Pastry Trends

Modern Retro

The demise of the ultra-iconic Twinkie and our yearning for culinary nostalgia ensures that retro desserts will linger longer than that Twinkie filling on your tongue. But mind you, “retro” does not imply a slapdash plate-up of cake, sauce and whipped cream.  The first pastry chef to popularize the trend was Wayne Brachman (then pastry chef of Mesa Grill and Bolo) who published “Retro Desserts” in 2000.  Of late, this trend has embraced classic American flavors, carnival flair and  backyard ambiance to create menus that feature  ice cream sandwiches, milkshakes, s’Mores, gelled desserts, crisps, and cobblers, and of course, the now ubiquitous, cupcakes. The latest entry into the retro dessert trend? Doughnuts. Krispy Kreme and Dunkin’ Donuts may have been onto something…

Avant Garde (aka moleclar gastronomy)

Now popular in the savory world, avant garde techniques continue to evolve in the pastry kitchen, long a bastion of scientific precision and artistic flair, where pastry chefs have been proving for the past decade that dessert is much more than a sugar rush. Funding such kitchens is expensive and the extensive use of specialized equipment–Cryovac machines,  silicone molds, immersion circulators–and ingredients–sodium alginate, tapioca maltodextrin, liquid nitrogen–that command technical expertise have landed criticism that avant garde cuisine is highbrow and elitist. For better or for worse, this trend is everywhere…and here to stay.

 

Dinner for Dessert 

Another enduring trend is the blurring of the line between sweet and savory when pastry chefs incorporate ‘savory’ elements such as olives and bacon into the dessert course. Even vegetables have been making an appearance, an approach popularized by Charlie Trotter in the late 1990s with his honey chickpea ice cream and boniato flan, and memorialized by dishes like tomato-watermelon sorbet (even though tomatoes are botanically classified as a fruit, but I digress).

 

Deconstruction

 

This trend usually goes hand in hand with avant-garde techniques. It’s typified by breaking down a dessert into its elements, reconstructing them in different forms and shapes, and rearranging them as new elements on the plate. Though it can be fun to experiment, there is a danger that new compositions can stray so far that the original dish is barely recognizable in its deconstructed form. Here is a tidy summary of the process: The Black Forest (at Le Bernadin, NYC) composed by pastry chef Laurie Jon Moran.

But where do we go from here?…