Blueprint for a Layered Pastry
A break-down of The Catbird Seat Pastry Chef Ian Wismann-Horther’s hazelnut chocolate, raspberry, and mushroom dessert, one layer at a time.
Hazelnut Chocolate Cremeux, Hay and Porcini Cream, Chocolate Crispy Pearls, Freeze Dried Strawberries and Fermented Mushroom Powder
For Ian Wismann-Horther, pastry chef of The Catbird Seat, texture is everything.
“There’s a lot of similarities between savory and pastry, but the most important thing about pastry is texture,” he states. So for one of his three courses on The Catbird Seat tasting menu, he wanted to make a dessert that played on this idea—something that requires guests to dig their spoon all the way to the bottom in order to get every individual layer. By looking overhead at the plated dessert, presented in a ceramic bowl, they would have no idea what is hidden beneath the dusty, chestnut-brown surface.
Before Wismann-Horther determines the many textures his course will have, he pinpoints a flavor profile: chocolate and mushroom. His brain scans for all the different times he’s experienced the earthy combo. There was a photo on Noma’s Instagram account that captured chocolate coated in dehydrated mushrooms. Then there was the dessert he tasted at Smyth in Chicago, where Wismann-Horther worked prior to The Catbird Seat. “One of their classics is a chocolate ganache with jam and shiitake mushroom,” he says. And third, there was Chef Brian Baxter’s porcini mushroom, chocolate, and sunchoke dessert, which he served at Bastion.
With all three dishes in mind, Wismann-Horther begins translating flavors to format. “I was originally trying to make a mille-feuille,” he says. “But the puff pastry took away too much flavor.” So he scrapped the pastry and moved it to a bowl, where each of the six layers have a platform to both shine and complement the dessert as a unified front.
The bottom layer, a gianduja porcini cremeux, is the thickest of them all. “It’s important it’s at the base or else it’ll push down on everything,” says Wismann-Horther. “You have to start with the thickest and work your way up.” Though the cremeux’s dried porcini powder provides a hit of savory-earthiness to the hazelnut-infused dark chocolate, it’s still meant to be rich and decadent. He tops it with a heavy sprinkle of “fancy salt.” “I use Maldon, but I’m not particular,” he says. Salt is a layer in its own right, the misshapen shards adding a bit of crunch while offsetting the chocolaty sweetness. “People say they don’t like dessert but it’s always because there [isn’t enough] salt to balance.”
Pastry chef Ian Wismann-Horther of the catbird seat
Directly on top of the salt, Wismann-Horther drops a small spoonful of chocolate crispy pearls, reminiscent of Cocoa Krispies cereal—puffed rice covered in chocolate. That’s where the real, sugary crunch arrives. Sitting in between dry salt and raspberries, the pearls are virtually sog-proof. “Everything needs acid, so that’s where the freeze-dried raspberries come in,” says Wismann-Horther. “It’s a super vivid pink color. I like putting that in the middle so as you eat it, it’s like a surprise. Not only is there the surprise of [chocolate crispy pearls] for texture, but the surprise of acid and color for the raspberry layer.”
Photos: Will blunt
He pipes over the raspberries with a light, airy hay and porcini pastry cream. Although pastry cream is typically on the thicker side, Hismann-Worther folds in whipped cream so it can remain stable above the cremeux. The cream, infused with toasted hay, brown butter, and sherry, is deep, slightly caramelized and boozy enough to cut through any of the raspberries’ assertive acidity. Its mushroom flavor continues the through line that follows the dessert to its surface—a heavy dusting of fermented and dried shiitake powder. “That’s the wild card because it adds the funk and lactic acid,” says Wismann-Horther. Just a bite from the top and it’ll taste like a mushroom punched you in the gut.
“We’re specific [to diners] about going all the way into the base, because if you eat the top layer only, it’s not going to be balanced.” One bite all together and you get two different textures of smooth, one being light and one being thick. The diplomat cream melts quickly in your mouth and then there’s the surprise acid of raspberry and weird back layer of funky mushroom. All together, it’s a blueprint to the perfect bite.
