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Desserts
With Gramercy Tavern Pastry Chef Claudia Fleming
Featured in "Life 360" on PBS
Friday, Oct. 26, 2001; 3 p.m. EDT

What's it like behind the scenes of a top-notch New York restaurant? How do you switch careers mid-stream? And, most importantly: how do you make a perfect petit four?

Ask modern-dancer-turned-award-winning-pastry-chef Claudia Fleming, who was online Friday, Oct. 26 at 3 p.m. EDT to answer your questions about desserts and the fast-paced behind-the-scenes environment of working in a restaurant.

Fleming's entree to the New York restaurant world came not as a pastry chef, but as a dancer waiting tables to pay the bills. While working in the dining rooms at Jams and Union Square Cafe in the early 80s, though, she found herself immediately attracted to both the theatrical and creative aspects of restaurant work. Before long, Fleming had found her new calling: pastry. In 1991, determined to hone her skills, she decided to go directly to the source and study pastry in Paris. After a stint at the prestigious Fauchon, Fleming returned to New York and a new career. She worked her magic at Montrachet, TriBeCa Grill and Luxe before signing on as the pastry chef at Gramercy Tavern in 1994. Fleming has won a host of awards, including a place on Pastry Art & Design's "10 Best Pastry Chefs" list in 2000 and 2001. Her first book, "The Last Course: Desserts from Gramercy Tavern," is being released in October 2001. A look behind the scenes of Gramercy Tavern is just one story featured in this week's episode of "Life 360," a new Friday night series on PBS (check local listings). Each week, "Life 360" invites independent filmmakers, writers, comedians, musicians, and others to take a theme apart, put it back together, and stand it on its head to discover unexpected perspectives. This week, "Life 360" celebrates food, glorious food.

The transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Decorah, Iowa: How did you get started? Did you always know that you wanted to bake for a living?

Claudia Fleming: No. As a matter of fact, I got started as a means to sort of support myself while I was an aspiring dancer. I was a waitress. It just sort of evolved into a kitchen job over the years, because I felt drawn to working in the kitchen. I started out cooking, pastry was a happy accident.

I was working at the Union Sq. Cafe and left for summer and when I came back in the fall, the chef said the pastry chef needs an assistant. And it was love at first site.

Alexandria, Va.: How has business been in your restaurant since Sept. 11?

Claudia Fleming: The initial reaction was bad. We seemed to suffer pretty dramatically. People weren't going out for the first couple of days after the attack, but since then we've been quite busy. The restaurant is really warm with a convivial atmosphere. Everyone here is friendly -- it seems to be a place where people want to be. People seem to want to be together at this time, so they're very drawn to the restaurant.

Arlington, Va.: Do you still dance?

Claudia Fleming: No. On several occasions I've tried to go back, it's too frustrating. The body doesn't do what it once did.

Glebe 66: Hi, I would ask you how you manage not to gain weight, but I read in The Post a while back, part of pastry chef'ing is lugging 25-pound bags of flour around so perhaps that is not a problem after all. What is your favorite thing to make?

Claudia Fleming: It's very physically demanding. There almost isn't time to eat. But, you have to have a certain amount of discipline and you try to taste things, not eat things.

My favorite thing to make... they're really, really, simple, but from the book -- they're called chocolate brownie cookies. I eat them for breakfast.

Fairfax, Va.: Are there non-sweet pastries?

Claudia Fleming: They'd be referred to as savories, I think. I think pastry and sugar go hand-in-hand. There are a couple of types of pastry without sugar, like what you use for a quiche, no sugar. But then that wouldn't be dessert really. But they're usually used as a vehicle for something.

Arlington, Va.: I've read that the average American gains seven pounds each winter. Do you give any thought to health when creating your desserts? What are some great low-cal/low-fat desserts you'd recommend?

Claudia Fleming: I believe in full fat! I do believe in small portions and moderation and I also don't use any kind of artificial anything, so that means cooking really seasonally and some of my favorite things to do are with fruit -- roasting fruit and poaching fruit. That's not fattening.

Dessert doesn't need to be anything more than some fruit and a cookie. It doesn't have to be a cake or gooey and chocolatey. I don't think low-fat, I think about more intensely flavored things that are delicious.

I'm a really strong believer in high quality chocolate, it's so intensely flavored that a small bit of it is really satisfying. I was at my aunt's once and at almost a bag of chocolate and wasn't satisfied because it wasn't high quality, but here at the restaurant I can eat only a few pieces. And I'm an admitted chocoholic, but, ya, you buy good chocolate and you can't eat that much of it.

Arlington, Va.: What has been the creation that you are the most proud of... what have you considered to be your best achievement in the kitchen?

Claudia Fleming: I think I have two that would be in a dead heat. And its gonna sound wacky, but I make a coconut tapioca and most people think of it as goopy, but mine is kind of brothy and it has these huge tapioca pearls on the plate and I put passion fruit caramel and sorbet and coconut sorbet and it's sprinkled with cilantro syrup. Very simple to look at, but the combo is just crazy in your mouth. That's really where my focus is when I think about making desserts -- the interplay of temperature and texture. I use a lot of herbs, actually, a lot of them are really sweet. If the cook can use mint, why can't I use their stuff?

