Frankie Frankeny - Sweet Alchemy Dessert Magic

sweet alchemy is dedicated to my friend Sherry Yard.

By kismet, sometimes the universe brings a person into our lives, and we cant remember the time before we came to know such a soul.

Your kindness and generosity of spirit is rare in this world, and Im grateful to call you my friend.

You are my alchemist.

xo

Text copyright 2014 by Yigit Pura.
Photographs copyright 2014 by Frankie Frankeny.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.
ISBN 978-1-4521-0888-9 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4521-3061-3 (epub, mobi)

Designed by ANNE KENADY
Prop and food styling by YIGIT PURA
Thank you to Gumps for providing beautiful tableware for our photo shoot.

Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street
San Francisco, California 94107
www.chroniclebooks.com

If you want to build a ship, dont gather people together to collect wood and dont assign them tasks and work, but rather, teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPRY

You see, it all began with a spoonful of burnt sugar. At five years old, I was giddy with anticipation every time my mother made crme caramel. I would hang around the kitchen, smelling and yearning while my mother mixed and measured.

To make a crme caramel, you have to burn some sugar in a pan to a dark amber color, until it reaches the perfect balance of sweet and bitter. This caramel is poured into ramekins and topped with a creamy custard. Most people will then dunk their warm pan, caramel clinging to its bottom, into hot water to clean it. Not my mother. Shes a clever woman. Shed take a spoon and swirl up all the remaining caramel, let it harden on the spoon, and then hand it to me. It was the perfect way to cork a talkative kid. My first favorite candy was this caramel spoon, made by the first chef I ever knew: my anne, or mother.

I was born with what my family refers to as The Little Prince syndrome. I questioned everything in the world, and why wasand may still bemy favorite and most oft-repeated word. My mom longed for a quiet hour or two every week, and the caramel spoonful was the way she found it. I licked my sweet pacifier for hours, happy and quiet, allowing my mother some peace.

Flash forward a few decades, and crme caramel is still one of my favorite simple pleasures, with its complex, sweet-bitter flavor and luscious texture. Most of all, it tastes of nostalgia. I shocked friends recently at a birthday party where the hosts Mexican mother served three huge dishes of crme caramel. I helped myself to five servings.

It wasnt just this magic spoon that made me fall in love with sweets and desserts. Growing up in Turkey, I was spoiled with great pastry from a very young age. Turkish ptisseries carried everything from traditional Turkish desserts, including buttery sweet baklava, to French clairs and strawberry fraisier cakes. In Turkey, you dont need a special occasion to eat cake. We believe life is in the living, especially with the people you cherish, so what better way to celebrate every day than with a wonderful dessert at the end of a meal?

Ive always felt blessed to have found my passion as a pastry chef, especially given the setbacks I encountered early on. When I was young, due to cultural stereotypes, I was discouraged from being in the kitchen because I was a boy. But where theres love, there is a way. I practically stumbled upon my first restaurant job at the age of twenty. From there I serendipitously carved my path in a profession that has always challenged and rewarded me through beauty and pleasure.

As a Buddhist, I believe the path to enlightenment is in striving to find the middle ground between all extremes. I try to hear, feel, and see all extremes simultaneously and to create harmony from these opposites. For me, envisioning and creating desserts is no different. Ask anyone who knows me well, and they will tell you that I have a crazy, and at times uncontained, level of energy in life and in the kitchen. I never create a new dish thinking, I should make a tart, or I want to create a new cake. I first draw from memories of flavors; like a librarian, every time I smell or taste something, I try to categorize it in a file in my brain. When it is time to create, I draw from these files of memories and think of how to pair flavors together in harmony. I especially love pairing things that are complete opposites in flavor, and at times harsh by themselves, to create a harmonious flavor profile on the palate. Then I think about what sort of emotion and feeling that dessert should evoke; I want the dessert to have a personality of its own. And at last, I draw from my memory of inspirations and history to give it identity and form.