Books & Magazines

A patissier, and even if many people have not heard of him, I take my hat off to this Spaniish master. Torreblanca says in a foreword that he has never wished to observe the distinction between a cook and a patissier and in doing so, as he himself says, he sides with master chefs like Carème, Escoffi er, Berasategui (a little chauvinism is always there) and the brothers Ferran and Albert Adrià, who together represent that marriage of disciplines. The fact that he includes the steward Vatel (not a cook) we tend to forget.

This book, his second, also consists of two parts. One is small, handy, ring-bound, with all the recipes (Spanish and English!) printed on plasticised paper so that it is unusually practical in the kitchen. This means the other big, exquisitely produced part can stay where splashes from utensils cannot reach it.

In this book you will fi nd modern techniques with details such as those to which the Adrià brothers gave birth in their laboratory but in particular areas Torreblanca succeeds in making things even simpler. How can I help my mouth watering at the way in which he makes crunchy delicacies from the skin of milk, or his marvellous meringue containing only 40% sugar? Or take the fruit cookies with pieces of fruit in clear jelly. When studied properly, the apparently eccentric combinations appear as brilliant and tasteful compositions. So do not be alarmed at a soup of almonds, honey and mustard.

It is a long time since I have seen such a potpourri of ideas with, furthermore, an excellent pictorial encyclopaedia of ingredients and basic products. This book is a great adventure.

Hong Kong is a city for bon viveurs. Its patissiers benefi t from this. It is also a practical city; the patissiers got together 20 years ago and to mark the occasion their club has published a book expressing their craftsmanship – in Chinese but luckily English too. Of 21 pastry chefs you already know Gérard Dubois (Passion, see next page) but there are more – from China as well as from Switzerland and France. Clearly they all want to appear at their best; the introductions describing each of them sometimes do strike one as odd, with references for example given their manliness or martial behaviour! This book was made for charity and part of the proceeds will go to Orbis. To order our recipe book, please contact: chan.johnny@pastryglobal.com.hk

The recipes are very varied but chocolate plays a leading part in many. Many pastries are by their nature quite straightforward but, apart from the often very charming, sometimes even sentimental presentation, there are many novel surprises. Obviously the location, an international hub, provides perpetual inspiration. Although I fi nd the lavender, fig and fromage blanc cake on a galette base exciting, the design – pink with a chocolate engagement ring and a strip of 50s fl oral motifs – put me off somewhat. But this chef (Wins Hung) knows how to melt eastern and western elements into an exciting whole. And then there were 21. What a metropolis!

Gérard Dubois is a Swiss with a classical patissier’s training. For over fi fteen years he has been running La Rose Noire, a business famous in Hong Kong and far around, where he works with a fi rm hand and much passion.

Passion. (the ‘.’ is included in the name) is a large format book in which he shares the secrets of his masterpieces of classical patisserie with us. It is not just the recipes themselves that are remarkable, including as they do classics like chibouste and Pavlova. Above all else, it is the way in which he makes them. To be sure, his Pavlova has a meringue heart but he manages, very simply, to invest the meringue with a paper-thin mantle of white chocolate sticking out above like a delicate fl ower; no heavy whipped cream, the topping is ‘crème au fromage blanc’ and the decoration consists of colourful macaroons. The result is amazing – and I have just described one of his simplest creations.

As if our lives depended on it, he uses rather healthier ingredients so that people who have had this placed before them and goggled at its superior presentation can then demolish it without feelings of guilt, although I must say the design is something for an art gallery. But eating it is healthy. The expert photography brings out the best of his patisserie. I know nothing that comes anywhere near it. Passion. Indeed!

Philippe Conticini has given his cookery book the look of an Andy Warhol soup-can print. Its title, Concentré de Délices, says everything: Conticini is a freebooter, a joker and an anarchist. Posing as if in a comic, he tells us in a speech bubble that ‘giving free reign to your desires and emotions is perhaps the best way to live free’. Anarchist says it all.

This has turned into a colourful book with imaginative, hearty dishes (try breadless hamburger, tomato croquettes and sauerkraut crumble) but the lion’s share of this very special volume consists of patisserie and desserts - ones that can only be described as anarchistic and defi nitely not silly. You do sometimes think that you are dealing with a children’s party but when you look properly you see that it is mostly brimming over with creative ideas – perhaps even ones of genius. Ideas in which he does not feel too grand to use leftovers or to start out from stuff bought from the baker, from which he time and again gets something totally anarchistic, but extraordinarily delicious. He makes chocolate that tingles on the tongue, lolly ices of apple, passion fruit, lemon and orangejuice with a pinch of cinnamon or an ‘ice’ of lady’s fi ngers, some leftover tarte tatin and so on –something where only seeing is believing. Seldom have I had so much pleasure from a cookery book.