Why not remove apple pie and other traditional desserts from the menu? 2023 is the best time for them to return in a new updated release.
For many years, many Polish restaurants and cafes have enjoyed simple, classic desserts based on well-known tastes. Not so long ago, hot apple pie with vanilla ice cream could be ordered almost anywhere – in chain pizzerias, in posh restaurants, and in more modest establishments.
And, as is often the case with classics, this apple pie has become a victim of its own popularity. Recently, such a favorite and willingly ordered shortbread with apples for coffee has become a symbol of the lack of confectionery creativity. Today, it's rare for apple pie, cheesecake, or fudge to be the first choice of chefs creating a new restaurant or bistro map.
And this is a shame, because the current times seem like the perfect time for a triumphant return to the culinary salons of the aforementioned cakes. Well-known sweets perfectly fit into the trend of so-called comfort food, and ubiquitous, including in gastronomy, nostalgia.
Comfort Cookies
Comfort food is a term whose dizzying career began after 2020.
We often associate such memories with fast food items like pizza, fried chicken, burgers, or pasta. Classic cookies now also fit into the comfort food stream.
"After the boom in modern technology and desserts with fancy names, the classics are once again returning to favor," confirms Wojciech Rzepecki, executive chef at Tomasz Deker's team.
However, anyone who thinks that the current fashion for retro food came to pastry shops from restaurants is mistaken, that this is just an offshoot of the ubiquitous trend of comfortable food.
- At the candy store, we go back to comfort food for at least a few seasons. I have a feeling that gastronomy has just woken up, " Rzepecki laughs.
Cheap and affordable
In this way, pastry shop windows are filled with different versions of cheesecake and meringue. The path to the coffee table is also wiped by Bostock, that is, cookies created due to the need to arrange a stale bun. It is often served as an exquisite dessert soaked in liqueur.
- Now I see much more interest in baking from semi-French and French dough, with cheese, crumbs, and seasonal fruits. This is by far the biggest demand, " says Łukasz Kaniewski of the Poznań-based studio Szama Sweet. When making a menu in 2023, it's hard to avoid the question of the growing Food costu and the cost of doing business. However, this is another argument in favor of not crossing out dessert classics from the map.
- Modern desserts bring higher costs, require more work, and more fancy ingredients. A classic pastry shop uses very affordable products, " explains Wojciech Rzepecki. Ingredients like shortbread cookies, classic pastry creams, or seasonal fruit mousses are often easier to prepare and cheaper to prepare, but also much friendlier to customers ' wallets.
A year ago, the product was sold from the beginning to the end of the month. Currently, after the twenty-fifth, twenty-fifth, the movement is greatly reduced until the fifth day of the next month. You can see that customers are running out of money faster, " says Łukasz Kaniewski.
- The big return of dessert classics. Fot. Shutterstock
New nostalgia clothes
Of course, the desire to return to the tastes of childhood or the increasingly shrinking budgets of customers are not the only reasons why we are so eager for proven dessert classics. The return to retro dining seen in recent years is part of a broader trend driven by the power of nostalgia packed into a modern form.
A good example of this phenomenon was the Pizza Hut 2021 campaign. In the slot-hit of the 80s. It was possible to play it using a mobile phone thanks to augmented reality technology, which projected game elements directly onto a cardboard board through the smartphone's camera. Of course, this was not the way that Pak-Man could be experienced by those who remember him from their youth.
To describe this approach to the past, the media coined the term "newstalgia", which is a combination of the words nostalgia and new. This is a special form of return to trends and retro products, but presented in a modern, often heavily updated form. The above example of Pizza Hut shows how we should approach dessert classics today.
Fun form
Although no one forbids us to serve desserts unchanged, often for decades, this, as Wojciech Rzepecki points out, classic sweets can also present a creative challenge.
- It depends on how we want to approach the topic. Of course, we can prepare wuzetka as it has always been done, but restaurants have the opportunity to play with the form, try the classics in a modern version. Pastry chefs are following this path, and I think it's a good trail because we like what we know. If we call a dessert apple pie, everyone more or less knows what taste they can expect, and another, modern form of cooking can only positively surprise, explains chef from the Tomasz Deker's team.
Thus, in many confectionery stores, apple pie monopolies in the form of apples filled with mousse, standing on the sandy bottom of the pie, are gaining popularity. However, we should not limit ourselves to just changing the shape. A classic dessert can be considered as the basis for a larger composition. Thus, Am'OR Eklery and wine are suitable for the marriage of the old with the new, where classic cookies are combined with a prosecco mousse, edible glitter, salted caramel and even goat cheese and beetroot.
Simplicity may surprise you
Of course, to attract the attention of the guest, we do not need to turn a famous dessert into a multi-story work of art. At the newly opened Warsaw restaurant under the giants, chef Bartosz Kapica serves shortbread dough with pistachio cream. The seemingly chaotically simple ingredients are arranged to create an amazing composition with a rich taste, which, however, directly grows out of the dessert classics.
- This is a traditional shortbread cake, like our grandmothers used to make. It is gently set on fire to break the sweetness with a slight bitterness, it has a pistachio side dish. That is, the usual cake and cream. There should be simplicity on our plate, " Kapica says.
Apple pie, candy bar, or shortbread are just the tip of the dessert iceberg. Many more forgotten classics are waiting to return to the restaurant menu, which can be either individual desserts or additions to larger compositions. Many people point out that the coming months, and possibly even years, will not lead to a dramatic change in the content of our portfolios and the structure of daily expenses. This means that dessert "newstalgia" and the desire for classic tastes will take root even more in gastronomy. Therefore, you should keep this in mind today when thinking about seasonal card replacement.
Tekst autorstwa dziennikarza magazynu “Food Service” i portalu Foodservice24.pl Przemysława Ziemichóda.
Źrodło artykułu: Magazyn Food Service.