Modern French Pastry: Innovative Techniques, Tools and Design

Modern French Pastry is not a cookbook about the classics. You will find no tart tatins, lemon tarts or opera cakes in this book. Instead, Modern French Pastry gives you 41 original recipes never seen before, in an array of shapes, colors, flavors and sizes.

Pix Pâtisserie award-winning chef and owner, Cheryl Wakerhauser (a.k.a. Pix), is known for combining bold flavors and textures into stunning, edible packages sold at her Portland, Ore. dessert oasis. Now, she shares her techniques, flavor combinations and whimsical design (along with a few parlor tricks!) in her acutely instructional cookbook, Modern French Pastry. Amazing looking and tasting desserts so explicably explained it will be a tossup as to who is more impressed - you or your guests!

French pastry is a study in components. Cheryl breaks each recipe down into easy to follow subrecipes that can be done in advance for convenience and even interchanged with other recipes to create your own signature dessert. Instructions for classic French pastry recipes such as pâte á choux, tart doughs and meringues are combined with modern flavors and design. Blue Cheese Truffles anyone? A Moment of Zen takes the fruit tart to a new level with the addition of crème de cassis, blackberry coulis and raspberry mousse. And the éclairs? Cheryl fills them with Bourbon pastry cream and tops them with cherry jam. Think the dessert version of the Manhattan. For the adult ice cream social, there's a Beer Float recipe complete with caramelized malted barley dipped in chocolate. Simplify your life with instructional "Parlor Tricks" - cook lemon curd, temper chocolate and prepare pastry cream all in the microwave in minutes! Cheryl is not only a pastry chef extraordinaire but a teacher as well, offering the how's and why's to each recipe.