Notwithstanding current dessert trends such as eggless or sugar free, chocolate still rules when it comes to innovation, fusion, or just about anything, strongly feels Vikas Bagul.
If I lay out a buffet with six chocolate-based desserts out of ten, I don’t think I will upset my guests. This shows how much chocolate is loved and appreciated. I just love to be around chocolate. I can do just about anything and everything with it.
One can make desserts of various textures and combinations using it as a base ingredient…pralines, garnishes, sculptures, show pieces, ice cream sorbets. Working with chocolate is a passion. It’s a magical ingredient. I love this as I consider myself more of a chocolatier.
The current dessert trends of course are sugar free, eggless, and molecular gastronomy. Sugar free is both interesting and challenging at the same time; it has hit the confectionery section big time.
I am sure all my fellow pastry chefs will agree to this. It’s the need of the hour and people are really getting health conscious, although they still want to enjoy cheese cakes, Tiramisu, ice creams and so on.
As a pastry chef, I love to face this challenge. Thanks to food science, we now get sugar substitutes as also sorbitol, which is a sweetener obtained by the reduction of glucose.
The second trend which I observe is going eggless in desserts, since a lot of people are turning vegetarian these days. The biggest challenge I faced was during the year 2006 when we were hit by bird flu; we were not allowed to use any poultry products in the kitchen. Imagine running a kitchen without eggs – it was indeed a pastry chef’s nightmare. In a way, it was a big learning for me.
Molecular gastronomy is as old as 50-years, but in India, this terminology is only about three years old as far as application is concerned. You can make different desserts with interesting textures and flavours, using this form of cooking. Is it (molecular gastronomy) really successful here in India? Well, I love to experiment with these techniques, and I really feel they give desserts a new dimension.
My signature dessert, I think, is the Mille Feuille of Earl Grey chocolate mousse with Gianduja praline ice cream. I like to infuse a chocolate with tea or herbs which gives it a very unusual flavor; chocolate works well with Earl Grey, mint, or green tea, and herbs such as rosemary, mint, lavender, and so on.
Chocolate feuillant is my signature cake. It is a dark chocolate mousse cake with crisp cocoa meringue coated with cocoa glaze and covered with chocolate fans. There are people who come to my restaurant just to have a portion of this cake as a dessert, and it is the highest selling cake in the pastry shop currently.
Fusion of Indian flavors in desserts is something I really enjoy. There is so much one can achieve with fusion as long as one does not overdo it. I have tried masala paan ice cream, gulkand (candied rose petals) chocolate praline, gulab jamun and pistachio parfait, rasmalai and chocolate terrine.
All have been well appreciated by guests. A dessert which has of late become really popular, is what I call the ‘Nirvana’, which is a fusion of Indian flavors in a mousse cake. Nirvana is a thandai white chocolate mousse cake with pistachio biscuit and layered with a rasmalai centre, with a saffron and pistachio glaze with ivory chocolate. I made this especially during Diwali, but people keep coming back for it even today.
Chocolate takes the cake
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Notwithstanding current dessert trends such as eggless or sugar free, chocolate still rules when it comes to innovation, fusion, or just about anything, strongly feels Vikas Bagul.
If I lay out a buffet with six chocolate-based desserts out of ten, I don’t think I will upset my guests. This shows how much chocolate is loved and appreciated. I just love to be around chocolate. I can do just about anything and everything with it.
One can make desserts of various textures and combinations using it as a base ingredient…pralines, garnishes, sculptures, show pieces, ice cream sorbets. Working with chocolate is a passion. It’s a magical ingredient. I love this as I consider myself more of a chocolatier.
The current dessert trends of course are sugar free, eggless, and molecular gastronomy. Sugar free is both interesting and challenging at the same time; it has hit the confectionery section big time.
I am sure all my fellow pastry chefs will agree to this. It’s the need of the hour and people are really getting health conscious, although they still want to enjoy cheese cakes, Tiramisu, ice creams and so on.
As a pastry chef, I love to face this challenge. Thanks to food science, we now get sugar substitutes as also sorbitol, which is a sweetener obtained by the reduction of glucose.
The second trend which I observe is going eggless in desserts, since a lot of people are turning vegetarian these days. The biggest challenge I faced was during the year 2006 when we were hit by bird flu; we were not allowed to use any poultry products in the kitchen. Imagine running a kitchen without eggs – it was indeed a pastry chef’s nightmare. In a way, it was a big learning for me.
Molecular gastronomy is as old as 50-years, but in India, this terminology is only about three years old as far as application is concerned. You can make different desserts with interesting textures and flavours, using this form of cooking. Is it (molecular gastronomy) really successful here in India? Well, I love to experiment with these techniques, and I really feel they give desserts a new dimension.
My signature dessert, I think, is the Mille Feuille of Earl Grey chocolate mousse with Gianduja praline ice cream. I like to infuse a chocolate with tea or herbs which gives it a very unusual flavor; chocolate works well with Earl Grey, mint, or green tea, and herbs such as rosemary, mint, lavender, and so on.
Chocolate feuillant is my signature cake. It is a dark chocolate mousse cake with crisp cocoa meringue coated with cocoa glaze and covered with chocolate fans. There are people who come to my restaurant just to have a portion of this cake as a dessert, and it is the highest selling cake in the pastry shop currently.
Fusion of Indian flavors in desserts is something I really enjoy. There is so much one can achieve with fusion as long as one does not overdo it. I have tried masala paan ice cream, gulkand (candied rose petals) chocolate praline, gulab jamun and pistachio parfait, rasmalai and chocolate terrine.
All have been well appreciated by guests. A dessert which has of late become really popular, is what I call the ‘Nirvana’, which is a fusion of Indian flavors in a mousse cake. Nirvana is a thandai white chocolate mousse cake with pistachio biscuit and layered with a rasmalai centre, with a saffron and pistachio glaze with ivory chocolate. I made this especially during Diwali, but people keep coming back for it even today.
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