Eric Wolitzky from Red Hook's Baked

After watching episode one of Top Chef: Just Desserts and seeing the “scenes from next week” it looked like there might be a few loose cannons on the cast to provide plenty of drama over the coming weeks.  That didn’t seem to be the case with the seemingly level headed contestant Eric Wolitzky.

DessertBuzz caught up with Wolitzky who is currently a pastry chef at Baked in Red Hook Brooklyn in New York City.  Eric is originally from Rochester New York and received his culinary training at the French Culinary Institute.  Go here to read his official bio on the Bravo site.

DessertBuzz: This city can be a pretty tough critic when it comes to judging food do you think it helps to have a thick skin in your line of business?

Eric Wolitzky: You have to be careful.  I mean I have to stay true to myself.  I definitely make sure I don’t read everything that’s written about me.

DB: Which of your signature dishes do New Yorkers seem to respond to?

EW: Whoopie pies. We started making them 2 years ago in flavors like banana, peanut butter and pistachio and they really fly off the shelves. We just make really simple stuff, really well, with the best ingredients.

DB: A well known pastry chef once told me that bakers and Pastry chefs are two completely different animals. You seem to seem to be more of a baker do you think this will help you in the Top Chef: Just Desserts competition?

EW: I work with a lot of speed and precision and there’s a often a lot of pressure. I don’t have to worry as much about presentation and with baking there isn’t as much focus on all the components, for example, I don’t do a lot of sauces, as Pastry chefs do. Most bakers have their own individual style and my focus is always on flavor – how can I make what I am baking taste the best?

The Baked whoopie pie

BD: What are some of your favorite Desserts in New York City?

EW: Usually if I can get a chance to go out, I like to do “breakfast-like” desserts. Maybe a breakfast item from Financier or I’ll try to find a perfect scone or puff pastry – I like the simple desserts but really nicely made and still simple.

DB: Did you see the DessertBuzz New York scone round up?

EW: Yes, I saw that I have to get to some of those.

DB: If you had to eat one chocolate chip cookie besides Baked or Royale where would it be from?

EW: Recently, a friend’s mother gave me a chocolate chip cookie that I didn’t eat right away.   I thought, god I just want a Levain cookie instead of this one!  It was very thin with a well done crust [the exact opposite of a Levain cookie - Ed]. But then I defrosted it and ate it and I have to say it was the best chocolate chip cookie I have had in a long time- just a pure home made cookie.

DB: Are there any past Top Chef contestants that you think you can relate to?

EW: You know my experience is so different – I really looked at past seasons of Top chef from afar and thought – would I be able to do some of those challenges?

DB: A lot of people think being a pastry chef is very glamorous. Is it?

EW: Oh my god no! I work in the middle of nowhere (Red Hook Brooklyn) I get up at 5:30 and take the subway and we work really hard – there aren’t many breaks either.

DB: Do you ever get a chance to experiment in an empty kitchen and just play around to create a new item?

EW: We are always trying to think up new stuff. There might be a dessert that a magazine asked for or something we have always wanted to try. It’s really one of my favorite things to do. Every season at Baked we offer new stuff.  [warning partial episode 1 spoiler on next page]

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Interviews, Top Chef, Top Chef Just Desserts: Season I | 24 Comments »

Pistachio financier...

Frank Vollkommer was clearly not put off by having to bring 300 servings of a dessert to the Top 10 Pastry chefs of 2010 awards where he was being honored.  In fact, he actually brought two different items, neither of them very simple.  And if that wasn’t enough, he also brought some handmade chocolates as well.

From the Chocolate Mill in Glens Falls NY

The first item, a pistachio financier with vanilla parfait, lemon custard and rosemary infused blueberry compote, was a real crowd pleaser based on the comments from the attendees standing near me. “Not too sweet” and “this one in the glass is to die for” were two comments I wrote down while i was setting up the DessertBuzz video crew.

The second item which was designed by his wife Jessica, was a parfait with tropical soft ganache, passionfruit marmalade, buttermilk chocolate cake and milk chocolate mousse (!).   Jessica is also a chef and partner in the Chocolate Mill pastry chop and cafe in Glens Falls, NY where they both work.

Check out the video where Frank explains the ingredients  and what inspired these desserts.

More coverage of the Top 10 Pastry Chefs of 2010 Awards:

Part I  featuring photos of each of the top 10 honorees is here.

Part II featuring Nicholas Lodge of the French Culinary Institute of Chicago is here.

Part III (with Johnny Iuzzini and Michelle Tampakis) is here.

Part IV featuring executive pastry chef Yannis Janssens of the Fontainbleau resort in Miami Beach in here.

