The Revolution of Dessert Recipes

Dessert recipes are derived from an old French word, desservir, meaning “to clear the table.” It is used to describe sweet or strongly flavored food, like cheese, that is served at the end of a meal. Countries like the USA, Australia or Canada uses the word dessert while the UK and Commonwealth countries like India uses the word “pudding.” Dessert recipes were not a very common thing before the rise of the middle-class in the 19 th century. The mechanization of the sugar industry made sugar more readily available and affordable. Before then dessert and sweets were limited to the privileged aristocracy or a rear holiday treat.

Today no recipe book will be complete without a whole array of dessert recipes to choose from. Every restaurant in the world has dessert recipes that are kept secret in order to lure their clients back.

Elite chef’s schools like Prue Leith Chef’s Academy in South Africa train their students in the art of Pastry Chef – the person responsible for creating luscious desserts. This is truly an art that requires creativity with flavor combinations, color, balance, textures and presentation. Students have to create their own dessert recipes which are then put on parade in the famous Leith’s restaurant in Centurion. Their menu contains wonderful desserts recipes like dark chocolate mouse with lemon curd, milk chocolate mouse with Kahlua or white chocolate mouse with raspberry puree. Other desserts on offer are “Pavlova with pineapple sorbet” or “Banana split served with de leche ice cream and chocolate sauce.”

Many will raise a glass of wine to the mechanization of the sugar industry which brought about the revolution of dessert recipes.