Creating desserts is a vast and creative field. The deeper you go into it, the more there is to learn. Here are 5 such goals you can set for yourself in 2024.
Making desserts is a particularly artistic endeavor. One must create perfectly balanced batter, bake goods to golden brown perfection, and decorate them just right. There’s so much that goes into creating one dessert. In the world of confections, there’s so many skills and techniques to learn and acquire, so much to practice and perfect. It’s important to get the basics right first.
The correct ingredients in the exact proportions, treated in specific ways and mixed together with care. There’s the baking or freezing and letting the dessert set. And then there’s decorating, which is a field unto itself. For those who are sufficiently confident when it comes to the basics of baking, here are some advanced skills and techniques related to dessert making. Put these on your list of resolutions and make yourself the promise to master them in 2024.
Everyone understands how important and tricky it is to bake something just right. The flour must be sieved, the powdered sugar must have no clumps, the eggs should be beaten just right, the ingredients’ proportions should be exact and proportional. The list goes on and on. While baking itself is an exact science, once that’s figured out, one must consider alternatives. Today, more people than ever before are adapting veganism, vegetarianism, gluten free diets and so on. A good chef must be able to serve up dishes for them as well. So it’s important to learn how to work with alternate ingredients, like using oil and curd in place of eggs, or using almond or oats milk instead of whole milk. Think about the properties of these new ingredients, how they might affect the batter and the baking, and consequently, how the dessert will turn out and taste. For instance, the addition of protein powder shouldn't make it too grainy in texture. Or, how xanthan gum changes the overall look and mouth feel when used instead of gluten or agar agar instead of gelatin.
This may seem like a simpler skill but it’s really not. If you don't give the sugar enough heat you won't get the desired color, and too much heat will quickly burn the concoction and it’ll taste bitter. Remember, the color is a major indication about what you should be doing. It's important to test the temperature and get it just right. Getting the sugar to the right temperature is an important part of builing your foundation. Once this is done, you can experiment with a large variety of decorations, depending on how you use that caramelized sugar. There’s the obvious caramel sauce and caramel candies. But you can also create nests to rest your dessert on, shards to put into your desserts, cages to cover your dessert, spun sugar decorations to complement your dessert, and so much more. Once you’ve perfected the skill, you’re only limited by your imagination.
Tuiles are those rather pretty, laced decorations you see on some desserts. French in origin, they are essentially paper thin wafers made of dough that are used as garnish. It’s one thing to understand what the batter is made of and quite another to make it yourself. For one, you must learn how to infuse whatever flavor you want to add to your tuile. Next, it has to be cooked for just the right amount of time or it could burn. The most important aspect of tuiles is shaping it while it’s still hot, if you want a curved or circular tuile. Once cold, it solidifies and it will crack if you try to then manipulate its shape. So you have to work with it while it's still hot and with full attention. Tuiles are very delicate wafers so it's important to set it on the plate gently or it’ll easily crack. Finally, make sure your tuile’s flavor complements the dessert on the plate. This is going to take some patience to master but we can promise you, it’s a worthy endeavor.
Tempering chocolate is the process of heating and cooling chocolate so it stabilizes, meaning it’ll melt less easily and is easier to work with. The process also gives it a beautiful shine that works especially well as topping or coating on a dessert. This is another technique that requires a careful and constant eye on temperature and a skilled hand to work on it. With enough practice, you should be able to learn how to temper chocolate to perfection.