The Making of a Pastry Chef: Recipes and Inspiration from America's Best Pastry Chefs

As pastry chefs trade supporting roles for star status on today’s culinary stage, there has never been a better time to belong to this exciting profession. Going behind the scenes and into the kitchen, The Making of a Pastry Chef takes an unprecedented inside look at the pastry chef’s fascinating world, with a treasury of interviews, anecdotes, and classic recipes from many of the nation’s leading pastry professionals.

Richard Leach (Park Avenue Cafe, New York), Nancy Silverton (Campanile and La Brea Bakery, Los Angeles), Jacques Torres (Le Cirque 2000, New York), Sebastian Canonne (The French Pastry School, Chicago), and Roland Mesnier (The White House, Washington, DC) are just a few of the figures who share their thoughts and experiences on every aspect of this vibrant, demanding field. With honesty and humor, they reveal their passion in forging careers that combine craft and creativity with sound business and managerial skills. In the process, they offer candid opinions and advice on training, career development, influences and inspiration, personal style, food and dessert trends, and much more.

Which celebrated pastry chef once went out to lunch, forgetting most of a day’s work in the oven? Which pastry chef suffered the spectacular demise of a multi-tiered wedding cake just one hour before the big event? The Making of a Pastry Chef shows how these talented professionals survived kitchen catastrophes and career obstacles to learn from their mistakes and continue to the top.

The Making of a Pastry Chef includes more than fifty inspiring recipes from an impressive roster of leading pastry chefs, along with sixty photographs that capture the spirit, dedication, and energy of pastry work. Biographies of all featured chefs give a sense of the many different career paths that can lead to success.

For today’s pastry chef, the responsibilities are great–and so are the rewards. Essential reading for anyone with a true love of food, The Making of a Pastry Chef celebrates an extraordinary world where with every new dessert, every hand-dipped chocolate, and every breakfast pastry comes a fresh opportunity to bring great taste to life.

"A first of its kind! In The Making of a Pastry Chef, Andrew MacLauchlan has gathered the hearts, minds, and souls of some of our greatest talents. It is easy to get caught up in the chapters of this inspiring collection of recipes and stories. This is required reading for anyone fascinated by food-and especially the sweet kind!"-Dan Budd, The Culinary Institute of America

"Being a pastry chef is so much more than baking a successful batch of chocolate chip cookies! In The Making of a Pastry Chef, you will find some of this field's top dessert makers talking shop with a colleague in a way that is frank and compelling."-Nancy Silverton, Campanile and La Brea Bakery

"This book reads like a who's who in the pastry world and contains a vast amount of information. Andrew's writing is as good as his pastry and his pastry is as good as it gets."-Michael Schneider, Chocolatier Magazine

"A first of its kind! In The Making of a Pastry Chef, Andrew MacLauchlan has gathered the hearts, minds, and souls of some of our greatest talents. It is easy to get caught up in the chapters of this inspiring collection of recipes and stories. This is required reading for anyone fascinated by food–and especially the sweet kind!"–Dan Budd, The Culinary Institute of America

"Being a pastry chef is so much more than baking a successful batch of chocolate chip cookies! In The Making of a Pastry Chef, you will find some of this field’s top dessert makers talking shop with a colleague in a way that is frank and compelling."–Nancy Silverton, Campanile and La Brea Bakery

"This book reads like a who’s who in the pastry world and contains a vast amount of information. Andrew’s writing is as good as his pastry and his pastry is as good as it gets."–Michael Schneider, Chocolatier Magazine

Includes bibliographical references (p. 325) and index.

ANDREW MacLAUCHLAN, a nationally distinguished pastry chef and author, is Executive Pastry Chef at the Coyote Cafe in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Las Vegas, Nevada. His books include Flavored Breads: Recipes from Mark Miller s Coyote Cafe, Tropical Desserts, and New Classic Desserts, which was nominated for a James Beard Book Award.

SCOTT VLAUN photographs botany, architecture, and food for a variety of magazines, books, and catalogs. His recent projects include Garden Cycle: A Gardener's Daybook and Cool Coyote Cafe Juice Drinks, as well as Flavored Breads and Tropical Desserts with Andrew MacLauchlan. He is currently based in Santa Fe, New Mexico and New York City.

The History of Sweets in Food and Cuisine;

The Rise of the Pastry Chef.

Origins of Inspiration.

Foundations of Learning and Honing Skills.

Inside the World of the Pastry Chef.

Ingredients for Success as a Pastry Chef.

Traditions, Trends, and Future.

Chefs' Biographies.

Bibliography.

Index.