Flavors of the World: Degustation

In American Cake Decorating (ACD) magazine this coming year, Chef Nicholas will explore the flavors of Asia, Africa, Europe, India and the Middle East, the Americas, and everywhere in between! The proper use of these flavors, and how to integrate them into cakes and pastries, will be covered. You can look forward to recipes, hints, and tips and tricks, and resources! Since space in the magazine is limited, an edited version of what Chef Nicholas wrote is printed. I thought I would share his editorials here on the blog in their entirety! I’ll be sharing them periodically over the next few months, and I hope you enjoy them! While the theme is FLAVORS of the World, we will start with degustation, or the tasting of food, before we delve into the different flavor profiles that are both universally popular and that are Chef Nicholas’ favorites!

Degustation

Pastry chefs, unlike most cake designers, go through formal culinary training. Degustation, or the careful and appreciative tasting of food, is a topic often covered in a pastry chef’s extensive education. In fact, at the French Pastry School (FPS), where I am a Pastry Chef Instructor, there is a two-week module on degustation. In both the 24-week L’Art du Pâtisserie and the 16-week L’Art de Gâteau programs, degustation and taste play a vital role; pastries and cakes not only have to look good, they must taste good! We have all had experiences with desserts, whether they be cakes, cupcakes, cookies, etc. where they look much better than they taste.

For over 35 years, I have been involved in both professional pastry and cake competitions all over the world; I am one of the few in this industry to actually judge both disciplines! The reason I am often asked to be on the degustation panel of pastry competitions is due to very refined palate, a result of my European upbringing and the millions of miles of world travel I have under my belt. Having both a refined palate and training in degustation is important in judging competitions because I am very familiar with, and can distinguish between, the various spices, herbs, florals, citrus, and peppers that are popularly used to flavor chocolates, ganaches, mousses, creams, cakes, and sauces.

While many cake competitions do not include a tasting portion, there are some that do, such as Pastry Live. Held annually in my home city of Atlanta, Georgia, Pastry Live hosts a cake decorating competition in which degustation is among the judging categories. In addition to their decorated cake, competitors must submit an 8-inch tasting cake covered in buttercream (which could include an enrobing of marzipan, rolled fondant, or modeling chocolate, if desired). The tasting cakes should reflect the decorated dummy cake that the competitor entered, but many did not meet this criterion. Quite a few of the tasting cakes created by pastry chef competitors were complex entremets (or multi-layered mousse-based cake) that did taste amazing, but could not be sculpted or used under rolled fondant. The cakes presented by the cake designers were often more of a dense pound cake, a suitable choice for creating the display cakes. This contrast made judging a bit difficult- the cakes that tasted better overall were not conducive to tiered or sculpted cakes, while the cakes better suited to tiers or sculpting tended to be dry.

Each of the tasting cakes at Pastry Live where cut into six servings and each piece was served one of members of the degustation-judging panel. While eating cake may seem like a dream job, the reality is that eating 20 or more pieces of cake in one sitting gives you a sugar high like no other! I like to start my “cake autopsy” off by first taking a photograph of the piece of cake in its beautiful, sensual form. Then… I smell it! These first two steps are very important as we eat with our eyes first and our nose second. Once the cake has been sniffed sufficiently, and I have taken in its aroma, tasting is next. I like to taste each of the individual components of the cake first: the filling(s), the buttercream(s), and then the cake. Finally I slice the cake across all of the layers and taste it in its entirety. While all judges have their own method, this is how I judge both cake and plated desserts. Having over 30 years of judging experience, I have developed a pretty thorough system!

Sometimes the individual parts of a cake can be outstanding, but when they are all tasted together they do not work. During Pastry Live, I conducted a seminar about the flavor profiles of cakes, fillings, icings, and gumpaste (sponsored by Nielsen-Massey Vanillas). I spoke about my approach flavors by encouraging pastry chefs and cake designers to consider flavors based on where they come from or grow geographically. In the tasting plate I crafted for this seminar, I included an lavender shortbread cookie. I grew up in England, in a huge region for growing lavender; here, lavender is grown alongside roses, lemon, verbena, rose geraniums, and other florals. I would pair these flavors together because they complement each other.

Interestingly, at Pastry Live, there were two tasting cakes that related to this flavor profile. The first cake was a lavender and coconut cake; the individual parts of this cake were each very nice, both in flavor and balance. Unfortunately together, for me, the flavors just did not complement each other. My suggestion to the competitor was to have used buttermilk and Meyer Lemon (less acidic as other lemons) cake, or just a vanilla cake as opposed to a coconut cake. Sometimes competitors try too hard to include as many flavors as possible, and it can just be too much. The second cake was a rose geranium cake with a banana pepper infused filling and a lime zest buttercream. Again, each of the individual parts was delicious, but the floral notes were too subtle while other flavors were overpowering. I did not think the flavors worked together at all. Judging is a very personal thing when it comes to taste, and that is why there is such a large degustation panel. For example, chocolate is one of my least favorite flavor profiles, even though it is popular. However, I love florals and unusual flavors like durian- a fruit from Southeast Asia.

Coming up in the other Flavors of the World blogs will be vanilla, florals, and citrus! 

Craftsy Class Alert: Romantic Garden Roses

I hope you all REALLY enjoyed Chef Nicholas’ brand new Craftsy classes that launched the last two weeks! They are called Sugar Flowers Out of the Box and Romantic Garden Roses.  If you haven’t yet purchased the two classes for yourself yet, just click the names of the two classes above to get them for just $19.99 and $14.99 (respectively)! That, my friends, is a very sweet deal! Chef Nicholas is so pleased with how both of these classes have turned out, and the entire ISAC team hopes you enjoy and learn a lot from both of these new classes! Don’t forget, if you would like to buy any of the items Chef Nicholas uses in the classes, just visit our online shop and enter the class names in the search box. All of the tools used will pop up for your retail therapy pleasure!

Sweetly yours,

Stephanie

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