Sweeten your life: what desserts are prepared in fast restaurants
The trend for lean desserts in the restaurant industry has been developing for several years. In many ways, it is connected not so much with religious restrictions as with a global interest in herbal cuisine and more useful compositions of sweets. But during Lent, the pastry shop masters have an additional reason to surprise the guests. About the direction in which the fantasy of professionals is working this spring, see the Izvestia article.
Selection of ingredients
A lean dessert is always a difficult task for any chef, since most of the usual confectionery products are based on milk, eggs, and butter. All these ingredients of animal origin are excluded from the recipes, and suitable herbal products come to replace them.
"Berries, nuts and honey are an excellent base for lean desserts," Roman Laguzov, chef of the Agapa restaurant in Yaroslavl, told Izvestia. — With their help, we preserve the natural taste of a sweet dish and at the same time make it a little brighter.
Lean Coffee Cupcake
As an example, our interlocutor cites his new biscuit, which also interested those guests who do not observe lenten restrictions. It is made from a custard dough in which flour is mixed with baking powder and soda, and then poured with hot coffee. The dish is complemented by white chocolate whipped with very cold coconut cream, espresso-based coffee caramel, and caramelized walnuts, adding a final touch of brightness.
— Lean desserts can be concisely assembled from fruits, cereals and nuts, because in fact they should be simple, — says the pastry chef of the Apples Bake restaurant (Sochi, Krasnaya Polyana) Victoria Polovnaya. — At the same time, even an ordinary baked apple can be beaten with new textures and interesting flavor combinations. For example, mashed baked apples make wonderful muffins and carrot biscuits, and lightly baked apples with cinnamon, honey and nuts can be wrapped in a lean strudel using filo dough with an airy and crispy crust.
A curious dessert has appeared in the lenten menu of "Baking Apples" — a fried banana, which you can easily try to repeat at home. The peeled fruit should be cut in half, sprinkle with cane sugar and set on fire with a gas burner until a caramel crust forms. When serving, lean yogurt (or coconut sour cream) and granola are added to the banana, which can also be prepared independently. To do this, mix your favorite nuts with honey and large oat flakes of long-term cooking, spread everything on a baking sheet and bake at a low temperature until ready.
Classics of the genre
Classic desserts are also well suited for lean interpretation. At the same time, chefs do not just replace the ingredients in them, but create dishes that taste and texture almost the same as the original ones.
— Among the eternal favorites used in lean desserts are dark chocolate, nuts, fruits (especially banana, apple, berries) and honey, — says Alexander Kubyshev, pastry chef at Leo and 800 °C Contemporary Steak restaurants (Moscow). — Dates and other natural sweeteners are the main products in the trend of avoiding refined sugar. Coconut (milk, cream, butter) provides saturation without the use of animal fats. And nut pastes made from almonds or cashews help to create a creamy texture.
Omoniere with coconut espuma and caramelized banana
This spring, Leo restaurant introduced a lean version of the classic French dessert aumonier from our interlocutor. It is made from thin and delicate filo dough, neatly shaped into a pillow. A nutty crumble and an airy coconut espuma are placed inside, and a dish with a caramelized banana is served. It is very difficult to cook it at home, because it requires a lot of professional equipment.
— The more complex the confectionery design (for example, airy biscuits or custard), the more skill it will require to replace products containing animal fats, — says the pastry chef of Cafe Massimo (Volgograd) Irina Kuchurova. — The easiest way is to adapt those desserts where initially there are few "problematic" ingredients or where fruits, nuts, chocolate or coconut play a key role.
According to our interlocutor, modern cooking has found many ways to replace these ingredients. For example, soy, almond, or oat milk can be used instead of regular milk to make custard. Butter can be replaced with vegetable oil (sunflower or rapeseed), which can be used to make a sponge cake, which, thanks to a wetter dough, will not stale for a long time.
One of the most striking examples of how vegetable cuisine can not just copy, but create a dessert version that is almost as good as the classics is the vegan sacher cake at Massimo. It consists of a chocolate sponge cake (based on applesauce), a filling of mashed orange and apricot, and a mousse of Belgian chocolate with coconut cream. If you bake sacher at home and want to try to repeat it yourself in the lean version, you should keep in mind a few subtleties. Lean biscuits are more fragile, so they should be cut only after they have cooled completely, using sawing movements using a long knife. It is better to transfer the cakes on baking paper or using two wide knives. If you use syrup for flavor, apply with a brush and very sparingly, as the excess moisture may cause the cake to "float" and lose its structure. And ganache made of chocolate and coconut cream in a ratio of 100 g per 100 g is perfect for covering the cake.
National flavor
The choice of a lean dessert directly depends on the concept in which the restaurant operates. This is especially noticeable if the style of the establishment is based on some national tradition - then the ingredients and products characteristic of such a school may appear in the dish.
— The first thing I thought about in the context of Russian cuisine is baked apples, which never lose their relevance in the post, — Marina Raeva, pastry chef of the Mashenka restaurant (Moscow), told our publication. — And of course honey, walnuts, cherries, almonds, mountain ash, that is, everything that grows and is harvested here. As a result, we got a honey pie with baked apples and walnuts.
Dessert "Almonds, cherries, mountain ash"
Another interesting lean dessert made by our interlocutor is made in the style of a trifle, but with a clear Russian accent. It is based on mountain ash sauce, whose bitterness and tartness are balanced by cherry granola and espuma with almond cream and sorbet.
"Oriental sweets are very suitable for a lean menu, as many of them, such as Turkish delight, halva or date truffles, initially do not include animal products," says Angelina Kotova, pastry chef at Saray and Mamie restaurants. — And since I work with both French cuisine and asador appliances, my choice falls on apples, coconuts, chickpeas, sweet potatoes, cashews, berries and pineapples. The latter is enough to marinate in chili syrup, and then fry and serve with coconut sorbet.
Baklava with ice cream orchata and pistachio
You can get aquafaba from boiled chickpeas, which works like chicken protein, our interlocutor continues. If you beat it with sugar, then you can bake baklava from this base. Another essential product is cashews. It makes excellent lean creams that complement almost any dessert well, because the taste of the nut itself does not contradict other products. Baked sweet potatoes are suitable for making Basque cheesecake.
The main lean dessert at Saray this spring was baklava made from filo dough with ice cream based on the refreshing Spanish drink orchata. When serving, it is watered with a small amount of honey and sprinkled with chopped pistachios. In order to prepare a lean version of baklava at home, it is enough to buy filo dough, any vegetable (or preferably coconut) oil and nuts to your taste. It is enough to make syrup from sugar and water in a 1x1 ratio, for balance it is worth adding a little lemon juice. An important detail is that you need to take cold syrup to soak hot baklava, then this dish will turn out to be more crispy.
Chocolate sponge cake with coconut and lemon gel
"There is now a large selection of lactose—free chocolate with different percentages of cocoa and even vegan white chocolate, all of these products open up a lot of possibilities for creating lean desserts," explained Albina Rodygina, pastry chef at Padron Spanish-Portuguese restaurant. — Different types of bitter chocolate are especially suitable for us, as the tradition of working with cocoa beans in Spain dates back many centuries.
Padron's special lean dessert consists of a delicate chocolate sponge cake, ganache based on 66% chocolate, gel and candied fruits from Uzbek lemons, thin chocolate bars, and coconut ice cream. Our expert uses mineral water to make a sponge cake, and the lemon zest is boiled several times in salted water to avoid bitterness.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
