What is more important in a kitchen: technique or the fundamentals of all the basic pastry recipes?
I think technique, once you have a good understand of technique, you can make any recipe. A good pastry chef should be able to look at only the ingredients and the amounts and know how to put it together. There is a science to pastry. Are the best pastry chefs scientifically focused? Not necessarily, I think that good pastry chefs are generally more detail oriented and have the patience to take the time to weigh out ingredients and wait for things to bake and cool before being able to finish. What are the most popular recreational pastry courses at FCI? Definitely our chocolate classes. They sell out every time, second would be our fondant and royal icing, where students learn different techniques for cake decorating with fondant and royal icing. And 3rd would be our sugar paste flowers. This is something everyone wants to learn how to make these days. It is not generally a pastry chef thing, however, due to demand we need to know how to make them. Does the book cover cake decoration a
