The Banoffee Paella (£6) is a banoffee pie made in a paella pan with caramelized bananas. You flip it over and serve with dulce mousse and passion fruit. “There are a lot of Spanish influences in London, and I take that as an inspiration,” Ansel says.
He grew up in the northern French city of Beauvais and started working in a restaurant when he was 16 to earn money for his family, who couldn’t afford to pay for higher education. “My mom was a terrible cook,” he says. “It’s what got me in the kitchen: I wanted better food.”
After military service, he bought a car with his savings, drove to Paris, and got a job in a bakery. He worked in the city for eight years before chef Daniel Boulud invited him to New York to work at Daniel. Ansel spent almost six years in charge of pastry at the Midtown restaurant, which won three Michelin stars while he was there. He left in 2011 and opened his own New York bakery on Spring Street.
But in the U.K. right now, the Cronut isn't the hottest topic in baking. It’s the Great British Bake Off, a much-loved TV show that recently jumped from the BBC to Channel 4, but without some of its hosts.
“I watched one, and it is very exciting to me that people are so excited about baking,” he says. “If people try to remember the first thing they ever made in the kitchen, 95 percent will tell you baking—a cookie or a cake that they made with their mom, with their grandma.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.