Pastry chefs talk about their culinary craft

With the summer coming to a close, Dru Tevis gets a bit more excited.

The 27-year-old pastry chef at Bramble & Brine in downtown Rehoboth Beach believes the time of year is coming when people become interested in dessert again.

"Sometimes people avoid it during the summer, a little more so than in the winter," he said. "People are always talking, 'oh, it's bikini season and we're at the beach. We've got to be careful.' "

In the summer of 2009, Tevis, who was a manager and bartender at the former Blue restaurant, was given a chance to prepare desserts during Rehoboth Beach Restaurant Week. Three months later, he was hired as the pastry chef.

He deferred admission from American University to go to film school, but he realized he wanted to pursue his newly-found passion and go to pastry school, instead, to get the proper training. He stayed at Blue for another year before leaving in October 2010 to enroll at French Culinary Institute in Manhattan.

After interning at Momofuku Milk Bar in New York City while he was in school, it turned into a full-time job. By April 2012, he returned to the beach, making his way through the restaurant scene as a pastry chef, including a year at Blue Moon. He joined Bramble & Brine in November.

"I like that it has a small town feel but still with all the tourists coming in the summer, we get so busy," he said. "There's such a great restaurant scene. It's a fun place to be a chef."

In a beach city, prime competition for a pastry chef may not be fine dining establishments, as many restaurants can't afford a full-time pastry chef. Mark Mayers, restaurant director for the Harrison Group, said he's seen fewer pastry chefs in town over the last four to five years, for example, as a result of the recession.

So for area pastry chefs, it's their goal to convince diners to stay in the restaurant after they eat dinner, rather than go out to the boardwalk for some boardwalk fare.

"A lot of people will go out for ice cream after dinner instead of have dessert, but I try to make it so the menu makes it relatable to them," said Aubrey Leonard, pastry chef at Blue Moon, who was the sous-chef while Tevis was there. "Instead of super innovative, creative and funky, we want to make it more familiar and comforting in the summer."

Tevis believes desserts shouldn't be fussy and complicated, rather, something that simply tastes good.

"To get someone in a beach town to sit and say 'I'm going to stay at this restaurant and have dessert,' it needs to be something they are excited to eat and be like 'Oh, I need to try that,' " he said. "And after they have it, say 'I need to come back for more of this.' "

Cooking at the beach has two distinct seasons, Leonard said. In the summer, it's busy like a city and she works more hours. In the off-season, there may be a smaller crowd, but the locals are a devoted group of regulars with what she calls "a foodie vibe."

"They want something different sometimes," she said about locals. "It's kind of good to have a few things on the menu that are a little different and pique their interests and pull them in."

'Cups aren't accurate, at all'

Unlike in savory cooking, pastry chefs need to use exact measurements to prepare their dishes.

"For baking it does need to be a lot more precise," he said. "I'm a very organized, structured person and I think that's what makes a good pastry chef. Savory chefs can be sporadic all over the place."

Leonard, 26, became a pastry chef to crave her love for sugar, she said. But she also enjoys the technical aspect of creating desserts. Even if there are fewer items to prepare on a dessert menu than a dinner menu, it takes longer, she said.

"There's always a process to everything," she said. "Sometimes something has to sit. Sometimes things have a few different steps. I feel like it's more of an art and a process."

At pastry school, the first lesson Tevis learned was to throw away his measuring cups because he would never use them again.

"That's very much an American thing," he said about baking with cups. "You won't find cups in any professional kitchen. Everything is done by weight, always. Cups aren't accurate, at all."

Tevis uses a scale to measure out his ingredients and believes it's easier to dole out 900 grams of flour, than to get three cups.

"Everyone's cup is different, from the way you scrape it to the way you pack it," he said.

'Once you have it, you want it'

When it comes to favorite dishes, Leonard looks forward to the spring when she can use rhubarb and strawberries and the summer for peaches, berries and sweet corn.

"The produce here has been awesome," she said. "It's a benefit of having the country around us and having the local farmers markets. You might not have that in the city."

For Pino Tomasello, owner of Frecso's Restaurant in Ocean City, the desserts he makes in-house are ones his customers always want to try, he said. When it comes each of the desserts he makes in-house has a reason behind it.

His cheesecake, for example, is popular because of the fresh local fruit toppings and he goes through quite a bit of creme brulee, by popular demand, he said.

His tiramisu, based on his mother's recipe, is an item he has made the same way since the restaurant opened in 2000. He describes it as light and refreshing, and not rich like a chocolate cake, which could leave a patron full after just a few bites.

"I think it's sort of like one of the desserts that I don't believe will ever go out of style, no matter if it's winter or summer," he said. "Once you have it, you want it."

For Tevis, doughnuts are what he's into right now. On the dessert menu right now at Bramble & Brine is buttermilk doughnuts with dark chocolate pudding, almond crunch and a bourbon marshmallow fluff.

"I love doing different things with doughnuts," he said. "I love serving doughnuts with something cool and creamy, so you have like a pots de creme or a pudding of some kind. So you have the hot yeasty doughnut with something cool, and there needs to be a crunchy element in there. I like that mix of hot, cold, creamy, crunchy and silky smooth."

jbleiweis@dmg.gannett.com

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