The Dessert Professional Magazine website is here.

The Institute of Culinary education web site is here.

Interviews, Special Events, Top 10 Pastry Chefs of 2010 Awards | 1 Comment »

Yannis Janssens Foret Noire: Manjari, Kirsch Chantilly and Griottines

While I was absolutely blown away by all of the desserts from the top 10 honorees, I did have a few favorites. These desserts not only showcased each chefs masterful pastry skills, as they all did, but also happened to be in line with my personal sweet tastes.  One such dessert was Yannis Janssens Foret Noire: with Manjari, Kirsch Chantilly and Griottines.  This was a modern spin on black forest cake (which normally I don’t even like).

The key to this dessert was the masterful handling of the two different layers of chocolate in each component which I learned are hand dipped.   Each component had a very uniform and smooth outer chocolate layer.   Then, inside there was a completely different type of chocolate with the same smooth texture.  The two types of chocolate in the darker half were very rich and flavorful and not too sweet.  Yannis notes one of the chocolates in the title of the dessert “Manjari”, in reference to Valrhona’s Manjari dark chocolate which features Madagascar beans.  Very pro!

Easily worth a trip to Miami.   Check out the video to learn more about the dish.

More coverage of the Top 10 Pastry Chefs of 2010 Awards:
Part I is here.

Part II is here.

Part III (with Johnny Iuzzini and Michelle Tampakis) is here.

The Dessert Professional Magazine website is here.

The Institute of Culinary education web site is here.

Interviews, Special Events, Top 10 Pastry Chefs of 2010 Awards | 1 Comment »

It’s rare for DesserBuzz to have so much access to so many great pastry chefs in the middle of a dessert service. In a restaurant there would be many reasons why they wouldn’t want me in there snapping pictures, asking silly questions and sticking video cameras in their faces.  Last night however, while they were prepping the desserts, there was plenty of space and relative peace and quiet. Plus, the chefs still had plenty of energy left to chat about their creations.

The first honoree I spoke with, Chef Nicholas Lodge of the French Pastry School in Chicago, had one of the most colorful and beautiful looking desserts of evening. He called it “chapeau chic” but later described it to me as a fantasy of a cherry blossom. One of Nicholas’s specialties is gum paste flowers, fondants and wedding cake design.

He told me it take about 2-3 minutes to make each gum paste flower.  Now consider that he had to make 300 of them and you are looking at 600-900 minutes and we haven’t even gotten to the main part of the dessert yet! Here’s some video of Nicholas in action with his creation.

Interviews, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

Dessert Buzz sat down with Francois Payard last Friday for an expansive interview. Here is Part II. Read part I here.

DessertBuzz: One thing that I come across frequently when speaking to people about desserts vs. savory dishes is that they don’t seem to appreciate how much time it takes a pastry chef to put together one of these high end pastries.
Francois Payard: It’s a problem in America, sometimes people cannot appreciate the difference between something incredible and something simple. Like the cupcake. Why is the cupcake so big? It’s ok. It’s just even good. And you know what? To make a cupcake you can even make it with a mix and frosting. My daughter can make that! I’m sorry I don’t have a daughter! But I would like to say that what we do, you need a talent. You need people with training. It’s like comparing the restaurant Daniel and going to a brasserie? It’s still food, but what kind of food? You go to a restaurant for an experience and you go to a brasserie every day for lunch but people sometimes think it’s the same thing sometimes. The (the fuss over) cupcakes and everything is a little bit too much now.

DB: I agree.

FP: I think because Americans, and you have to make sure what I say is sometimes tough are very kiddish and that’s the reason why a cupcake (is so popular) it’s funny and everything, but for me I don’t see the $4.50 on the cupcake and I see $6.50 on the cake and people tell you $6.50 (is too expensive for the cake) just try to make a triple decoration on the side of a cake, try to make a decoration.

DB: Do you ever take some time in the kitchen and just experiment like a child?
FP: Every Payard cake, I created all of them. Even if I have my business (to attend to ) I can eat cake in my mind. Let me explain to you. See the cake for Valentine’s Day? I just wrote the recipe on paper and I gave to my chef to make it and I already eat the cake! How? I know what the sable breton tastes like, I know what the mascarpone cream for the Napolean tastes like, I know what the vanilla pound cake that I make tastes like and I know the mousse that I used to make for the Notre Dame. Now, I just put them all together and I was eating the cake already, but I need to make a final taste to really taste it, pretty much that is the way I create things.

