For Cody Middleton, the newly named Executive Pastry Chef of Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Fla., each day offers an opportunity to decrease waste and cost, while increasing productivity.
Waste is a word that no one wants to hear in the food service industry, no matter if the subject is waste of time, product, resources, or energy. One of the goals of a club kitchen is to maximize efficiency and reduce waste. Food cost is also a core factor that is continuously monitored. Controlling food costs indirectly affects labor cost via opportunity cost (i.e. the opportunity of not utilizing the product for an auxiliary use and the time lost of having to do the task a second time).
There are easy ways to save and cross-utilize products to make new products and cut down your food cost in the pastry kitchen. One of the most common items I see thrown away is berries. Many times berries are used as garnish so appearance is key, however, those that don’t make the cut should not be discarded (they were paid for). Berries that may be soft, but aren’t moldy, have a plethora of uses. We always have a Cambro of berries in our freezer being built up for its second life. From pies, cobblers, and crisps, to trifles, coulis and jams, the list of uses for “sub-par” berries is endless.
Italian meringue is another product that I stress the importance of cross-utilizing. Frequently a larger-than-needed batch of meringue is produced (usually due to the amount needed to be picked up by the whisk attachment in the mixer or amount necessary to get an accurate temperature of the sugar syrup). You’ve already went through the work of making the meringue, so why not utilize this to its fullest potential?
Buttercream is another staple in the bakeshop. Any additional meringue (Swiss or Italian) can be finished into meringue by simply adding butter and a little vanilla. Not only does this save on food cost by not throwing the extra away, it saves on labor cost by reducing the amount of time needed to make buttercream.
Crѐme anglaise—while not always something we have in our cooler but definitely like a Mother Sauce in pastry—can do double duty, too. The most obvious use is to churn it as an ice cream base, but there is a world of opportunities beyond. Anglaise that has been used as an accompaniment to a bread pudding can then be used as a custard base for another bread pudding. Likewise, the sauce can be spread directly on top the bread pudding, sprinkled with sugar and torched to create a “crème brûlée style bread pudding.”
An unexpected, yet rudimentary, use for leftover crème anglaise for some of my pastry cooks is to make it into Bavarian cream. Bavarian cream, fundamentally speaking, is a base (using crème anglaise, but can also be pâte à bombe or fruit purée), whipped cream, and gelatin. With this knowledge, an easy calculation is all that is separating you from a sauce into a full-blown dessert that you can use to ‘wow’ your members and guests.
Not all food items have to be used for consumption. Buffet displays with an attractive spread is crucial as well. Any shop that produces cakes has trimmings that will not be used. Pastry chefs have gotten creative by using these scraps for a laundry list of other products: thickeners in fillings, dried for masking the sides of cakes, or the bases for cake pops, rum balls, cheesecake, or shooter glasses/verrines. I have found that dried and ground cake scraps have aesthetic purpose. Ground chocolate cake, especially when mixed with crushed Oreos, has a very realistic resemblance to potter’s soil in a Mother’s Day buffet display.
Thinking a little outside the box and getting creative pays off when it comes to an operation’s cost. There are a million and one ways of cross-utilizing a base product for a supplementary purpose. Club chefs are naturally creative individuals: just look at the plating styles and flavor combinations that are out there! Unleashing this creative mindset when it comes to cross-utilizing product in each day’s production cuts down on the establishment’s overall bottom line.