COURTESY PHOTO Chocolate streaks or dots, lines of vanilla and berry sauces, swirled together, or a dusting of cocoa powder.

The simple art
of pretty pastries

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By Betty Shimabukuro
betty@starbulletin.com

The only difference between you and a great pastry chef is a pretty plate.

Well, OK, that and years of training, inborn artistry and massive amounts of skill.

But the fact remains that with a bit of decorative sleight of hand, it is possible to dress up even a box-mix cake into something that could fool some of the people some of the time.

Benoit Perruchon-Monge teaches the extreme pastry arts at the Technical School of Hotel and Tourism in Monaco, and will share a bit of that at a demonstration, 5 to 7 p.m. Nov. 7 at the Halekulani.

Perruchon-Monge has an intensity about pastry-as-art, to the point of carrying a paintbrush everywhere, specifically for applying gold leaf to his cakes. Outside the kitchen, he fingers the brush as he thinks and talks, as though it were a magician's wand. Which, in a way, it is.

The dessert he'll demonstrate next week is part cake, part mousse, part creme brulée, with roasted peanuts and a cardamom sauce -- touched with gold from that paintbrush. Everyone who attends gets a taste.

COURTESY PHOTO Benoit Perruchon-Monge, left, demonstrates easy ways to decorate a plate.

It's an ultra-complicated piece of work. But in an informal session in the La Mer kitchen on Monday, Perruchon-Monge demonstrated a few very simple ways to elevate even the most basic dessert at home.

First, you need a couple of squeeze bottles, one filled with a vanilla sauce, the other with a red berry sauce. Make a line of dots in alternating colors on a plate, then pull a toothpick all the way through the line. Or circle the plate in one color, top it with the other, then use the pick to swirl the colors together into a delicate border.

Chocolate sauce makes many things possible. Make chocolate dots in groups of five in descending sizes, all around the plate. Or simply streak the rim of a plate with a few lines of chocolate. Use a pastry bag with a very fine tip, or make your own out of a cone of baking parchment.

"Respect the product and work clean," is the first thing Perruchon-Monge teaches his pastry students. "After that you have a good basis to start from."

Perruchon-Monge's appearance at the Halekulani is part of the hotel's French Week celebration. He is joined by Joël Garault of Hotel Heritage's Le Vistamar Monte Carlo. Garault and La Mer's Yves Garnier are holding culinary workshops through the week (those are sold out) and all three chefs are offering special menu items at La Mer Nov. 1 through 9.

Cost of Perruchon-Monge's demonstration is $50. Call 923-2311.

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