Practicing plating for a pastry tasting interview tomorrow — it’s been SO long since I’ve plated any desserts and am hoping this looks somewhat presentable. Any suggestions? Gonna make the ganache swipe (underneath) bigger to show more.
by Embarrassed_Focus373
18 Comments
I think the individual elements need to be more uniformly shaped. For example the chocolate cake pieces are all different sizes and shapes and there’s even some random broken off pieces. The cookies should be perfect circles. and the piping needs to be much less sloppy. I’m not a professional BTW, so take it with a grain of salt 😀
Could you maybe do little slices of cake or something? It looks like you just ripped some cake apart by hand and put it on the plate. Maybe you could do like a counter shape with the ganache instead of having it under the rest, like a swipe down and to the left?
I would say this is not ready to be served. Cookies look like they came from a store bought mix. Colors are very muted especially on this white plate.
The greater issue for me is conceptually. Nothing wrong with trying to go modern but it’s good to have a strong concept or tie to a classic recipe. This really reads as left over desserts from some mixer you plated and try to make “fancy”.
Are the cookies and cake really necessary? Do they compliment each other truly? I also imagine that that this reads very heavy to eat through. You definitely need an ice cream or something light and refreshing.
Could you do a play on an ice cream sandwich? Turning your cake into vanilla ice cream cake would solve a lot of your problems here I feel.
Don’t drag white sauce across the entire midsection all squiggly like that, looks random and sluggish. I’d subtract the cookies unless they really make a difference, they seem out of place. I’d introduce some crispy elements like a shaped tuile of some kind. Dot the white sauce, dot the caramel. Introduce some flowers like Borage or Dianthus for color.
Source: washed up Michelin chef
You’d be better off making a cookie cannoli stuffed with moist chocolate cake and cream and garnished with a Bordeaux cherry reduction.
What is the interview? Are you interviewing for pastry chef or a cook? If you’re interviewing for chef, I’ve got bad news. If you’re going for a cook position I would spend your time focusing on the things we can’t judge from a picture, like the texture of the cake and are the cookies moist, flavors, etc.. If you’re just interviewing for a pastry cook position I would lose the fanciness you’re trying to go for and just make good deserts.
I’ll be real with you, this doesn’t look good. The cookies aren’t uniform, the piping is pretty bsd, the cake should be whole… But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t eat all of it. You can learn plating. Focus on “is my shit tasty” and the rest will come. This is way too fancified for cake and cookies.
It looks like you’ve started chewing it for me.
Think of it this way, building or rebuilding this I’d follow the basics, especially for a dessert, base, body, garnish, textures (opposites attract!) moist/wet element, probably a sauce, colour, sweets should pop especially if your trying to impress someone,
Try turning the cookie into a crumble, make an ice cream or I read below somewhere you weren’t sure if you could pull it off … make a sorbet, so no mucking around with an anglaise etc, put the frozen element on the cookie crumble, make your cake maybe as a choc genoise, use cutters to create shape and diversity, pipe a crème to balance it and garnish with a tuile, so many options these days and it’s almost expected now, also I’d keep the caramel and dot it with the thick white one, maybe a Swiss meringue dotted instead some torched, some not, glaze the cake maybe with a chocolate gel or something, idk there’s so much you can do, poached strawberries, orange, cocoa dusting, so many options, but less is more, minimize what you have plated and maximise negative space, keep the focus on the food, not the chaos !! And most of all have fun along the way, this is what we do, continuing improvement… always 🙂
This was a strange concept to begin with, but the execution of this dessert is weirder. It isn’t bad, and the individual elements look tasty and I’m sure they are! But it’s just not a good execution.
Those are all great elements on their own and can absolutely be married together, but this is sloppy.
If you’re set on those flavors & textures, you could make a layered mousse cake? A thin layer of cake, a layer of white chocolate mousse, maybe the coffee ganache for a shiny glaze? Some pretty piping on the plate with the ganache. A nice sauce design with the caramel. You could toast the cookies even longer and use them as some kind of crumble vs. having whole chocolate chip cookies with ripped pieces of cake. Having a 2 hour time limit in pastry is most definitely an obstacle, but if you’re interviewing for a pastry chef position, you should be able to have a solid plan in place to make something presentable/palatable in the time you know they have alotted you.
I’m gonna sound like a jerk here but I’m gonna be completely honest man this looks like a meme of someone making fun of gourmet food. Except you’re serious… 😬
Why does the cookie in the middle look so upset?
If you don’t have time for a full cake to cool, what about something built around a cupcake or mini cake?
One of those cookies has a face, and it’s not happy.
Pastry chef here—this is what I would do (feel free to ignore if none of it is helpful):
You have a lot of tasty elements in here but they need reworking. I would probably focus on the chocolate cake—bake it in a sheet. If you have a rectangular metal frame that’s ideal, but a sheet cake pan or even a hotel pan works, layer the ganache and the mousse on top (add more gelatin if it isn’t setting right, but go slow), let it set in the fridge and then cut (dip your knife in hot water between cuts to clean it).
For plating, sometimes a darker plate is better with chocolate because a couple crumbs can make the plate look dirty. If you have the option of using a darker plate, I’d do it. keep the caramel sauce but add more dots of differing sizes. I would over bake the cookies to get them brown and then blitz them and use the crumbs as a decorative element for some added texture. Maybe a dollop of whipped cream for something light?
Looks like someone ruined your cake 😢
Well I got the job. Re-worked the entire dish. I brushed caramel across the center of plate with a rich, single layer chocolate cake with a raspberry dark chocolate ganache glaze and fresh raspberries on top, with white chocolate mousse resting on top of chocolate streusel on the other end of the plate. They wished I had been more creative, but I got thoroughly scared enough from this thread to go exceptionally simple, which worked out. Thanks for all the help and the sometimes brutally honest critiques.
lowkey, I know nothing about culinary plating, but at least from the first shot, it looks good, I’d eat it.
This looks like an intestinal diorama and none of these elements are interesting enough to be part of deconstructed plating