Celebrated Chef Scott Green Shares Pastry Wisdom with ICE

ohoadmin — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 13:30:47 +0000

Celebrated Chef Scott Green Shares Pastry Wisdom with ICE ohoadmin Fri, 02/10/2017 - 08:30 February 10, 2017

Inspiration can happen at any moment. For Scott Green, Executive Pastry Chef at The Langham Hotel Chicago and one of Dessert Professional’s Top Ten Pastry Chefs of 2016, his life-changing moment of inspiration occurred back when he was a student with a scholarship to study fine arts in Chicago, while watching a pastry documentary. Shortly after, he switched from fine arts to pastry arts and never looked back.

As Chef Scott explains, “One moment of inspiration propelled me along a path as a pastry professional that has spanned more than fifteen years and taken me around the world.” We chatted with Chef Scott about his craft, the next culinary destination and his advice for pastry students.

You have won many awards for your talent in pastry — which was the most challenging competition for you?

My first team competition, the National Pastry Team Championship in 2011, was probably the most challenging. Although I had other competitions under my belt, this was my first team event and first competition at such a high level. Competitions of that nature demand a completely different set of skills in terms of how you work, how you organize, etc., so getting prepared was a steep learning curve.

Just a few months beforehand, I felt very underprepared, but we really pulled it together as a team (Josh Johnson, Donald Wressell, Della Gossett and myself) and ended up winning first place. Getting through those circumstances was trial by fire and definitely prepared me for future competitions.

Your restaurant Travelle is in Chicago, a city that has risen as a leading destination for food and drink. Which U.S. city do you see as being the “next” Chicago in terms of a culinary destination?

I don’t know that a city can claim that title. So much has changed and is changing about the restaurant industry — how chefs interpret the dining experience, new definitions of eating out like “fine casual” and food trucks, the prohibitive costs of real estate in major U.S. cities, consumers’ expectations — and the list goes on.

It’s changing the fabric of how people eat and eat out at restaurants. There’s also a saturation of restaurants in the major U.S. markets (New York City, Chicago, LA, Miami, San Francisco) and prohibitive costs to keeping those restaurants open. All of this pushes talented chefs and restaurateurs into “undiscovered” locations like Portland, Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville, Cleveland…just a few cities that have developed sophisticated and diverse food cultures within recent years.

I suspect that the current restaurant capitals of the U.S. will maintain their status as dining destinations (including Chicago), but soon you’ll be able to go to the airport in, say, Buffalo, and still find great food.

How have advancements in technology changed your craft over the years?

Technology is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, chefs can now express greater and more complex creative and artistic visions thanks to technology like 3D printing, molds, advanced stabilizers, ingredients and crossover technology like immersion circulators and rotovap [rotary evaporator]. From a purely artistic standpoint, technology has expanded the boundaries of what is possible and I love that. However, this is not a purely artistic profession. What is most important and what I feel is becoming lost in the buzz and noise of so much technology available to us (including the rise of social media) is the fact that our responsibility as chefs is first and foremost to create food that tastes good. This has always been a profession of skilled technicians and there’s a fine line when technology replaces that skill. Is it really so impressive to envision a cake and then have a machine 3D print a model, hire someone else to make a perfect mold of the shape a machine made and then simply fill that mold with mousse and cake? Is it so amazing to coat a cake in mirror-like glaze if that glaze doesn’t taste good? To me the answer is no. I’m not impressed by that at all — but millions of Instagram users are; so the trends persist. While I embrace technology and all that it offers in the realm of creative expression, it has to be tempered with the foundation of our craft and a constant alignment with what is most important: form follows function. [caption id="attachment_22760" align="alignleft" width="5936"]

Chocolate Strawberry

Do you think it is important for pastry students to have a background in savory/culinary studies?

I think any and all education is a good thing. Knowledge truly is power. You never know how a certain set of skills or knowhow can be applied to your career or your work. So while I don’t think it’s necessary for pastry students to have a savory background (I have no formal savory education), I also don’t think it’s a bad thing.

