I didn’t intend to mix business with pleasure, but there was one reason why I couldn’t pass up this opportunity: Pierre Hermé. Any of you who have read my blog know that he has been one of my biggest pastry heroes and inspired me to go to pastry school.
The master himself was at the congress to judge a pastry competition, and to give a pastry demonstration. It is extremely rare for him to make an appearance in the US, so when Bravo North America kindly offered me the chance to sit in on Hermé’s class, there was only one answer: YES!
There were so many other famous and accomplished chefs at the congress; I wish I could have attended the entire three day event. The congress is a showcase for culinary professionals, so there was a lot of very refined, cutting-edge cooking going on – the best of the industry sharing information and techniques with each other.
Again, there were many amazing-sounding presentations I would have liked to see, but I was there for only one day, and really for one person. Above, the first presentation featuring Hermé on the main stage. Here he is, going over some last-minute checks with his assistant chef.
The talk was titled, “Emotions to Share: A Total Immersion in Sensations and Pleasure”, and focused on Hermé’s dessert philosophy and continuing pastry innovations
. Hermé showed off two creations from his dessert line called “Emotions to Share”. These desserts are a middle ground between the traditional simple cakes found in bakeries, and the elaborate, multi-component desserts in restaurants, and quite appropriately the theme for these two creations was “Entre”, or “in between”. On the video screen above you can see some of the ingredients used in the demo.
If you are familiar with Hermé’s Emotion line, a series of verrines, or parfaits, these are like supersized versions, hence “Emotions to Share”. Hermé explained that by using a mold to contain the various layers, he was able to use more delicate textures, such as pastry cream, geleés, and thin genoise, than he could in a standalone cake.
The second dessert, called “Delicieux”, featured wasabi geleé, fresh and confit grapefruit, white chocolate and wasabi mascarpone, and matcha marshmallows.
While the combination of flavors may seem offbeat, Hermé’s elaborations about the genesis of this dessert showed how much thought he puts into every element of his creations. For example, he met with a wasabi producer in Japan and learned that the bottom 1/4 of a wasabi root has a sweeter taste than the rest, so that is the part he uses. He grates fresh wasabi into the geleé as he is making it for the best flavor.
When he cuts up the grapefruit to layer in the dessert, he always includes part of the flesh, the pith, and the peel, because he wants to include all of their different flavors in the final product. The combination of wasabi and grapefruit is meant to contrast bitter and acidic – although this may not seem intuitive for pastry, he has obviously figured out how to make the two flavors work, because this is one of his most well known pairings.
The first Entre was composed of a strawberry-tomato geleé layered with olive oil mascarpone cream flecked with black Ligurian olives, and tomato fleur de sel puff pastry. You can see the puff pastry here, cut into individual “matchsticks”, which are placed between layers of cream to give texture and crunch.
Afterwards, I took a stroll around the main floor before the second Hermé demonstration started. Here’s a display case full of more dessert-y goodness. I like the cakes on the upper right with the multi-colored macaron fringe.The finished dessert has strawberries and more puff pastry arranged over the top. A very intriguing sounding combination – it was too bad that we could not sample it!
Obviously the big question in the audience was, how does Pierre Hermé come up with his crazy yet delicious flavor combinations? When asked, Hermé displayed his true artist’s nature. Asking an artist where his inspiration comes from is obviously one of the most difficult questions to answer. Hermé claimed that he does not seek flavors, they find him.
He comes up with a scenario, an architecture of taste in his mind, and then selects and refines the techniques to achieve this imagined result. As I listened to him describe his creation process, I was able to parse some general guidelines:
1.Get to deeply know your ingredients – for example, going to Japan to learn about wasabi.
Hermé also likes to explore all the various forms of one flavor: his Infiniment Vanille series of desserts features vanilla in every component, layered to create an extreme vanilla experience.
He even created a special Pierre Hermé house blend of vanilla, a mix of Tahitian, Madagascar, and Mexican vanilla proportioned to his liking, that he uses in his pastry.
2. Don’t take flavor combinations for granted. Hermé said that every time he recreates his famous Ispahan combination (raspberry, rose, lychee) in a new form – say ice cream, or tart, he has to re-evaluate how the flavors work together in a different format.
It’s not just of matter of throwing the same flavors together any old way. He works to recalibrate the flavor balance in the new incarnation so the interaction, and the overall experience, is the same.
3. It may take time to get flavors to work together properly. Hermé related how he originally paired grapefruit and wasabi in a sorbet, but wasn’t happy with the result. It wasn’t until later that he got the combination to work in a macaron, and finally his “emotions to share”.
Hermé also has a sly sense of humor. When someone in the audience mentioned that she was having difficulty getting her customers to try her matcha-inspired desserts, he answered that the first time he tried matcha, he hated it. He said that he had to keep trying it to figure out how to use it in a dessert.
He suggested that sometimes it will take time and patience for your audience to “get” what you have created. He also joked that when he first came up with the Ispahan combination at Fauchon, it sold once every earthquake – meaning not very often. It’s hard to imagine that Hermé’s signature flavor wasn’t immediately embraced by the public, but it took a while to catch on.
Now, it seems every pastry shop has their own version of the Ispahan. I thought Hermé was very kind in encouraging young pastry chefs to be persistent, and to believe in their craft.
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