This bullets hit directly the way we think about food, opening up to new possibilities that we can bring to real life. These are not DIY formulas, but this is the way actual Chefs and Bakers get inspired to create and imagine new dishes
Be Inspired: Choose a song, a movie, a painting, or another work of art and try to capture it in a bake or dessert. Like Jordi Roca created edible versions of his favorite perfumes like Calvin Klein and others
Celebrate the Past: Pay an homage to the classic recipes if you like them, they’re classics for a reason!
Make a Lemonade: if you don’t have all ingredients nor all equipment, try to go around that and see what you can create out of lacking something
Cross-Breed: Combine 2 different ideas into a single concept: like crossing croissant and doughnut (the cronut)
De-construct: Break a well-known dish into its components, and serve them separately
Name it: name your dishes and bakes, making a little fun. Instead of an oyster and granita, name it “oyster slurpee”
Shift Ingredients: Substitute some of your ingredients: instead of apples, try pears, instead of almonds try pecans or blood orange instead of mandarins
Make a look-alike: Adventure yourself into the world of faking things, a cake that looks like a burger, a fried egg, a sausage or a bucket of roses
Miniaturize it: Make it much smaller than usual, mini-cakes, mini-cupcakes-mini-croissants, mini everything, and they look sooo cute
Homage: Create your own version of remarkable desserts for you, or desserts from your child memories
Reconstruct-it: Take well know ingredients of a classical dish and present them in a new way., like a Torte Sacher, made in an ice cream version, or in a creme brulee version
Shape-shifter: Change the shape of classical desserts into portable stuff like a wrap, a push-up or a stick
Re-interpret it: Use a classical dish as your inspiration and make your own version of it
Revisit a childhood memory: This actually helps your brain, go to the past and try to create a dish that brings back that moment or sensation
Sauce-it: Add an irresistible sauce to any of the desserts to complete them, think strawberry sauce, fruit punches, chocolate sauces, liquor sauces and more
Stuff it: Put an egg inside the muffin you’re baking, put things inside things, think of the typical surprise cakes and go from there to more
Make it Huge: Make it so much bigger than usual or at least one element in your bake, could be a giant flower in the decoration
Theme-it: Create something inspired in the 12 Signs of Astrology or the 7 Deadly Sins, or your favorite TV-series
Versions: Create a Bake where you use the same ingredient in many different forms: crunch, creamy, fried, boiled, pureed, etc
Future-thinking: Imagine what a version of your dessert will look like 50 years in the future
*Some of these are inspired by the Book Kitchen Creativity by Karen Page
*Images taken from the web
