I worked from 12 to 17, six years in a bakery. I was a pastry cook.
The great thing about pastry is there are so many avenues - it's very hard to get bored doing this.
I want to promote pastry. Pastry has always been in the background - it's always cooking, cooking, cooking on programs, and pastry has just been this thing at the end. I want to show people what we do.
My first school play was 'Perkin and the Pastry Cook' that my primary school put on, and I played a boy, and it was so much fun, and I'd love to play a boy again. I think that would be great.
Brushes are crucial for applying glazes, sauces, and oils. The pastry brushes that you find in homestores can be pricey so pay a visit to your local hardware store and pick up a few paint brushes which are less expensive and work equally as well.
The biggest challenge of being a pastry chef is that, unlike other types of chefs, you can't throw things together at a farmer's market. When you're working with baking powder and a formula, you have to be exact. If not, things can go wrong.
It's like wine and food, or coffee and a pastry - coffee's awesome and a chocolate croissant is awesome, and together, they're transcendent. To me, music is the same way. Chris Stapleton is transcendent. Julien Baker is transcendent. Together, they're going to be euphoria.
I remember debating the finer points of flaky pastry with my chicken-pot-pie-obsessed American dad. I remember the divine mix of Thai food, TV dinners, and hearty, homemade goodness that have shaped this palate of mine to this day. I remember all this, but I still Google my husband's birthday. Thank God he's famous.
Being a great baker and pastry chef requires the upmost open mind. I try every dessert that comes my way!
Out of culinary school, I worked as a pastry cook in amazing restaurants for years. I ended up leaving the pastry cook scene because, though I loved the industry, the restaurants and the chefs I worked for so much, I had to be honest with myself. I was never going to be them.
