Chiara Lombardi / Owner, The Cake Lounge, Toronto, Canada
Historically served between main plates at full course meals, entremet are best known in modern times as cakes with multiple layers of various dessert components, or inserts, surrounded by mousse and topped with colored glaze and intricate decorations. Making entremet requires the precision of a French pastry chef, training Chiara acquired before choosing a corporate career path.
Now, more than a passion she pursues for special occasions, entremet is an opportunity for Chiara to reclaim memories after a traumatic brain injury.
“My inspiration is really about memories and tapping into parts of me that were gone because of my accident,” she says.
Memories associated with Nanaimo Bars inspired her elevated version of the Canadian dessert from the city of the same name on Vancouver Island. A history of the Nanaimo Bar in The New York Times compares the textural layers of the original three-layer bar to a geological cross section—with shredded coconut and chopped walnuts forming a sedimentary base, buttercream oozing out of the core, and chocolate forming a hard outer crust.
Chiara’s version is inspired by the landscape of Vancouver Island, she explains.
“It has a lot of elements, a lot more than just three layers. The white glaze and crème reflect the snowy mountains and the milk chocolate accents are for the vast expanses of nature trails and the red cedars some 300-feet high. The hazelnut pieces around the tarte base reflect the rocky shores on the West Coast of Vancouver Island and the edible 24-karat gold represents the golden rays of sunshine and good weather of south Vancouver Island.”
Similar to Chiara’s life after her injury, her Nanaimo bars are transformed in new, surprising ways.
“There are sooo many parallels in this dessert,” she says.
Chiara intensifies the flavor of the shredded coconut and other coconut elements in her Nanaimo entremet with The Perfect Purée Coconut Puree, a silky purée of coconut meat and cream that’s homogenized so it won’t separate.
“I love the fact that [The Perfect Purée] uses the coconut cream because it adds that extra creamy texture that I think is what brings this dish to life,” she says.
When Chiara found The Perfect Purée, she’d been using purées from a mainstream European brand but had a hard time sourcing prickly pear, one of her mother’s favorite flavors.
“So I went on the hunt and found [The Perfect Purée] Prickly Pear Puree and Coconut Puree and Meyer Lemon Concentrate,” she says.
Now, those and other flavors serve as a conduit when she’s tapping into a memory of someone or somewhere. Chiara’s Hibiscus and Meyer Lemon Entremet brings bright color into play with swirls of purple and yellow glaze. A vibrant green Key Lime Colada Entremet is surrounded by intricate edible cutouts of mermaids, dolphins and starfish. Other flavor combinations include Key Lime Concentrate, Mango Puree and Red Jalapeño Puree; and Key Lime Concentrate, Strawberry Puree, Coconut Puree and Malibu Rum.
The Perfect Purée’s low sugar content is an added benefit for someone conscious of ingredients’ anti-inflammatory properties. Chiara incorporates antioxidant-rich indigenous Canadian fruits like aronia and Saskatoon berry, also called “June berry” in Canada.
“Papaya is great and guava is great but if they don’t have nutritional benefits I won’t use them,” Chiara says. “For me it has to be something that supports brain health. I choose walnuts over almonds because of better support for the brain.”
The amount of brain power involved in following a recipe, let alone creating one, is significant and enables Chiara to work on improving vision convergence and neuroplasticity in a more artistic, creative way.
“For people who have suffered through traumatic brain injury, it helps them tap into their creativity and if you make a mistake you can eat your evidence,” or give it to appreciative friends and family, she says.
Therapy aside, making entremet is a practice in balance because it’s made one layer at a time, often by freezing layers and assembling them later. It requires careful preparation and study, which Chiara’s achieved with the help of professional pastry chefs Chef Olga Noscova, Gregory Doyen and Balazs Enzsol.
“The perfect entremet must have the right balance, just like my life with ABI,” she says. “I’m always having to be mindful to keep the right balance and not overload the brain.”
Photo credit: Scuralli Photography