Easter Special: Super Pastry Chefs

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Growing up, Easter eggs and chocolates were not quite satisfying. The eggs we decorated were messy and rarely yielded beautiful results. The chocolates we got as gifts from aunties and parents' friends were sweet milk chocolate bunnies and chicks that were empty shells. I used to wonder: why wasn't there something better inside? So, I decided to ask some of the most creative pastry chefs what they are making for Easter this year. If this is a holiday devoted to tooth-decaying excess, then why not have kids (and adults) gain more sophisticated taste buds in the process? So, here is a quick survey of this Easter's offering, complete with contact information for last-minute cravings: Gale Gand at Tru (Chicago) is serving truffles for Easter and also homemade peeps for the petit four cart. For truffles by phone, call 1 (312) 202-0001. Florian Bellanger at Fauchon (New York) is adding to the usual suspects in gift baskets and general chocolates and sweets with his own Megeve Easter Nest, a classic Fauchon cake named after the Megeve ski resort. It's a stunny crunchy-creamy-chocolatey creation of chocolate mousse in between layers of vanilla merange. The nest is covered chocolate curls (a Fauchon secret). The best part are the chocolate bunnies, Mister Bunny, Bunny Love and Back To School (wearing a backpack) that are filled with chocolate eggs. Florian had the same experience as I did, "When I was a kid I felt so sad when I used to break the bunny and it was empty. So now that I am a chef, I fill the bunny with chocolate eggs," he told Superchefblog. Call 1 (212) 308-5919 in NYC, 1 (718) 784-7001 from New York, or 1 (866) 784-7001 from out of state. Elizabeth Falkner at Citizen Cake (San Francisco) has made me a believer in marshmallow again. She is making the best chocolate marshmallow bunnies I have ever had. She also has Easter chocolates such as chocolate eggs filled with more chocolate eggs, vanilla and chocolate Easter cupcakes with miniature chicks and bunnies made out of gum paste and of course her carrot cupcakes with marzipan carrot buried in the top of the frosting. Call 1 (415) 861-2228. Pichet Ong, corporate pastry chef for Jean-Georges Vongerichten (New York), took a few moments off from the opening of Perry Street (a new Jean-Georges restaurant) in the next two-weeks time to talk about his Easter dessert for Spice Market. Pichet grew up with Buddhism and Judaism, so, when he thinks of Easter, he thinks of it as a holiday marking the end of Lent, a period of fasting. And when he thinks of breaking a fast, he thinks of breakfast. "I crave dairy and sweet for breakfast. I think of cream, so I came up with a cream cheese croquette, a Bavarian." It is made of cream cheese, creme fraiche, gelatin, whip cream, and lime zest, scooped into an egg shape, and rolled in thick crust (the best part of cheese cake, he says). He serves it with blueberries that have been roasted in the oven, until they give up their juice. "They turn a deep purple-lavender in color, and that resembles Easter for me." He warms up the Bavarian in the oven just before serving so that the cream cheese is soft and blends well with the blueberries and turns a light shade of Easter purple when eaten together. Picket's dessert is playful since it looks like an egg but doesn't have any egg in it (or a yoke for that matter). "The bottom line is the flavor, not the presentation," he added ­ though it sounds like he is cooking with a palette of colors as well as flavors. Call 1 (212) 675-2322. Canada's Thomas Haas of Thomas Haas Chocolates (Vancouver) is producing the kind of Easter eggs (above) and chocolate bunnies (right) that I have always longed for. Despite a flood of orders that kept him from an interview, he did send some images of his Easter collection: if you'd like to see these two slow-loading, high-resolution images, please click on collection 1 and collection 2 to view. Otherwise, call 1 (604) 924-1847. Best wishes for a taste-educating Happy Easter. Previous articles: Valentine's Tea: Bouquets to Drink Valentine's Knives: Cut to the Heart --> back to superchefblog