Every corner of a professional kitchen might seem intimidating or strange to a novice cook, or to someone who has only cooked at home, but no area of the kitchen is more mysterious than the pastry zone. Even among seasoned kitchen staff, the pastry area is often terra incognito, “Here there be monsters,” as the old maps used to say. Not only is the place full of impossible formulas and baffling equipment, it is peopled with that most peculiar breed of cook, the pastry chef.

Back in the eighties, when I worked for a few short weeks for Roger Verge at Moulin de Mougins, a Michelin-starred restaurant in the south of France, the other cooks trembled for me when I was sent to spend a day with the pastry chef. “Il est toujours fâché,” whispered the seafood chef's helper, “He is always angry.”

“Je pense qu'il fume le hachish,” said the guy from the meat station, “I think he smokes hashish.”

It didn't matter to me. The confections that issued forth from that corner of the kitchen day and night intrigued me. I couldn't wait to see what went on in there. Besides, I wanted a break from the seafood station where I was spending hours at a stretch pulling scallops from their shells.

As it turned out, the pastry chef was not angry, and if he was stoned on hash it hardly seemed to matter. He was intensely focused on his craft and had little time for the other members of the crew. The dessert menu to which I was intimately exposed was not a list of single dishes, but a program of elaborate performances by the pastry-maker: "Une étude de coing," explored three distinct presentations of quince. "Mirroir de Fruits Rouge" was a tribute to out-of-season raspberries, strawberries and currants, all imported at great expense from Africa.

But the most popular and intriguing dessert was the famous “Cinque de Chocolat” a quintuplet of chocolate preparations on a single plate. After that trip, when I was cooking back in a restaurant in Washington State, I added a more modest Trio of Chocolates to my menu.

With Valentine’s Day upon us, most restaurants are amplifying their chocolate production to answer the need of a dining public that eats as much chocolate in a single night as they ordinarily would in a month. Here are two of my favorite restaurant style chocolate desserts that are fun to make at home. And a formula for a favorite chocolate cake that’s easy enough and friendly enough for even kids to make. In fact, the recipe originally appeared in a Kid’s Cookbook from General Mills.  

Chocolate Pots de Crème or Crème Brûlée au Chocolat
Chocolate Truffle Cakes
X-tra Special Chocolate Cake