The Academy Awards & A Duo Of Mini Gold-Dusted Chocolate Cakes With Chocolate Glaze
My very first professional job was in the pastry department at the original Spago, in West Hollywood, plating pastries on the line two days a week. Already at that time, and even still, Spago was part of the handful of restaurants operating at the highest level of service and cuisine in Los Angeles. A year spent at Spago was equivalent to three to five elsewhere, if you were fortunate enough to be part of the experience afforded to cooks at this fine dining establishment.
Spago was known as an A-list restaurant, with clientele including movie stars, Presidents, the wealthy of Beverly Hills, epicures, and everyone else in between. Every year Spago was hired to cater the Academy Awards. At that time, chef/owner Wolfgang Puck was quite fond of creating a dessert platter for each table, composed of various decadent treats, including the Spago molten chocolate cake (a darling of ‘90s L.A. cuisine), a fruit tart, and a creamy custard. And, facing every diner there would be a delicate, 4-inch tall, solid chocolate statue in the shape of the Oscar...3,000 of them; covered in gold dust.
Most of the pastries for the event were created in the week leading up to the event, but with 3,000 plus chocolate statues to make, we would usually begin a month earlier, snapping together molds, melting and pouring warm chocolate, then chilling the statues until that final week, when we began the work of covering them in real, edible, gold dust.
The job fell upon me and my kitchen co-worker, and friend, Ari. Armed with plastic Ziploc bags and bottles of gold dust, we retreated to the basement of the restaurant, which was also the dimly lit wine cellar, and faced tray after tray of chocolate statues, lined up by the hundreds. Sitting on milk crates with the stereo blaring, we created a makeshift shake-and-bake project -- pouring gold dust into the bags, delicately setting in the chocolate statues, sealing the zips and shaking them around until they were coated in gold.
Ari and I were down there for hours. Fueled by pizza, coffee, casual banter and music, we dipped and shook our hearts out. Once finished, cold and shivering with our hands numb from both the work and the frigid temp of the wine cellar, we climbed the basement stairs back into the glaring bright light of the kitchen. As we opened the door and walked out, the kitchen staff erupted in laughter. Unbeknownst to us, just like our 3,000 statues, we too were dusted head to toe in gold dust!
It’s a story that we laugh about to this day, and one that I think of every year when I pull out the gold dust to make our Bakeshop Valentine's Day sweets. This weekend's Secret Item is inspired by this story. We are making baby loaves of our chocolate espresso cake, glazing them with a rich chocolate glaze, and brushing them with the edible gold dust. Available this week for our newsletter subscribers only, so be sure to join our email list for access to all of our weekly specials.
All the best,