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In a conversation with Tasting Table, the pastry chef wanted to share the meaning behind ‘Láctic‘, the scientifically inspired dessert he is most proud of. It is one of his extraordinary creations that he devised in 2003 for El Celler de Can Roca, the three-Michelin-starred restaurant he co-directed with his brothers.
To design this experimental dessert, he was inspired by molecular gastronomy, using scientific techniques to obtain new flavours and textures based on milk, which he fused with different dairy products manipulated in various different ways.
Jordi told the media outlet about the culinary process he followed when developing it: ‘I tasted a Ripollesa sheep’s milk – which is a breed native to our area that gives a sweet and very creamy milk – and with it I set out to make a dessert that would result in a base of dulce de leche made with this milk, a ricotta ice cream made with this milk, [and] a whipped cream made with this ricotta’.
Roca also includes guava sorbet in the dish in which the Ripollesa milk stands out. We serve it with a piece of paper scented with an essential oil of sheep’s wool so that customers can smell it as they eat it’.
Beyond the empirical result, this galactic dessert, which is still one of the essentials on the menu at El Celler, has a poetic and emotional background behind it: ‘There is a personal story related to the smell of baby that my nephews had, if you smell a baby’s head, it smells of milk and caramel, sweet milk’.
