Three Essentials of Dessert Presentation

Making desserts look good requires that the pastry chef pay careful attention to all of his or her tasks. In order to create attractive plated desserts, the chef should observe the following three basic principles. Note that only the third one concerns the actual design of the plating.

1. Good basic baking and pastry skills.

   A pastry chef cannot make superior plated desserts without having mastered basic skills and techniques. Individual components must be properly prepared. If puff pastry doesn’t rise evenly and well because the chef hasn’t mastered correct rolling-in techniques, if cake layers have poor texture because of incorrect mixing methods, if a slice of cake is poorly cut, if sauces have poor texture, or if whipped cream is over-whipped and curdled, then no amount of fancy plate design will correct those faults.

2. Professional work habits.

   Plating attractive and appealing desserts is partly a matter of being neat and careful and using common sense. This is an aspect of the professional pride we discussed at the end. Professionals take pride in their work and in the food they serve. Pride in workmanship means that chefs care about the quality of their work and do not serve a dessert they aren’t proud of.

3. Visual sense.

   Beyond being neat, effective dessert presentation depends on developing an understanding of techniques involving balance of colors, shapes, textures, and flavors and of arranging dessert, garnish, and sauce on a plate to achieve this balance. This is the subject of our next sections.