Sweetening up with French flavours

Chef Eric Cochard plans on baking ‘record-breaking’ cake in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Eric Cochard has really stepped up to the plate in Pakistan, where he is currently serving as the executive pastry chef at a local hotel in Islamabad. Credited with baking a three-metre-tall cake for the King of Bahrain on his wedding day at the Sofitel hotel in Bahrain, the French chef now plans on baking a ‘record-breaking’ cake to showcase his culinary skills in the capital.

The said cake is expected to be displayed on Christmas in Pakistan. “I have been here since three weeks and the response I’ve gotten has been sugary-sweet,” said Cochard. “I was happy to know that people in Pakistan eat the same desserts that are eaten in most Western countries. It showed me that they have a taste for French desserts as well,” he added.

This beautiful cheese soufflé will take your taste-buds all the way to France!

Cochard shared his style of baking is “simple and light with minimum decoration.” Be it his gold-dusted chocolate fondants, dark chocolate truffles cut as flowers or cream-filled éclairs, he believes in baking from the heart. “Each time I bake, it’s straight from the heart. If it isn’t, then it’d feel like something is amiss … either it will be too dry or too soggy,” he noted.

He said he attributes his success to his team, which has been working hard to bring it all together. Hailing from a 300-year-old lineage of bakers in France, he said, “My great grandfather was a baker and so were my grandfather and father. Baking runs in my blood,” said Cochard, who was, interestingly, born in his family bakery.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 6^th, 2015.

Like Life & Style on Facebook, follow @ETLifeandStyle on Twitter for the latest in fashion, gossip and entertainment.