BAR BROSÉ DESSERTS

When I’m making desserts I look for things that are different so not everything is samey – you want a combination of textures: you might want an ice cream, something that’s room temperature, something with a warm component. So there are different textures, temperatures and techniques.

I feel that you can make anything look pretty if you have those small garnishy things, like having salted caramel, a good chocolate sauce or even whipped double cream or mascarpone with vanilla. Berries or some fresh herbs really help too. It’s about having a cream, an ice cream, a sauce or some sort of fruit component. As opposed to having that one thing, it’s adding those little extra things, and thinking about it from a slightly different perspective.

I used to feel with desserts you had to take a base recipe and then work on changing that – it had to be some classical preparation. Then I worked at these places where they made desserts out of whatever they wanted. It could be a roasted pumpkin with muscovado sugar, and they’d just serve that with sour cream and that would be it. It was breaking down the barriers of what dessert is. I found that quite liberating because I don’t feel confined by boundaries anymore.

A lot of our desserts at Bar Brosé come through necessity. We have heaps of eggwhites here because ACME, our other restaurant, makes pasta, so I’ve been trying to find ways to use them. Then I met this goat farmer who makes fresh goat’s milk and I wanted to support her. And it turned into this beautiful kaffir lime meringue with a lemony goat’s curd sorbet. Sometimes things turn out better than you expect!