This year was an incredible year (for the number of new cakes presented), few people understand because when you talk about sophisticated taste in pastry-everybody loves sophistication in the kitchen-but not like in a pastry cake where they like to be more basic. Our cake (we made this year) was a chestnut mousse, vanilla pound cake yuzu and green tea filling and a mint chocolate sugar for the crunch in the middle. When I make that, it was an incredible taste but I knew the chestnut is a beautiful and delicate flavor, I knew the yuzu make it a little bit acidic to bring all the flavor of the green tea together and open the chestnut without being too much acid for not killing the chestnut because it’s delicate and the vanilla pound cake to bring the vanilla from the chestnut in the chestnut base. Right away, I may need something and I put this layer of chocolate for the crunch for the texture.

DB: You sound like a painter where you see the art on the canvas before you paint it.
FP: It’s the same thing. That’s the way we build cake, but many times, I would like to say, sometime it works sometimes it doesn’t. It works pretty much all the time when you make it simple and if you want to try to be very complex with many different things sometimes it works sometime it doesn’t but that ’s the way you create things.

DB: Last week I was speaking with a pastry chef who worked at Le Cirque and is pretty accomplished and he was saying he’s been disappointed in the recent pastry chef graduates, he said he felt like a lot of them did not seem willing to pay their dues.
FP: I would like to say in NY or maybe in America, everybody wants to be a chef very quickly. But that’s (the) American way, everybody wants to make money. You live with mom and dad you really want to accomplish what I accomplished in 40 years. It’s not just American way it’s the way we’re living in the new century. Nobody, even in Europe, nobody wants to pay their dues like they used to before. I used to work in a 3-star restaurant in France where the chef worked 14 hours a day!

DB: Ok, I’ll try again, can you to recommend any specific desserts that you’ve encountered in the last couple weeks or months in NY?
FP: No I can’t tell you which people I like that make a very good dessert. I can tell you Michael (Laiskonis at Le Bernadin) makes a very, very good dish that I really like, Johnny (Iuzzini, from Jean Georges) makes a very good dessert, I like Locanda Verde’s (Karen DeMasco) dessert, very much, more bistro-style because it’s a more casual place, but full of flavor, very good flavor. A few other people make good dessert. I went to this bakery in Brooklyn, Almondine its very very good, it’s more like a French pastry shop but more Americanized, they have a very good croissant and I think that’s what people want every day now. I always tell people they can have anything they want for show but at the end of the day, you come back for the food and for something you like and I’m not about nitrogen technique, I learn the technique but they do nothing for me. the end of the day I’m looking to have food on my plate. I prefer to go to a A Voce, a great Italian restaurant, or Babbo to a fancy nitrogen pasta or anything. I like restaurants for an experience, like El Bulli, that’s an experience but you have to fit it in the right place. More and more, people will come back for real things or revisited dishes that they know well. You may take a traditional recipe and reinterpret it. Your grandmother maybe used to make the best chicken you ever had. If you successfully revisit that chicken recipe, that to me that is more impressive (than the show dishes).

DB: Do you have a minute to take me through the different components of one of the more involved pastries in your case?

Go here for a video of Francois discussing the inside of a George V pastry. For Part I of the interview go here.

Francois Chocolate Bar is located at 63 and Madison inside the Mauboussin jewerly store.

Best of New York City, Francois Chocolate Bar, Interviews | 1 Comment »

Dessert Buzz sat down with Francois Payard last Friday for an expansive interview where he discussed some of his upcoming plans in New York, his opinions on the current cupcake craze, what New York desserts he has been enjoying, which New York City pastry chefs he thinks are doing great work and finally he professes his love for chocolate chip cookies.
Part I:

DessertBuzz: How’s the Chocolate bar going?
Francois Payard: Good, you know it’s a small thing. It’s just a small chocolate bar, the idea was to do something really nice on Madison Ave. The whole concept is all about chocolate. It’s something different than Payard because I may reopen Payardvery soon but at that time I was looking, the Chocolate Bar was the perfect thing. It was very European, people can come (toMauboussin) to buy jewelery, have a cup of hot chocolate or a cookie or a chocolate. I think it’s very nice but at the same time, as I wrote on the wall [points to whimsical script writing on the wall] it’s very “kid-ish” and elegant, fun though, I want to make everyone very comfortable, it’s Madison Ave, and I don’t want people to think “oh, I can not afford!”.
DB: Yes, people who appreciate great pastry, can sit down and experience these desserts for maybe $10 or less and don’t have to spend $200 at a meal at Bouley first.

