Pastry Replicas, Quick and Easier

By BARBARA REVSINE
NY Times

Richard Capizzi THE ART OF PASTRY Silicone molds can be used with just about any object a pastry chef desires.

WHEN he needed sugar and pastillage replicas of a Venetian mask to use as decorations for a party, Alexandre Bourdeaux, the pastry chef of the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago, contacted Michael Joy.

Mr. Joy, the owner of the Chicago School of Mold Making and Casting for the Arts, created an intricately detailed silicone mold using the model supplied by Mr. Bourdeaux.

In a process only recently applied to pastry, the chef used the mold to create the masks in a fraction of the time that it would have taken by hand.

Mr. Joy began working with molds while studying at the Art Institute of Chicago.

After graduating in 1992, Mr. Joy opened a sculptural fabrication studio. Jacquy Pfeiffer, a founding partner of the Chicago-based French Pastry School, saw the molds Mr. Joy made for a glass-blowing studio and thought pastry chefs might be able to use the technology.

Since Mr. Pfeiffer helped him teach at the World Pastry Forum in Las Vegas, where he was a core instructor last year, Mr. Joy has been working with chefs throughout the world.

To make smaller molds, the model is glued to a flat surface, and a mold box is built around it. Liquid silicone is mixed with a catalyst and poured over the model.

The catalyst jump-starts the cure, and 24 hours later a perfect negative impression in the form of a flexible silicone mold can be lifted off the model.

Alexandre Bourdeaux Replicas of masks were made for the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago.

Larger pieces are made by brushing several layers of silicone paste onto the upright model in order to form a quarter-inch- thick mold. Plaster applied on top of the silicone creates a reinforcing shell. Once the mold cures, the plaster shell and the model are removed.

"With silicone molds," Mr. Joy said, "a skilled pastry chef can alter, transform or combine any number of objects to create a wildly original and edible structure."

Michael Joy's book, "Confectionery Art Casting: Silicone Mold Making for Pastry Chefs," can be ordered from his Web site: www.chicagomoldschool.com