Food, Home & Lifestyle
Thinking Creatively About Pastry
Lesson time 06:45 min
Chef Dominique concludes his MasterClass by showcasing some of his most inventive creations from Dominique Ansel Bakery and leaves students with parting words of encouragement and inspiration.
Students give MasterClass an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars
Topics include: Thinking Creatively About Pastry
Teaches French Pastry Fundamentals
James Beard Award-winning pastry chef Dominique Ansel teaches his essential techniques for making delicious pastries and desserts in his first-ever online class.
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Being creative for me in pastry is everything. It's not only doing what you feel like doing. It's not only being crazy and doing things that other people don't do. Being creative is also connecting with people by showing them you can take those memories that they have as a child, you can't take those emotions and transcribe into something new, something special, something unique. So I think when you are baking you should be thinking of the people you're going to serve the food to. The people that you love, the people you want to impress, the people you want to please with your food are what's the most important for me. Connect with the people that you're serving the food with. For me, what makes pastry unforgettable is the emotion that goes in the food. And that's why I want to create new pastry, I always try to take this in consideration. So I wanted to show you also some of my favorite creations. The first one would be the frozen smores. The frozen smores was inspired by American nostalgia. Essentially, I've learned about camp fire and how American kids were roasting marshmallows. And I wanted to create something that was inspired by this. So I created the frozen smores with vanilla ice cream inside, a nice little chocolate wafer, the marshmallow on the outside is still cold, straight from the freezer. But as soon as you torch it-- there's no sugar in the recipe. So the honey inside the marshmallow carmelizes. This is made to order only. You cannot take it home. It smells so good. It smells like camp fire. And when you bite inside, you have this contrast of flavor. It's crunchy. It's chewy. It's cold. It's one of the best sellers here in New York. I'm also really, really proud because I brought this to Japan and it went viral. Japanese people love it. They didn't know anything about smores just a few years ago. And now it's our best seller there. My hot chocolate is a little special. It's not like classical hot chocolate. It has a marshmallow inside. I was inspired by the blossoming, actually by the tea in China. And I always was fascinated by how it was blooming inside the hot water. I wanted to recreate something similar that takes movement into food. So I have the hot chocolate that is made with dark chocolate. So it's really, really hot. It's not too heavy. You can actually see it's quite liquid. So it's easy to drink. This is how we serve our hot chocolate at the bakery. We have our little cup with the marshmallow. We drop it on top of the hot chocolate. And you have to wait for it for a few seconds. And it opens up just like a flower. So the idea for this was from Japan, actually for the cherry blossom. I always found it beautiful to see those flower opening and people waiting for it for hanami in Japan. And I want to come up with a fun idea to present a marshmallow in the hot chocolate. So we started this in Japan. We created it for Tokyo and then we brought it back to New York. Those creations are ma...
About the Instructor
Celebrated for his innovative twists on classic desserts, Cronut® creator and James Beard Award-winner Dominique Ansel has been called the “world’s best pastry chef.” In his MasterClass, Dominique teaches his essential techniques for perfect pastries. Learn baking and more with his precise methods, add classic recipes to your repertoire, and explore texture and flavor inspirations to delight friends and family with your own decadent desserts.
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Dominique Ansel
James Beard Award-winning pastry chef Dominique Ansel teaches his essential techniques for making delicious pastries and desserts in his first-ever online class.
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