And also, panacotta. Its an Italian dessert traditionally made with all cream. It's an eggless custard set with gelatin. About 1/3 of it is buttermilk, which, is actually really low in fat. It only has 2 percent fat, so it actually lightens the texture and the mouth feel of the panacotta. It's a very silky, light custard. Then I serve it with fruit in season or put a thin layer of concord grape gelee and sorbet.

And these are all in the book. You don't need the sorbet and the gelee and the cookies. You can take the dessert at a basic element.

Arlington, Va.: What advice would you give to aspiring pastery chefs? Do you think it is better to try and be an apprentice or is it better to get the basics at a culinary institute?

Claudia Fleming: Ya know, it depends on the person. Obviously, financial considerations are an issue. School can be very expensive. It's a great jumpstart. I know, myself, I always was a terrible student. I was much better at practical application. I learned on the job. Some thrive in school and enjoy that and can make the transition into the workplace, but again, it depends on the person. Both ways work for people if they know themselves well enough to know how they work best. Going to school never hurts, but what most don't realize is that cooking is more about common sense than anything else. Techniques are pretty easily learned.

When you think of your mother, she didn't have professional cooking experiences.

Alexandria, Va.: Hi Claudia!

I love to cook. The kitchen is my favorite room in the house, especially when the temps drop. However, I'm totally intimidated by baking anything that requires kneading or rolling out dough. I just can't get it right. Is it possible that my body chemistry just isn't suited for kneading?

Also, can you tell me what tools you'd recommend for someone with little counterspace (i.e. I don't have a marble countertop)? How can I maximize my limited work area?

Claudia Fleming: I'm sure there's nothing wrong with you physically. I don't know why people are so intimidated by baking.

It's certainly true that some people have warmer hands than other people and to have pastry be as cold as possible is always best. Anytime you're working with a short dough (butter cut into flour) you want to try to keep the butter relatively cold because when the water leaches out of the butter it loses it's flaking ability. When the water becomes steam it loses it's flakiness, so you want the water to remain in the butter so when you bake it it poofs your pastry.

Some people just don't like to follow recipes and that's fine, but so many people will say "I followed it exactly -- except I put in an extra this or that," and that's not exactly following the recipe. Be creative, but if it doesn't come out right you have to deal with that. Sometimes recipes don't work because they haven't been tested enough.

In the book, I try to demystify dessert making. I'm going to repeat what I said about dessert not having to be a souffle or a cake -- there are very simple, satisfying desserts in the book you wouldn't think of as pastry-making.

As for your second question... I'm not clear on what you're trying to accomplish. Maybe a portable workspace on top of your sink.

Miami, Fla.: What is your favorite and least favorite part of your job?

Claudia Fleming: My favorite part is coming up with new things and my least favorite part is coming up with new things.

While its incredibly satisfying when they're well received, the pressure that one feels to come up with new things can be almost paralyzing at times. It's a seasonal process, but that's a minimum. You're always tweaking, though, because the monotony of not doing it is kind of grueling. Even that can be taken as the best and worse thing... the monotony is someone else's version of becoming a perfectionist. The repetition is almost zen-like, but when it becomes monotony it's torture. That's certainly part of learning, though, repetition.

Silver Spring, Md.: I must admit to being a delicate shade of envious green -- there are times when I've considered switching careers and becoming a pastry chef. But I suspect that I might enjoy baking much less if it becomes a profession rather than a hobby. Do you find yourself baking on your "own" time, or do you avoid it?

And if I may, a technical question. My sponge cakes turn out nicely except there is sometimes a thin rubbery layer on the bottom (where the pan meets the cake). Am I overmixing when I fold the egg whites into the batter, or is there some other possible cause? (the layer peels off easily)

Claudia Fleming: I'm thinking it could be too much butter and flour on the pan.

As for the first question, it's not that I avoid it. I'll tell you after working in a professional kitchen it's hard to go home. It's like working in Barbie's playhouse. You just don't have the equipment. But when I do cook at home, they're definitely scaled down. I have a staff of nine people here, so we can be much more involved. One needn't make desserts that look like restaurant desserts. It's just not practical to try to recreate them at home because we have a huge staff. It's funny.

I would say that loving to bake is not the first requirement to becoming a pastry chef. Working in a restaurant is, I would think, what the first requirement would be. It has a particular energy. There's a stress level. Physical limitations and expectations that many find uncomfortable. And the monotony is really something to consider. If you really love to bake, I would say, you know, it's wonderful to have it as a hobby... which when I was dancing people would say "can't you just do it as a hobby" I would get so angry! But if you feel passionate about it then by all means give it a shot.

Washington, D.C.: Would you ever want to open your own pastry shop?

Claudia Fleming: Yes. Its a consideration and hasn't gotten any further than that. I've been pretty busy and still am and I'm starting to think about it, actually.

Baltimore, Md.: What has been your biggest disaster in the kitchen?

