RADIX - Paco Torreblanca

Radix, Latin for root, beginning, origin, starting point, base, foundation. It is also the path that anchors a plant to the ground, through which it absorbs water and minerals.

Paco Torreblanca's pastry radix feeds on the best tradition. It is the essential pastry, the foundations, the base which has supported its evolution for the past years, but which the master now turns into a target itself. It is not a starting point, but the goal; it is not a turning back, but a step forward; it is not an involution but a new step in evolution itself.

It is a pastry that shows its interior without objection, without the makeup of glaze, keener on straight lines than on curves, more accustomed to a knife or an oven than to a mold or a freezer, more earth than air, more rough than soft, more related to chewing than just swallowing...

This universal pastry chef also teaches us the value of simplicity, naturalness and optimization. Thus, the book shows a clear attempt to simplify many of the recipes and processes. For example, from a base crème pâtissière, more than a dozen flavored creams are made, which can in turn be used as a filling for a wide range of petit choux. Why complicate life with complex recipes if they can be simplified and thereby make the workshops and especially the pastry shop or bakery more productive?

Radix is organized in six sections or chapters, each with a main feature that summarizes its contents. Thus we find the crispy sablés doughs, which leads to the all-purpose tartelettes; puff pastry, with which the unbeatable millefeuille is made but also some interesting soufflé tarts; the fluffy pâte à choux, with which eclairs and petit choux are formed; the essential sponge cakes, with which the sheet cakes are assembled; the wide range of baked doughs, with which the so-called travel cakes are made; and the airy mousses, creams and crémeux, with which the so-called entremets are assem-bled. In each of these chapters, the reader will especially find the specific recipes that characterize it. For example, in the chapter on sablés, the formulas of the different types of this dough can be found, as well as those of the fillings that are also baked with them. And it also happens when it comes to puff pastry, sponge cakes or pâte à choux. The rest of the recipes are ordered in a final recipe index which is often referred to from each of the preparations throughout the book.

In conclusion, at Books For Chefs we meet again with the great master Torreblanca with the aim of offering our readers a time-less, eternal book which exposes, in the best way, a pastry that -fortunately- is above fashion, trends and social net-works.