Xavi Donnay’s five ideas to adapt great classic desserts to a mini format

In his book Mini, Lasarte pastry chef Xavi Donnay amply demonstrates that small-format pastries have the same or more possibilities than larger ones. And as he himself confesses, “my wish is to share a working method and a vision of mini pastry that is renewed and has a lot of potential.”

Over 350 pages, this book, available at Books For Chefs, presents more than 65 creations grouped into eight large families, from sablés to macarons or bonbons.

In this article we want to focus on Donnay’s mini version of universal classic desserts. “I am interested in these types of products with familiar, sweet and popular flavors. As petits fours or bite-sized, they maintain their charm and appeal intact. However, let no one be misled, the fact that they are popular and simple does not mean that their preparation does not involve difficulty. In some cases we find products that are already designed to be enjoyed in a small format, as in the case of tocinillos or even cannelés. But on other occasions the added challenge is to concentrate the greatness of these desserts that we all know in a simple bite,” he says.

Below we share five of their classic dessert proposals in small format, although in the Mini book you can find many more, such as a Mont Blanc with a vanilla sablé base, a Saint honoré with an impeccable presentation, a tropical Pavlova, and a Torrija in the form of a small bar which is just four centimeters long.

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Millefeuille

The peculiarity lies in the technique used, which consists of laminating the puff pastry and then cooking it using a sandwich griddle.

“It is a technique that I saw Christophe Michalak develop more than ten years ago. In his case it was to make a larger millefeuille, but with a spectacularly thin puff pastry. It is usual for this type of preparation to place a weight on the puff pastry to prevent it from developing during cooking. By using the sandwich griddle we save that resource.”

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Tocinillo

In this dessert the cooking is very special and requires its specific gadgets. Donnay is a fan of the classic version, although he accompanies it with a cute jelly “tocinillo” in the shape of a pig’s face. His proposal has a finish identical in texture and color to the classic tocinillo, but is finished with a papaya jelly.

“We invite the customer to enter into a playful concept related to the origin of the word (bacon is the softest part of the pig, whose texture is totally reminiscent of this sweet, but it is also a word with which we also identify the animal).”

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Black Forest

It is one of the first petits fours that Donnay developed for Lasarte with the concept of a crunchy base, which was originally made of sablé. The proposal was so successful that it served as inspiration and a starting point for many other mimetic ones that we have seen since then.

“The combination of elements is inspired by the popular dessert. It includes a chocolate sponge cake which is the base, the cherry is actually a vanilla cream mousse with a cherry filling, and the chocolate shavings become in this case the décor stem.”

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Tiramisu

Lasarte already had a version of this classic in mini format. Donnay, as a great fan of this dessert, has updated and enriched it.

“Updating or recreating a classic like this always requires fidelity to the spirit and the original combination of flavors. Thus, in our tiramisu, coffee is not absent, nor is the sponge cake or mascarpone, and a special touch of Baileys is added, which rounds off the ensemble.”

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 Polvorón

Starting from a traditional product such as polvorón, we have completely changed the preparation technique to obtain a, say, purer result. For this, we use a texturizing ingredient, tapioca maltodextrin, whose role in a mixture is to bind fats.

“Thanks to this ingredient, baking is no longer necessary, and thus we can enjoy a clarity of flavors centered on hazelnut and beurre noisette. For the presentation, we add a playful touch with the transparent obulato that surrounds it and that is actually edible.”

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