FP [laughs] Yes, I think everything is very affordable, only $6.50 for a pastry or $2 for a macaron, but we are using all very different ingredients, like fresh yuzu from Japan and yuzu juice using a lot of things and the idea was to try be fun but to affordable on Madison Ave. On the weekends we are very busy, but at the same time I want it to be busy but not crazy, like before. Busy, but elegant like I don’t want it to be like Payardwas sometimes.

DB: What is next for Francois Payard?
FP: What’s left is to challenge yourself every day. I pretty much lost everything, I have had to start from scratch after losing the place on Madison Avenue. It’s what we are going to do when we open this new place and I think what people don’t like to do in general is to challenge themselves, but I like challenges, it’s what keeps me fresh and keeps me going. We’ll start all over again and open two new places at the same time and that’s what I have to do to get back to where I was when I closed Lexington Ave.

DB: Are these places going to be in New York?
FP: Yes.

DB: I didn’t know this.
FP: Nobody knows yet.
DB: Wait, are you breaking this news to DessertBuzz [laughs]?
FP: Today [nods yes].
DB: Can you tell me anything about either of them?
FP: No, not yet, you know we are signing the lease on Monday (2/8/2010). And when the lease is signed we will talk more about it.

DB: Can you tell me if it’s going to be a restaurant or dessert destination?
FP: No, it won’t be a restaurant this time because of the location we are looking at. It will be two pastry shop cafe’s at the same time with very big production capability.

DB: I think a lot of your fans will be very excited, can you tell me-
FP: A lot of these concepts we do at the chocolate bar I wish we could find a location to do downtown. It would be the same idea with the brick (exposed brick wall like at Chocolate Bar), rustic tables, it would be a cool place for the young people and the idea I think is good it’s easy to manage and I think it’s a very different way to have a bakery and I know hot chocolate is much more winter but where is a place where is a place where you can have hot chocolate? Even at Bouley Bakery someone was asking me to send the chocolate for hot chocolate for them because people in America, they love cookies, you see they are the biggest things.
DB: Yes, I know. I am going to nail you down to see which ones (in New York) you like, I know you have a lot of friends.
FP: It’s not about which one I like. You know we make different things for different tastes and everybody is always happy. I decided not make chocolate chip cookie like in America, why? I am French! But we created a flourless cookie and everybody was talking about it. But I have a friend who is making an incredible chocolate chip cookie with a few different recipes and to tell you the truth they are very good. I don’t know which (chef) makes the best because it is not really my forte but many places make a good one, and this guy who works for me makes a very, very good one and I used to love them to tell you the truth, I love cookies much more than pastry, but I won’t be able to tell you which is the best, it depends on how fresh they are – that’s the number one thing. Are they fresh baked or are they 3 days old?
DB: Are you familiar with the some of the destination dessert shops in New York City?

FP: I think if somebody is looking for something it’s a nice bakery,(with) like everyday things to make them happy every day, you know the best cookie with a cup of coffee, a drink and everything. I think New York is a very special market, to tell you the truth, I don’t even know what people (many other pastry chefs) make in the city I just do what I do myself. People come to see what I do. If I have idea, if I make a cake my idea is mostly from Europe.

DB: I read in another interview that you are influenced by members of the Relais Dessert group?

FP: That’s the only influence I get. I’m the only one who’s a pastry shop in NY that’s like a pastry shop. I only look what I do I don’t look what (other) people do.

DB: But you must go out (in New York) to dinner to nice restaurants do you get inspired at all?
FP: Last night I had a very good dessert I went to Locanda Verde, very basic, they serve very simple, but very good execution.
DB: That’s Karen Demasco, formerly of Craft.
FP They were more like a homemade dessert but had very good taste. I had a cheesecake, a pumpkin? A squash? Something like that, very good, very simple. But you have to understand it’s two different worlds. A cake I can make, few people can make cake in this way, few people can be incredibly good at making a restaurant cake and a restaurant dessert.
Go here for Part II  and to see video.

Francois Chocolate Bar is located at 63 and Madison inside the Mauboussin jewerly store.

“Sometimes people can not appreciate the difference between something incredible and something simple”

“To tell you the truth I love Cookies much more than Pastry”

Best of New York City, Francois Chocolate Bar, Interviews | 11 Comments »

Francois Payard explaining the Terrine to DessertBuzz

Talk about getting your money’s worth! The Du Japanais verrine has about about 6 different components, each one more involved than the next, all for $7.00! And you get to keep the glass!

Francois Chocolate Bar is located at 63rd and Madison, inside the Mauboussin jewerly store. Go here to read the two-part interview with Francois Payard.

Best of New York City, Dessertbuzz Video, Francois Chocolate Bar, Interviews | No Comments »