almost no international competing experience,” says Pitz. “We took advantage of advisers like Keith Keogh, Ferdinand Metz and Steve Jilleba — they've been at our practices helping us out.”

Teams are also assigned qualified sous chefs for assistance during practice and competition, and they receive sponsorship and donations in order to fund travel for practice. Many industry companies donate ingredients for the chefs to use during practice and competition; it’s a big help, as Ford notes that the cold platter alone can cost up to $15,000 to produce.

As each member has jobs and lives in different parts of the country, the team travels as often as once a month to Florida to cook together and review individual research and refinement they have all performed on their own time.

As one can imagine, competition is fierce, with ACF Culinary Team USA going up against more teams from around the world than ever before, many of which have participants who are able to make competing their full-time job. “[American] country clubs and hotels are no longer willing to free up their chefs for such long periods of time for practices,” Pitz says.

Culinary Team USA also faces understood pressure due to previous performance. At IKA 2016, held in October in Erfurt, Germany, ACF Culinary Team USA ranked fourth in the world overall and earned the top score and overall gold medal in culinary art in the cold food competition. ACF Culinary Youth Team, comprised of chefs 25 years or younger, placed seventh out of 19 competing countries, while the ACF U.S. military team won four gold medals and two bronze medals.

To ensure success at next year’s IKA, Ford says he’s learning from some of the pitfalls and mistakes at the Culinary World Cup held in Luxembourg last year — mostly working on coordination and organization in the kitchen. He’s focused on streamlining the various cooking processes in order to enhance efficiencies in the kitchen.

This streamlining is important this year, especially as the format for IKA 2020 has changed. Since the very first edition of the IKA in 1900, the exhibition of cold platters has always been one of the major attractions of the event. Starting in 2020, the exhibition of cold platters will now be replaced by a Chef’s Table.

“The new category is for 12 people. We do two hot hors d'oeuvres, two cold hors d'oeuvres, two spreads that go along with a bread, we're doing a salad, a seafood platter, and we're doing four different types of petit fours,” says Pitz. “It must be 100% edible, and team captains must explain each item on that platter.”

This change was not made lightly. “The waste of food is an important issue. This is something we want to actively reduce,” explains Hans-Peter Tuschla, Vice President of the German Chefs’ Association. In addition, the organization hopes to increase transparency during the preparation phase. “The entire cooking process for the Chef’s Table takes place in the cooking boxes under supervision of the jury and the inquisitive glances of the guests — which is quite unlike the cold platters which the teams used to bring to the competition already plated.” The hot food portion of the event, including Restaurant of the Nations and Live Carving, will remain the same and test teams to produce a multi-course restaurant and banquet meal demonstrating the highest levels of precision and creativity.

“We will be the first U.S. team in history that will produce two categories that are both edible,” says Pitz. “That is a tremendous honor and a tremendous challenge.” winners, but there could be multiple gold-medal winners.

“Essentially, we are competing against ourselves first, and then we can be ranked among other teams,” says Ford. “You could have a score of 97.2 and win a gold medal, and another team could have a 97.2 score, which might also earn a gold medal, but the team with the highest overall score wins the top honors.” ven though the teams march in to music with their flags held high (ACF Culinary Team USA has chosen Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA"), it's important to note, Ford says, that judging for the “Culinary Olympics” differs from the sports version. Whereas sport Olympic athletes directly compete against each other for only one gold, silver and bronze medal in each category, in the culinary version, the different medals are awarded to teams for their individual scores on a 100-point ranking. At the end of the competition, those scores are combined to determine the overall

As one would imagine, brainstorming and collaboration begin as soon as the team comes together. In 1977, NCR, (then called Culinary Review) published recipes from that year’s competition, featuring dishes like Breast of Chicken Neptune with oysters, spinach and bacon; Roquefort cream dressing; fondue Neuchateloise; sea scallops en brochette “Hawaiian” with sweet and sour sauce, and fillet of walleye pike “Veronique” with classic fish velouté.

EToday’s team still eschews the heavily French-influenced menus of “Culinary Olympics” of the past; since that fateful 1992 IKA, the team has rarely wavered from using decidedly American ingredients and dishes. The dishes are still being finalized, so Ford offered only a general description.

