Nick Malgieri talks — and makes — pastry at Jasper’s Restaurant tomorrow

Nick Malgieri, the former pastry chef for Windows on the World and the author of 12 popular cookbooks (including this year’s Nick Malgieri’s Pastry), is the featured guest at a cookbook signing and dinner tomorrow at Jasper’s Restaurant (1201 West 103rd Street, 816-941-6600). Reservations are still available for the event, which begins at 7 p.m.

Malgieri, director of baking at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York, was driving from St. Louis to Kansas City today when I reached him by phone.

The Pitch: The subtitle of your new book is Foolproof Recipes for the Home Cook. Are most home cooks intimidated by the idea of creating from-scratch pastries in their own kitchens?

Malgieri: True home baking bit the dust when more women started working outside the home during World War II. There was less time for baking at home and juggling job duties. This coincided, unfortunately, with the introduction of more convenience foods like cake mixes, pie-crust mix and prepared pie crusts. Those easy-to-make mixes convinced many people to believe that baking from scratch was insurmountably difficult. Suddenly the act of making dough and rolling it out was invested with this aura of alchemy, that it was impossible to learn. 

It’s rare to find a restaurant that has a pastry chef on staff. Is it a luxury for a dining establishment to be able to offer its own pastries?

That’s been the story for as long as I’ve been teaching pastry. It seemed like only the grand palace kind of restaurants or hotels could afford an in-house pastry chef. Now there are more opportunities because many pastry chefs are going out on their own, opening shops to create their own artisan breads or chocolates or freshly made pastries. And once patrons get a taste of what a real pastry tastes like, it becomes more commercially viable as well.

When you give demonstrations and lectures about pastries, what do you tell your students and readers is the most important thing to know about the art of fine baking?

That you don’t need a Ph.D. in Viennese pastry to make even complicated desserts — like strudel.

What is your advice to young pastry chefs starting their careers?

Read, read, read. Work, work, work. Nothing replaces having a lot of experience. A lot of the young people that I talk to want to be a star on the Food Network or a culinary reality show right now. I tell them that those are byproducts, not goals. You don’t find success wanting a TV show. It’s all about the experience and working very, very hard.

Are you going to eat barbecue in Kansas City?

Yes. We have a list. Any suggestions?

Seating is limited for the December 11 dinner with Nick Malgieri, which is priced at $59.95 (tax and gratuity are extra) and includes a copy of the new Pastry cookbook.