Claudia Fleming: I was once making a very large amount of buttercream and before it becomes buttercream it's a meringue. I put too much in the bowl and so the meringue started coming out of the bowl and -- like shaving cream -- overflowed onto the floor. I ran to the pastry chef and he just told me to shut off the machine, so that's probably my worst. It was a disaster before it was finished.

There've been plenty of burned things along the way.

Arlington, Va.: I'm amazed by the license some pastry chefs take with traditional recipes, like berry tiramisu. When do you know you've gone too far?

Claudia Fleming: When people don't enjoy it. As long as you're making people happy I think you're pretty safe.

Claudia Fleming: And if you don't want to eat it yourself, that's a pretty good indicator.

Washington, D.C.: Do you find people still splurge on desserts and not care about the waistline or are people more diet conscious?

Claudia Fleming: That's a tough one for me to answer. We have a price-fixed menu, so we make everyone have dessert. There's no choice here! But because of that I try to make things small so people aren't getting sick at the end of dinner.

Claudia Fleming: But, of what I serve, in the summertime you have more people asking for fruit plates and sorbet over the heavier, more chocolate things.

Washington, D.C.: Have you ever thought of branching out from pastries, or do pastries hold enough challenges to keep you busy?

Claudia Fleming: Ya, I think about it a lot. But pastry can be as challenging as I want to make it. But yes I do think about it and at my age, I'm kind of older, so ya know, to be quite honest, part of becoming a pastry chef was mercenary because I was competing with young boys who were physically much stronger than me and cooking is so physical I just found myself in the pastry department. It's more autonomous and frankly, easier physically. So the thought of going on to the line again is not an option. I would like to get into savories in the pastry context.

New Orleans, La.: Do you ever check out the competition, or there just days when you enjoy eating a desert that someone else has created?

Claudia Fleming: I don't go out with the intent of checking out other people. I do go out quite often to enjoy eating and as a professional there's no way to not critique what you're eating. Mostly I try to do it as a pleasurable thing, but the professional creeps in.

Arlington, Va.: Besides your own, which dessert cookbooks would you recommend?

Claudia Fleming: Besides my own, I would say Nancy Silverton's latest -- or any of her books. Her earliest one inspired me to become a pastry chef. Her most recent. The Chez Panisse book. Pierre Erme and Dori Greenspan. Emily Lucahetti. And, actually, Rose Levey Berenbaum has two books that are bibles. "The Pie and Pastry Bible" and "The Cake Bible."

Arlington, Va.: My sister who is just finshing college this year has always had aspirations of opening up a bakery/cookie shop. My question is, without formal baking experience, but an obvious natural talent in baking, how feasible is this? Also how difficult is marketing/establishing a clientel in and around the Washington, D.C. area?

Claudia Fleming: With drive and ambition I think anything's possible. Certainly she'll learn on the way what works and what doesn't work. And I think that by not having a formal education you're more open to things that may not be the traditional way -- but they'll work for you and make you a good business person.

Washington, D.C.: How did you get involved with the Life 360 concept?

Claudia Fleming: Well, I think they were here primarily to speak with Tom, the chef/owner here, and I think he recommended that they speak to me. He's a good guy.

The book I just wrote is called "The Last Course" and, again, they're deconstructed restaurant desserts -- accesable for the home cook. They stress high quality, fresh ingredients and simple techniques. It's real pretty too. It's really a beautiful book. It's published by Random House and my co-author Melissa Clark was a dream to work with and my editor, Pamela Cannon.

Washington, D.C.: How DO you make a perfect petit four? I've always wanted to make them. I understand the cake part, but how do you get them perfectly glazed on all sides, without marks where the tongs held them? Thanks.

Claudia Fleming: Right. The glaze needs to be the right consistency. Not too thick. If it doesn't glide easily, it's too thick. It helps to cut the cake frozen using a sharp knife. Then place it on a rack with a sheet tray underneath it then you glaze over the top and you need to lift them from underneath -- not with tongs. A small offset spatula will do. If you dip the spatula in hot water and wipe off the water, it will make it nice and clean on the bottom. You dont' want to life from the sides.

Arlington, Va.: This is a neat idea for a chat. How do you keep from eating all your creations?

I'm planning to make some phyllo-wrapped appetizers tomorrow for a cocktail party and will no doubt have phyllo left over. Any dessert-y ideas using maybe 8-10 sheets of it? Any sure-fire tips on keeping it from drying out while working with it?

Claudia Fleming: Well, the traditional way to keep it from drying is to put a damp towel over it.

Desserty ideas -- yes, from the book, there's a banana strudel. Quarter a banana. Brush a layer of phyllo with butter, another layer, sprinkle ground up nuts, but banana in, roll it up, then roast it. Serve it with vanilla ice cream. It's yummy.

Claudia Fleming: I think that it's a fantastic industry that I work in. One that's full of incredibly generous people as was shown by the Sept. 11 disaster and the way the restaurant community came to the aid of workers at Ground Zero. I feel fortunate to be a part of this community. Despite its rigeurs and difficulties, I think this business is one of the greatest in the world.

Also, I really love what I do for a living and feel fortunate to do it. I hope through the book I've been able to inspire people to make the last course.

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