“We have been spending hours look at classic, regional American dishes, like chowder or even Apple pie, and figuring out how to showcase American ingredients, but in a very refined manner,” he says. “We are not going to use Gruyere because cheddar is more widely produced in this country. We don’t want to look like we’re from another country or trying to ‘fit in.’ We want to showcase a menu that you wouldn’t find anywhere but in America.”

ACF Culinary Team USA followed this theme at last year’s World Cup, where they served seared American sturgeon and Alaskan King crab mousseline; organic duck breast wrapped in a savory crumble crust with duck-cherry sauce; autumn potato sponge cake filled with duck leg ragout; braised foraged root vegetables and orange hazelnut crumble for dessert — to name a few.

Fundamentals and precision lay at the heart of Culinary Team USA’s efforts. “We’re really trying to produce the most ideal version of something,” says Ford. “If we are working on roasting a piece of meat, we need to determine what is the ideal way to roast, slice and serve this particular meat? We do a lot of research on our own and will put the food in front of our advisors, who are some of the most incredibly experienced chefs in this country, for guidance.”

Aside from those strong skill sets and experience, Ford notes another strength of his team members: a passion for the work.

“The R&D process is really grueling and time-consuming process, so you really have to love it,” Olmedo says. “For me, I’m always trying to improve myself and learn different techniques, so being involved with this group of chefs has been life-changing. Already, I have learned great leadership skills and have really pushed myself to go above and beyond and help set new trends in the food industry while sticking to the fundamentals of good cooking. I am excited to see what I become after this experience.”

To read more about ACF Culinary Team USA, visit acfchefs.org/team.

ACF Culinary Team USA 2020

Gerald Ford, CMC, team captain Executive chef at the Ford Plantation in Richmond Hill, Georgia

Paul Kampff, team chef Executive chef at St. Louis Country Club, St. Louis, Missouri

Geoffrey Lanez, CEC, team chef Executive chef of The Patterson Club in Fairfield, Connecticut and CEO/owner of Burrd Productions

Vanessa Marquis, CEC, team chef Executive chef of The Silo and Core Catering in Tampa, Florida

Kelsee Newman, CEPC, team pastry chef Pastry arts instructor at Sullivan University in Louisville, Kentucky

Jesus Olmedo, team chef Assistant banquet chef at The Country Club in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts

Will Racin, CEPC, team pastry chef Pastry chef at The Duquesne Club in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Culinary Youth Team

The junior culinary team at Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kansas, will compete in Stuttgart as ACF Culinary Youth Team USA 2020. Team members are: Elijah Luck, CSC, captain, Melissa Dodd, Torian Jenkins, Charlotte McCale, CFC, Ellianna Pageler, Bailey Sargent, Madison Woods; coached by Edward Adel, CEC, culinary instructor. More.

Regional Team

Stephen Bush, CEC

Heather Heneghan

Robert Marilla, CEC

Joe Peroney

Colin Purtell

Carla Skornik

Heather Therien

Eric Yeager, CEC

Team Management

Reimund Pitz, CEC, CCE, AAC – Manager

Kevin Storm, CEC, AAC – Assistant Manager

Raimund Hofmeister, CMC, AAC –

Assistant Manager, Regional Team

Rene Marquis, CEC, CCE, CCA, AAC –

Business Manager

Gunther Heiland, CMPC, AAC - Pastry

Coaches

John Coletta, CEC, AAC

Sous Chefs

Kevin Maier

Kevin Storm

Marc Ty Advisors

Geoffrey Blanchette, Logistics

Joachim Buchner, CMC

R. Andrew Chlebana II, CEPC, CCA – Pastry Advisor

Bert Cutino, CEC, AAC – Financial

John Folse, CEC, AAC

Gunther Heiland, CMPC, AAC – Pastry

Keith Keogh, CEC, AAC

Joseph Hardiman, Logistics

Heinz Hofmann, HAAC – Financial

Thomas Macrina, CEC, CCA, AAC –

Foundation Chair

Lawrence McFadden, CMC

Louis Perrotte, CEC, AAC – Junior Team

Lucien Salama, HAAC – Apparel

Harold Small, HBOT, HAAC – Financial

Michael Thrash, CEC, CCA, Logistics

David Turcotte, CEC, AAC – Military Liaison