Mouth-watering prospects

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This was published 12 years ago

Mouth-watering prospects

Dessert chefs align in a movement to share tips of their intricate craft, writes Emily Dunn.

On a crisp winter afternoon at Balmoral Beach, a group of diners lingers over dessert in the Bathers' Pavilion restaurant. As they scrape the plates clean, they are unaware that, when it comes to the alchemy of foods such as sugar, chocolate and cream, they are just steps away from a gathering of renowned chefs.

Upstairs, in a darkened room, the city's top pastry chefs mingle around a long table displaying a tower of chocolate and passionfruit macarons, miniature tart tartins perched on shot glasses of white tapioca and caramelised white chocolate and more than 12 other, equally elaborate, dessert creations.

Artful ... a selection of chocolate-themed desserts.

Artful ... a selection of chocolate-themed desserts.Credit: Steven Siewert

Behind every talented and celebrated restaurant chef is a talented pastry chef. Aside from the MasterChef-endowed celebrity status of Balmain patissier Adriano Zumbo, the chefs who work with pastry, chocolate and sugar are often the anonymous artisans of Australian restaurant kitchens.

It is a perception the founders of the Sydney Pastry Club - the executive pastry chef at the Park Hyatt in Sydney, Fabien Berteau, and a sales manager at food company Deshel Foods, Elerig Liguet - hope they can change.

The meeting of pastry chefs.

The meeting of pastry chefs.Credit: Steven Siewert

''Pastry is about creativity, generosity and sharing,'' Liguet says. ''The idea of the meetings is for chefs to share ideas and techniques.''

The group includes respected pastry chefs such as Christopher The´, from Black Star Pastry in Newtown, and the pastry chef at Manta Restaurant and 2010 Australian Pastry Chef of the year, John Ralley.

Today is the club's third meeting and all eyes are on the creations of Anna Polyviou, head pastry chef at Bathers' Pavilion.

Polyviou, who has a resume´ with Claridge's Hotel in London and restaurants in Paris and the US, came to Bathers' in 2008 to lead a team of seven pastry chefs.

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Anna Polyviou's white chocolate bavarois creme.

Anna Polyviou's white chocolate bavarois creme.Credit: Steven Siewert

''I still write a lot of the dessert menu but it is Anna who directs it and makes it happen on the plate,'' Bathers' owner and chef Serge Dansereau says.

''There is much more skill and precision to making desserts. Each plate has to be a carbon copy, there is not so much room for variation.''

Caramel poached pear.

Caramel poached pear.Credit: Steven Siewert

Polyviou switched to the sweeter side of cooking to make beautiful, edible creations and because she saw a lack of skilled Australian pastry chefs.

''With dessert, 25 per cent of the product is visual. If a dessert is beautiful, you want to eat it and there is also an element of mystery,'' she says. ''It can be much more difficult to see the process that went into creating it than with other parts of the menu.''

Dean Gibson is another champion of the craft. A teacher at TAFE NSW Hunter Institute, Gibson is also the team captain for Team Pastry Australia, a group in training for the Coupe de Monde de la Patisserie, or World Cup of Pastry. The biennial event will next be held in Lyon, France, in 2013.

On the team are John Ralley, Buddika Gunawardana from Sheraton on the Park, Adrian Pagano from Gumnut Patisserie in Bowral and Justin Yu from Adriano Zumbo Patisserie in Balmain.

Gibson is hoping international success with the team will raise the profile of pastry chefs in Australia.

''If a pastry chef in Europe does well they have rock-star status, in Japan it is the same,'' Gibson says.

''When I competed in the Coupe de Monde in 1999, I felt like a pastry chef ninja but no one in Australia knew I had even left the country.''

Asian Cup tests team's sweet spot

Before it takes part in the 2013 World Cup in Pastry, the Australian team needs to qualify in the top three at the Asian Pastry Cup, to be held in Singapore next April.

Last year, Dean Gibson and teammate Adriano Zumbo qualified fourth at the Asian Cup, following a tense eight hours in which they toiled to create two ornate and identical gateaux, more than 24 identical desserts featuring 14 different components and two sculptures, one of sugar and another of chocolate.

This time, as team leader, Gibson is leaving nothing to chance. The team trains at a restaurant or a home for a minimum of two hours weekly. John Ralley, who spent three days creating a sugar sculpture at Manta Restaurant for a Mother's Day lunch, attends group practice once a month. Gibson is also taking French lessons in case they make the world event, as no other language is spoken by officials and judges. All instructions are in French.

Jeroen Goossens, a renowned pastry chef who works for the Dutch royal family, is visiting Sydney for the first of several training sessions.

''We will build templates for our sculptures out of building materials so the team can practice and get as close to the template, within the time limit. Each sculpture takes about five and a half hours,'' Gibson explains.

Creating a dessert for competition is a different beast to creating a dish for a restaurant, he says.

''We don't expect the judges to eat the whole dessert, maybe two mouthfuls at the most, so you have to pack as many different flavours, textures and techniques in as possible.''

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The cakes, desserts and sculptures also need to share a common theme, drawing on national heritage and local ingredients.

''Last year our theme was 'the top end of Australia', with ingredients such as macadamia nuts. I think every Australian team uses macadamia nuts,'' Gibson says.

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