Traditional with a modern twist: keeping desserts current
As Executive Pastry Chef for the Atlantic Group, Lisa van Zanten has been able to put her passion for all things sweet to good use. “My mum didn’t cook a lot of desserts, but when she did I was always by her side licking the bowl,” Lisa recalls. “And as soon as I found my first pastry shop I thought, I need to get in there and start eating!”
Lisa’s love of desserts spurred her on to her chosen career, and although she’s still relatively young she’s worked in many different channels from a small pastry shop in Perth to high end restaurants, including several years at Claridge’s Hotel in London which she describes as “amazing – beyond anything you can find over here”. More recently, in her role at Atlantic Group she has catered for everything from small functions of 10 people through to major events like Melbourne’s Spring Racing Carnival where 25,000 people are served over four days.
“In normal life pre-COVID, I was working on development for all the Atlantic Group’s dessert menus, including the Atlantic restaurant at Crown Melbourne, our functions and major events, as well as logistics for delivery to large numbers and managing a team of eight, but that’s reduced at the moment due to social distancing restrictions”
“We’re just doing home meals at the moment – we’ve launched Atlantic Food at Home which is like a providore service, in that people can pick items to be delivered to them fresh and put the finishing touches on them at home. We’re also doing smaller-sized celebration cakes and a frozen food range so people can stock up their freezers.”
Lisa says the joy of desserts is that they allow you to create “multilevel eating experiences” for customers. “I love playing with different textures and the great thing about pastry is its adaptability – you can use it in different ways for different applications, you can add layers of flavour. I like creating modern takes on classic dishes which have many different elements that you can swap out – for example, you can swap raspberry for lime, and that gives you a lot of flexibility because you can adapt recipes for different applications. Desserts really do lend themselves to those kind of variations.”
Sprucing up the old favourites
The ‘traditional with a modern twist’ take on desserts has been predominating on menus for some time now. At The Ary Toukley, Executive Chef Alex Patterson credits his Head Chef Jake Silk for the club’s contemporary take on classic faves: “Jake is unreal with desserts – instead of a basic cheesecake he’ll do a frozen set cheesecake with a mirror glaze and dress it up with fresh flavour. Or he’ll recreate an old style apple pie with puff pastry but he’ll deep fry it – or do a deconstructed smashed pavlova, as a modern take on the classic pav that everyone used to order at the club. It’s all about sprucing up the old favourites with new techniques and styles – something familiar with a twist on it.”
Alex says the feedback from customers is usually along the lines of ‘wow, we didn’t expect that!’ so he and Jake focus on keeping the ‘wow factor’ high: “We’ll put our own house made passionfruit ice cream on top of the pavlova, garnish it with chips of dehydrated strawberry – customers get blown away because we put so much effort in.
“At the same time, there’s also those customers who want something more traditional and we have to cater for them as well. It’s more the younger clientele we’ve captured at our Ziva restaurant where we do the more modern dessert twists. We’ve even had customers go nuts for something as simple as donuts – to celebrate our birthday last year we did $5 donuts and sold something like 1500 of them! Nutella and salted caramel are the two most popular flavours and the first time we offered them I had someone making donuts all night!”
“Retro-nostalgia”
Consultant chef Adam Moore sees “retro-nostalgia” as the current trend in desserts, adding: “I’ve seen everything from chefs serving up their own vanilla slices to custard and apple pies – it does seem there’s a real passion for harking back to childhood right now, probably because with the insecurity of the last few months people are seeking solace in their happy memories, and eating is a sensual experience – food brings back memories.
“I think it’s a natural progression that when people are stuck in lockdowns they’ll become more introspective, start thinking about the good times, and that means they’ll crave those homestyle foods. So chefs are going back to the old family recipes for inspiration – sticky date puddings are coming back in a big way, people are putting their own spin on them. Golden syrup dumplings are a dish I saw the other day, and what could be more quintessentially Aussie than that?”
Remaining true to the roots of the recipe
Gary Johnson, National Executive Chef at ALH Group, says the pub market is seeing a lot more dessert sales this winter, which he attributes to the ‘comfort’ nature of the food. “Sticky date pudding in all its variations is our number one dessert seller – some pubs do a sticky date flavoured with Earl Grey tea and banana, some with salted caramel ice cream and butterscotch sauce. Bread and butter pudding is another one that’s really popular, as are self-saucing puddings – I just saw a really nice fig and lemon pudding with lavender custard and vanilla ice cream on the side at one of our venues.
“I do think we have to be reasonably careful with how creative or exotic we become – a little bit of sophistication is OK but we have to remain true to the roots of the recipe.”
Gary cautions it’s important that the chefs don’t get so adventurous with their twists that they lose the essence of the original dish. “I do think we have to be reasonably careful with how creative or exotic we become – a little bit of sophistication is OK but we have to remain true to the roots of the recipe. Being able to tap into nostalgia is the key to the sale. We don’t have extensive dessert menus by any means – three or four options at most – so they have to be good and at least one if not two have to be made in house. Not all pubs have the ability to do that, but a sticky date pudding or a bread and butter pudding are homestyle meals that don’t require specialised equipment, just good quality ingredients and some skill. And they are extremely cost-effective when you make them inhouse – the ingredients cost is low and they can be very profitable.
“It’s also important to remember that when it comes to dessert, customers are looking for a little indulgence. So we try to add extra touches like a splash of bourbon or rum to the steamed chocolate pudding, or some caramelised pineapple on the side of coconut crème brulee, with a little kaffir lime leaf shredded over the top and a touch of turmeric to add colour and flavour. These are just little things but they go a long way to enhance the presentation and the customer will always appreciate that.”
