bake - March 2015 - PAN39

Schools host special events,
inviting parents to celebrate and
share Children's Day with students.
Parties are held and children take
part in activities like story-telling
and art workshops. This presents a
great opportunity to host a cake or
cupcake decorating event for children
at your bakery to promote this special
occasion in style.
FRESHEN UP WITH FRUIT
Few toppings make a bold
statement of freshness to your
customers than the power of fresh
fruit. Strawberries have always been
a favorite ingredient for bakeries,
especially when it comes to creating
desserts. But in recent years, culinary
professionals are using strawberries in
innovative ways that extend beyond
dessert and breakfast and are featured
in dishes across the menu.
Another creative idea is to roast
strawberries quickly in a hot oven to
make a full flavored "jam" that can
be used as a sweet or savory sauce,
or sandwich ingredient.
Uncommon fruits are another
way to make your bakery products,
such as spring cakes and fruit tarts,
stand out.
Kiwifruit is a versatile fruit that
adds colorful presentation and tangy
flavor to delicious tarts. Pair thin slices
of kiwifruit with lime curd filling to
create a sensational and refreshing
dessert during the spring and summer
months. Available from California
from October through May, California
kiwifruit is available during the winter
months, an uncommon time for the
"homegrown" California fresh fruits.
California produces around 98% of
the kiwifruit grown in the US.
WHAT'S AHEAD FOR DESSERT?
Americans are sweet on nostalgic
treats and snackable indulgences,
according to a new dessert report from
Datassential, a Chicago-based food
industry research firm. For restaurant
operators and manufacturers, this may
mean the next cupcake or Cronut is
a hand pie.
"Nostalgic favorites are appealing
to that younger millennial consumer,
(who is interested in) more classic
styles of desserts," says Jennifer Aranas,
project director at Datassential.
"Translating that nostalgia of pie into
a more snackable option presents an
opportunity."
"Consumers are cuckoo for
cookies," said Datassential, which
revealed more than three-fourths of
survey respondents ate one in the
past week.
"For consumers, cookies, brownies
and bars are very much an afternoon
snack item or a mid-morning snack or
late-night snack," Aranas said. "So, it's
not only the most often reached for,
but it's also the most recently reached
for, versus cheesecake, which is not
eaten nearly as often."
Of consumers who reported
eating a cookie within the past two
weeks, 43% chose chocolate chip,
followed by Oreo (21%), oatmeal
(14%), peanut butter (12%) and
chocolate (8%). On restaurant menus,
classic varieties continue to dominate
- led by chocolate chip, oatmeal,
peanut butter and sugar cookies -
but the fastest-growing flavors are
toffee, double chocolate, macaron and
rugelach, according to Datassential.
The top trending flavors for
brownies served in restaurants are
cheesecake, white chocolate, nut and
hot fudge. For dessert bars, marshmallow,
pumpkin, lemon, dark chocolate
and crispy rice varieties are rolling
out on more menus.
"When we looked at top trending
flavors for cakes, the faster trending
flavors are spice cake and dark chocolate,
which is particularly important
in things like Mexican chocolate or
items with more premium ingredients,"
Aranas reports.
Italian crème cake, bundt cakes
and flourless chocolate cakes also are
on the rise. The most menued varieties,
however, are chocolate, carrot
cake, lava cake and lemon cake.
"On the cheesecake side, red
velvet, crème brulee, berry, key lime
are very rapidly trending," Aranas
says. "In pies and tarts, Oreo, interestingly,
and Boston cream were highly
trending. And then pumpkin, which is
interesting because we actually fielded
this before coming into holiday
season. French silk and chocolate also
are rapidly trending on the pie end."
MARCH 15 | PANADERIA
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