Vinesh Johny - Insane Cake Shop: Next-Level Treats for the Modern Baker

Old-School Pastries with an
Insanely Delicious Twist

by

Pastry Chef & Co-Founder of Lavonne Academy

Global Pastry Educator

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DEDICATED TO JOONIE & MARIE

for not only putting up with our madness but also encouraging it. Thank you.

One of the most interesting things in any trade is when a professional transitions from student to teacher almost without realizing it. A teacher is someone who experiments and learns while teaching, not someone who believes that theirs is the only true way. The latter is neither my philosophy nor that of Andrs and Vinesh, who share their knowledge in a way that encourages the reader to explore and create their own path.

In my 35 professional years, I have had the privilege of working with several hundred young cooks. Today, many of them are great professionals, but there are no more than a dozen who I keep a fond memory of and associate with my own career. Andrs Lara is one of them. As soon as he entered El Bulli, I realized that we were going to have a great season together. In his expression, extreme humility was combined with a desire to absorb everything we could teach him. That was many years ago and now it is Andrs and his good friend Vinesh who show us the way of the current pastry world with their casual and playful recipes that are adapted to the palates of today.

Vinesh and Andrs told me, Albert, this is a book that arises from friendship and travel; a simple book showing who we are. No, dear friends, I must tell you that they are wrong. Books are like movies, music and art in general. They are not simple or complicated, they are good or bad, and this is one of the good ones. The book you are holding is like the beginning of a thrilling story, and we cant wait to know what happens next.

Sweet dreams,

ALBERT ADRI

Pastry chef and author of A Day at El Bulli and Tickets Evolution

This book is a tribute to passion. It is the fruit we get from all the years of work by two young talented chefs, Vinesh Johny and Andrs Lara, who delight our senses with this blend of foods from so many different countries and cultures. The flavors presented in this book range from coconut and mango to pandan and peppercorns, and the resulting combinations are unique because they are based on moments, places and experiences from both of their lives. The extraordinary techniques and presentation used in each creation is a reflection of their effort, discipline and passion for pastry.

These pages take us on a sweet journey through 73 recipes from two chefs with individual styles and careers, bringing their ideas together to create something new. Vinesh and Andrs have my admiration and respect for inspiring the next generation of pastry chefs across the world with this work, and I wish them many more successes.

Sincerely,

ANTONIO BACHOUR

Pastry educator and author of Bachour the Baker and Bachour in Colour

Change is the only constant. Food has been part of our lives and cultures for so long its easy to forget how much our habits and ingredients have evolved over the years. Each generation passes down their most hallowed recipes to the next in line, and along the way, new dimensions get added, methods get tweaked, entire dishes get reimagined. Rather than resist this constant evolution, weve decided to embrace it wholeheartedly. As pastry chefs, we hope to take the wide range of pastries and cakes and breads and bakes, all of which a long history of chefs have contributed to, and push them along a little further: pull in a glorious new texture to tease the palate, pair an exciting flavor, discover an innovative format, a novel method, a fresh look, infuse magic into every corner. And once weve finally found our favourite version of each dessert, we pass it on to you.

Andrs Lara is a globe-trotting Colombian pastry teacher whos always looking for the tastiest ingredients, and Vinesh Johny is the founder and chef of the award-winning Lavonne Academy of Baking Science & Pastry Arts in India. So how did two pastry chefs from opposite sides of the world even meet? In Japan of course, completely by coincidence! Vinesh was on holiday wandering around the streets of Tokyo, probably in search of something delicious to eat, and walked into a pastry school where Andrs was teaching a class. We started chatting about pastries, workouts and beaches in Goa and we havent stopped talking since! It was love at first bake. Soon after, Andrs visited Lavonne Academy in India to teach a class. It went so amazingly, he started returning every single year, and each time we ended up going on little trips, trying new foods, becoming closer friends and dreaming up pastry ideas along the way. Even from across the world we kept swapping recipes until we realized this stuff shouldnt just be on our phones, it should be out there, in every home oven!

Home-baking has become a massive part of food culture today, but it also ends up retreading the same ol classics. Theres nothing wrong with going back to recipes you love, but were here to encourage you to take that extra step, to add that extra ingredient, to push your experience in the kitchen just a little bit further; even just changing up the proportions in a recipe can result in something thoroughly joyful and fresh. Across these seven inventive chapters, we hope to bring the excitement of desserts straight to your kitchen. The recipes are accessible enough for casual chefs to follow, while the unconventional pairings and techniques aim to serve as fresh inspiration for even the highest level of pastry professionals.

Weve peppered the recipes with little notes along the way, and theres a section dedicated to explaining some of the more uncommon terms and methods used in several of our desserts, so if you ever need a little help, feel free to jump ahead to the section. The fields of baking and pastry essentially deal with many different ingredients reacting to each other in wondrous ways, and for these reactions to work perfectly each ingredient needs to be portioned out precisely, so for best results we always recommend having a digital scale with you in the kitchen and using gram measurements wherever possible. Youll also notice each recipe is made up of individual components being layered or combined in some wayweve designed these combinations to feel surprising at first, and then come together perfectly as if they were always meant to be. But this book is about you, so if you find a delicious component that you think would be perfect in your own recipe, go ahead and try it, indulge yourself, create something new; the real excitement of food lies in that playful experimentation.