Chef Sehaj Ghuman is an Assistant pastry chef at the Academy of Pastry and culinary arts,Gurgaon. She started her career with The Oberoi hotels and resorts as Systematic Training and Education Programme (STEP) associate 2014-2017 at The Oberoi Gurgaon. Post graduation, she joined the Oberoi Centre of Learning and Development and was a Gold
medalist for the Kitchen management batch 2017-2019 and during those two years worked at The Oberoi Rajvilas, Jaipur and Trident Nariman Point, Mumbai. Prior to joining the Academy, she was appointed as a Sous chef – Pastry at The Oberoi
Gurgaon from 2019-2021.

Since childhood I’ve always been fascinated by creative fields and arts, and to add to it, I’ve been surrounded by a family of great cooks and foodies. Our discussions since childhood revolved around food, be it while planning a vacation or simply a weekend meal. So all of this led me to love food dearly and I personally found pastry to be the most artistic out of all the other departments in the kitchen. I started my career with The Oberoi Group as i joined them for the graduation programme in 2014. The STEP program requires you to work hands on all 3 years while pursuing a distant education degree, and I till date believe that it was a great decision to go for this rather than a regular college. The amount of exposure i got and the skills developed on the shop floor level, have helped a lot over the years.

The only philosophy and ethos I follow in the food I create is to make sure it’s delicious and made with the best quality ingredients, so it helps bring joy on the face of the person eating it. These days, a lot of focus is being put on making pastries that are beautiful to see but the taste just hasn’t remained a priority and I completely disagree with this thought process.

The latest trend in the pastry field this year, has been a shift to sustainability. Be it in the form of whole fruit chocolate which uses the pulp of the fruit of the cacao tree or simply reusing leftover glazes and creating wonderful patterns with all these colours. The one trend that I’d wish goes away and has been reducing over the years is fondant cakes. The entire fondant layer always gets removed the minute a cake is cut and everybody avoids eating that sugary layer. I’m all for moving towards cakes where everything gets eaten up.

My only philosophy in cooking or baking is to put my whole heart into it. Believe me a person eating it can know whether it’s been made half-heartedly. I love to bake with love.

My comfort food is a good gelato. I have a soft spot for frozen churned desserts be it a sorbet, ice cream or gelato and I feel very passionately about getting these right. In terms of baked products, I know we make a lot of complicated and skillful items, but a gooey chewy cookie is as good as it gets.

My advice to aspiring pastry chefs is that never compromise on the ingredients, it makes a huge difference. Secondly, please don’t shy away from putting all your efforts in the initial few years, because it a very tough industry, but just keep going.

Last year, I had the opportunity to represent the country in a world-level pastry competition and it was the best feeling ever. So going forward, in the future i want to continue working to bringing India to the world pastry scene. People from around the world should want to visit our country for our pastry, just like we do when visiting most European countries. There’s huge talent in our country in terms of pastry, so it’s not a far fetched dream.

I believe our profession is closely entwined with art. We seek inspiration from all things around us just like artists do. I personally follow a lot of glass artists to seek inspiration for sugar displays, because sugar and glass have very similar behaviour.

The key feature in all my creations is fearlessness. Trying combinations all the time to see what works and what doesn’t. I believe in endless possibilities when it comes to pastry.

While making a menu we have to consider a lot of things and there isn’t a ‘one size fits all’. I consider the customer I’m catering and that is the first and foremost deciding factor. Along with that , I look at the flavour profiles, the presentation, the seasonal produce, feasibility of service, textures and catering to different kinds of palettes.

Vegan pastry is fascinating and I’m in awe of all the chefs making everything plant based. However when it comes to me, I feel egg is an essential part of pastry. Just being a vegan chef isn’t my personal cup of tea, I like to do plant based products but just not limit myself to that.

Method:
1. Melt the dark chocolate and mix with the oil.
2. Add in the sugar and whisk thoroughly.
3. Add the eggs one by one, incorporating with a whisk.
4. The remaining dry ingredients can be added all at once and combined till it
forms a dough.
5. Rest the dough in the chiller for 2 hours before scaling 40-45 gms per
cookie.
6. Slightly flatten the cookie dough and bake at 180 degrees for 9 minutes.