“It was a pipe,” remembers the pastry chef Oriol Balaguer (Calafell, Tarragona, 1971). “She is the Easter cutie that I remember the most,” confesses one of the most important sweet chefs in Spain, while welcoming us in the store he has on Madrid's Ortega y Gasset street.
Here it opened in 2008 what was its first boarding school in the capital. In 2017, he would also become a partner in the century-old pastry shop La Duquesita. Straddling Barcelona and Madrid, coming once a week to the capital, Balaguer makes a short review of his careermonkeys through, at the same time that he presents his fifth book Oh la la Chocolat (Planeta Gastro) where he captures 30 recipes “that can be made perfectly at home” although he clarifies that “all but one, because panettone is impossible.” Big words, because in 2017 he won the Best Artisan Panettone in Spain award
“Not because of my recipe, but because of everything it requires,” while acknowledging that “making a panettone almost makes me horny.” Devoted above all to the world of chocolate, Balaguer is one of those pastry chefs who has learned from home. “My father was a pastry chef and chocolate maker,” he recalls, a reality that is beginning to be less noticeable in the sector where he recalls “that a good part of us [los pasteleros más veteranos] “We come from families with a lot of tradition.”
However, he trusts in the future and considers that there is “plenty of change” in a profession where it seems that “they are returning to the usual flavors.” “People want coffee, vanilla, chocolate, milk again… Don't experiment too much,” he reasons.
A star in the sweet world
Someone with knowledge of the facts says it, well His resume is impressive. At the age of 21 he was elected Best Spanish Artisan Master Pastry Chef and in 1997 as Best Spanish Restaurant Pastry Chef. He later became Best Pastry Chef of Catalonia in 2003, Professional of the Year in 2006 and Best Pastry Chef of Spain in 2008. In addition, his creations have also reached Olympus. In 1997 he won the award for Best Dessert in Spain and in 2001 one of his desserts—which we will talk about later—was awarded Best Dessert in the World.
And everything, or almost, began with a domestic taste memory: “I have that memory of smelling like chocolate at home. Imagine what it is like for a small child when his father comes home with a giant tablet. It is wonderful!”.
Of those memories, Balaguer extracts the anecdote of his first Easter monkey made by him, which returns to his memory, almost like a Proust madeleine. “My godfather, my mother's brother, was a pipe smoker and when I was 15 I made that pipe, but in chocolate, the way they make the pipes in Catalonia,” he recreates as a reminder.
Oh la la chocolat (Pastry and desserts)
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“If you think about it, it's daring because The normal thing is that the monkeys are given by the godparents to the godchildren.not the other way around,” he reflects while laughing. It is also daring that in a Madrid far from the Levantine traditions of the Easter celebrations, Oriol Balaguer has dared to open the way and, furthermore, to do so successfully.
Sculpt in chocolate
Although in Murcia and the Valencian Community the monas are styled like a bun, with the boiled egg distributed over the dough, in Catalonia the style is that of the chocolate monkeysometimes egg-shaped, “although this is beginning to change.”
A new paradigm that, explains Balaguer, “now makes people buy the cake on one hand and the cute one on the other.” Authentic chocolate sculptures which can take, depending on the complexity, up to three hours to prepare and with which he has knocked down, like a battering ram, the sweet reluctance of Madrid.
“In Holy Week 2008, when we arrived, I brought 15 monkeys from Barcelona and I had to end up eating six“, he confesses with a laugh. Now, in Barcelona he sells almost 1,000 Easter monkeys and about 300 in Madrid. “It is a whole creative process for the team and me where each one designs or thinks up Easter monkeys and then, the most valued ones, are formed and we do a kind of tasting panel,” he says.
“We, friends, acquaintances and even people and children who pass by on the street and tell them to come and try them. 20 or 30 people get together and From there we get the 12 Easter cakes what we will do that season,” he explains.
Madrid, land of puff pastry
Lover of butter and surprised by Madrid's voracity, Oriol Balaguer smiles when thinking about one of the days in La Duquesita. “A client arrives asking for palm trees, I ask him how many he wants and he tells me 'Fourteen!' The Madrid thing with the puff pastry is very strong“he comments.
“Puff pastry can only be understood from butter. Our palm tree has the same proportion of flour as butter and the croissant [elegido mejor croissant de España en 2014] It is 70% butter,” he calculates.
Equally a lover of pastries and chocolates, Oriol Balaguer also emphasizes that there are many conceptual cakes, but “the ones that sell the most are the children's ones, because it is a typically children's dessert.” However, the bill paying machine in their workshops is a dessert that evolved from restoration.
“When I was with Ferran [Adrià, pues trabajó con él durante siete años] I made a dessert that became emblematic,” he says. “It is the Eight Chocolate Textures and in 2002, when we set up the store, we made it in a cake version. Represents 60% of business sales“.
Meanwhile, Balaguer leaves touches of what the future of pastry sounds like. “The amount of fat is decreasing. Also, we are moving towards a more organic product than ever with fewer colors and fewer moulds. More towards a fresh pastry and a more traditional pastry, very similar to what I try to make.”
Images | Oriol Balaguer
In DAP | Traditional Easter Mona
In DAP | Easter Recipes