By George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin
Chef Cyrus Goo's Mango Tart can be made
with peaches when mangoes are scarce.
Try tortes, tarts,
By Nadine Kam
mousse cakes or— if that's too hard—
just make cookies
Assistant Features Editor
Star-BulletinDon't cry over fallen souffles, cakes that implode or breads that pop out of the oven flat, not fluffy. Behind every baking disaster is a lesson that can lead to fame, fortune, or at the least, praise from those who get to nibble on your confections. That all baking careers are bound to start on a sorry note becomes evident after perusing some of the new baking books on the market.
In "The Village Baker's Wife," California bakery owner Gayle Ortiz recalls improperly rolling croissant dough and using butter that was too warm: "These two seemingly little mistakes caused most of the butter to melt out of the dough while it was in the oven, sending smoke billowing out the windows. It was not a scene to inspire confidence."
Teresa Pregnall recalls a chocolate layer cake disaster in her book, "Treasured Recipes From the Charleston Cake Lady." After the first layer of cake began to crack from a mound of chocolate icing, she writes, "Novice that I was, I simply filled the crack with more icing . . . I used more icing, then more, and even more! The end result was a huge cake with almost as much icing as cake."
It was no different with Cyrus Goo, chef/owner of Cafe Laufer in Kaimuki. "I made my first banana bread when I was in the eighth grade, and it was a total flop."
Young Cyrus intended to surprise his family with his initiative and kitchen prowess. "I wanted to add more butter, more bananas for flavor. You can't do that with baking. I ended up throwing it out for the birds, and I don't think the birds even ate it.
"That discouraged me. I dropped that for a while and went back to just cooking."
Fast forward to Mother's Day, 1997. In a "Sunday Afternoon in the Park" concert presented by the Allegro Concert Orchestra, Goo's tarts, tortes, chocolate decadence and white chocolate mousse cakes will featured as a special treat for moms.
Meanwhile, at Goo's cafe, one can order soup and salad with a slice of cake for dessert, or on Saturday nights try one of Goo's "plated desserts." These are dessert trios or pairings on a theme, such as chocolate, with items varying in texture, flavor and temperature.
For those who would like to try baking something special on mom's day, rather than dashing out to the nearest bakery, cookies provide the most fool-proof entry into the world of pastries, followed by pies, breads, then cakes.
Goo's best pieces of advice for the novice are: Follow the recipe down to exact temperatures and times, and measure carefully.
"People who alter recipes when they cook think they can play around with pastry recipes, and that's totally not true," he said. "Pastry-making is more science than cooking because it involves chemical reactions. You have to take into consideration the developing dough. Any less or any more liquid will effect the end product."
In cooking, too, adjusting flavors by taste is a norm. If a soup has no flavor, one might add more salt or herbs. If it's too salty, one might add more stock or water. But in baking, every ingredient must be properly scaled and measured.
Mixing ingredients for baking also becomes an activity to be mastered. It's important to achieve the right consistency and texture. Use too much vigor with cookie dough and you risk introducing too much air, resulting in a flat cookie. Stir like a wimp, and not enough air will result in a cookie on par with the pavement outside your house.
You almost have to be a gluten, er, glutton, for punishment to even think about opening a bag of flour.
But Goo says the beauty of baking, is that it is based on formula, with all the guesswork removed. "Believe me," he said, "I've experimented a lot, and it does not work."
So if your Mother's Day dessert experiment fails, think of it as the start of your brilliant career.
Mahalo to mothers
What: "Sunday Afternoon in the Park" concert, with desserts by Cyrus Goo