What is one piece of general advice you would give pastry students?

This is easy: Leave your ego and sense of entitlement at the door. I repeat: Leave your ego and sense of entitlement at the door. Get rid of it altogether because it will do nothing to help you succeed in your career. Do what you are told every day, as well as you can, as fast as you can, as clean as you can, and be open to critique and feedback until the day you are told to do something else.

This is called work ethic. There’s no timeline that entitles you to a raise or promotion or new set of tasks — that’s just not how our profession works. Keep your head down and work hard. The success will come in time to those who are truly willing to sacrifice in order to achieve it.

Click here to check out our upcoming advanced pastry courses at ICE.

Pastry Arts Career Culinary Student

Pastry Chef Kate Sullivan Gives Us The Scoop on Her Confectionary Creations

ohoadmin — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 16:38:52 +0000

Pastry Chef Kate Sullivan Gives Us The Scoop on Her Confectionary Creations ohoadmin Thu, 12/01/2016 - 11:38 /sites/default/files/styles/width_1400/public/content/blog-article/header-image/Cake_Power_Kate_Sullivan_Demo_1.20.16-edited-12_2.jpg.webp?itok=9YkXvlBc December 1, 2016

By Carly Evans

Chef Kate Sullivan of Cake Power is New York’s pick when it comes to imaginative, sculpted cakes. Named one of the Top 10 Cake Artists of North America by Dessert Professional magazine, the Brooklyn-born baker’s gorgeous cakes have appeared on "The Martha Stewart Show," "The Today Show" and "Food Network Challenge."

We caught up with Chef Kate to chat about her signature style and her biggest cake challenge in anticipation of her upcoming CAPS course at the ŷ��Ƭ. In Cake Carving: The Polar Bear Cake, participants will practice key cake carving techniques to create their own sculpted cakes.

You worked as a photographer at magazines such as Parenting and Smart Money — what inspired you to switch to baking?

Photography has always been a passion of mine and I loved working for magazines. My main job was to hire the photographers and produce photo shoots, but ultimately I had a craving to do something more hands-on.

What is your “signature” cake or dessert?

Most of my cakes have some sense of fantasy and animation, using bold colors and shapes. The designs and details are usually painted or sculpted by hand. As for wedding cakes, one of my signature designs is a simple tiered cake adorned with a cascade of peonies, dahlias and tiny white chocolate animals as well — bunnies, foxes and even alpacas (which I once added in honor of the bride and groom’s own alpacas).

I’m sure you receive all types of requests for cakes. What is the most challenging sculpted cake you’ve ever completed?

It’s hard to choose. One of my criteria for choosing a project is the excitement of not being quite sure if I can pull it off. One that comes to mind is a replica of the new Whitney Museum. The building is really complicated with angles going in every direction. The cake was for an art installation at the museum and they wanted an exact replica, down to the railings piped onto the balconies on the outside of the museum.

Have advancements in technology changed your craft over the years?

One of the requests for the Whitney Museum cake was that it be as architecturally correct as possible. I was able to find an amazing architecture student who researched the building online and scaled down the design for us with a computer-assisted program. Using the three-dimensional printer in our studio, we were able to print out a three-dimensional version of the building. Having a 3-D model to work from makes a huge difference.

What is one piece of general advice you would give pastry students?

These may seem contradictory but, in the beginning, don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Just play with your food and decorating supplies—happy “accidents” happen all the time. However, once you’re taking on a trickier project, a more precise approach using a 3-D model or figurine is the way to go. It’s also a good idea to make templates of your subjects scaled to size in advance to keep your sizing consistent.

Ready to try your hand at cake carving? Click here to register!

Pastry Arts Cake Decorating Professional Development

Carly Evans

Celebrated Chef Scott Green Shares Pastry Wisdom with ICE

Pastry Chef Kate Sullivan Gives Us The Scoop on Her Confectionary Creations

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