Tiny Treasure
At JinJu Patisserie, Pastry Chef Kyurim Lee’s technical approach makes for eye-catching desserts packed with flavor.
Photos: RaeAnn Serra
For Pastry Chef Kyurim Lee, balance is the name of the game when designing the small but dynamic dessert and pastry menu at JinJu Patisserie. The take out-only Williams District bakeshop is the brainchild of Lee, in charge of pastry, and her friend and business partner Jin Caldwell, who leads JinJu’s chocolate production.
When brainstorming ideas for new menu items, Lee often turns to Caldwell for inspiration. “When I create a dessert, I always consult with Jin,” says Lee. “She really inspires me a lot in terms of desserts, and she loves light citrus flavors.” Drawing inspiration from Caldwell, and her personal favorite flavor combination of mango and passion fruit, Lee created a Coconut Passion Fruit Petit Gâteau. Lee breaks the flavor profiles down into different components, ensuring that each element brings a new layer of depth and complexity to the technique-heavy dessert. “I like to have some elegance [in my desserts] but with well executed flavors and different components. I love this dessert. It's so light compared to other pastries we have. In the summer time you can eat it like ice cream.”
Sable
Lee’s mastery of French pastry technique is on full display with her Coconut Passion Fruit Petit Gâteau. Lee creates a thin vanilla sable, a simple but effective combination of butter, flour, brown sugar, and salt, that provides a satisfying crunch and solid base for the dessert.
Coconut Tuile
“I like when all of the components have a different character and texture,” Lee says. To add some dimension and another layer of crunch, Lee bakes golden brown tuiles (made with coconut powder) and breaks them into small shards, sprinkling them on top of the sable to bring crispiness without heaviness.
Coconut Mousse
The focal point of the dessert is Lee’s delicate coconut mousse, which contains an airy coconut dacquoise and punchy passion fruit curd. For the mousse, she mixes together a base of cold coconut purée and gelatin before folding in whipped cream and a splash of Malibu for a lighter texture and a boost of coconut flavor. Lee prefers to skip the eggs when making her mousse. “I tried a lot of different recipes, but in my opinion, this [version] has a really defined coconut flavor. The eggs took that away.” Lee doubles down on the coconut by adding a layer of coconut dacquoise. For the cake, she pulses coconut flour and powdered sugar together to achieve the finest texture possible before folding it into a French meringue, creating a light, gluten-free sponge. “In Portland, a lot of people are gluten-free. If they skip the sable on the bottom, this is another gluten-free option!” After piping her mousse into domed molds, a dollop of passion fruit curd adds brightness, and is followed by a thin sheet of dacquoise, which is then all encased in the light mousse.
Glaze
To give the dessert its stunning visual appeal, Lee coats the mousse in a vibrant yellow mirror glaze, mimicking the bright color of passion fruit. She boils together a mixture of sugar, glucose, and white chocolate before mixing it together with condensed milk, gelatin, and yellow food coloring. Once the Coconut Mousse has set, Lee carefully pours the glaze over top for a captivating shine.
White Chocolate Flower
When decorating her desserts, Lee draws from her time on the pastry team at three-Michelin-starred Restaurant Joël Robuchon in Las Vegas, where she helped build towering cakes and architectural desserts. To crown her coconut creation, Lee tops the dessert with a “flower” made from a white chocolate ganache that’s mixed with “just a hint” of passion fruit curd. The chocolate is piped into a flower-like shape, and for one more pop of acidity, Lee adds a flavor-packed, almost jelly-like, passion fruit-mango confit in the center, tying in some of her favorite flavors with yet another textural component. The fruitiness of the confit acts as a foil to the sweetness of the ganache.
