Da New Executive Pastry Chef...

Our Executive Pastry Chef resigned a month or two ago.  He had accepted a position somewhere in Napa Valley as a group pastry chef.  All of us were pretty sad to see him go.  Then a few weeks later, the new exec arrived...and things have been quite interesting since then.

Definitely a lot of changes in the menu.  He pretty much wiped out everything the previous chef had implemented, replacing the pastries with his own creations.

First up, replacing the Black & White Berry Tart, is the Fruit Strip.  Sounds kinda sexy...
A big strip of puff pastry is baked off, then shmeared with pastry cream.  It then gets loaded with fruits.  And our new chef likes to emphasize the "loaded" part of this pastry.  I'll get into that later...

After finishing with apricot glaze, the rims are dusted with snow sugar, then cut.

Very pretty and colorful.
He then redid the previous chef's eclairs.  He first baked them off topped with what's called a craquelin--something very similar to a shortbread dough, sheeted out to 1.5mm thickness.  After filling them with cream, he finished by glazing them with--*GROAN*--fondant.

I honestly don't know of anyone who actually likes fondant.  As a matter of fact, most people I know don't like fondant at all.  Just sayin'...

This is our brand new pastry item, da Raspberry Cream Puff.  A choux puff (again baked with craquelin) filled with pastry cream, raspberries, whipped cream.

Our amenity cakes got a makeover as well.  Instead of the buttercream frosting, we are now glazing the chocolate mousse cake with black glaze and garnishing with crapload of chocolate decor.

 

The anniversary cakes got a similar makeover;  glazed on top, garnished with (again) crapload of chocolate decor.

There are still more new things, more changes.  It's gonna be a bit tough adjusting to all these changes and new things...