The art of plating: 5 ideas that will change your desserts

You no longer eat only with your mouth, but also with your eyes: this is how food evolves and becomes a true multi-sensory experience. In fact, food is a special material capable of involving all our senses, starting from sight. The search for beauty for the eyes is increasingly important, especially when the time for dessert arrives on the table: carefully arranging all the elements and presenting a dish well can transform a simple recipe into a culinary experience.

Plating desserts is an art and the ingredients that must never be missing are creativity and style. The cheffa Maria Vittoria Griffoni, owner of PepeNero Bistrot and Jovanotti’s personal chef, has dedicated five sweet creations personalized to us with her touch of inspiration and originality, from which we have drawn inspiration to tell you five ideas for the composition of your desserts. Here’s what we learned from her!

#1. Geometries

The first rule to immediately amaze at first glance is playing with geometric shapes, taking your dish into consideration and checking the harmony of spaces. Focus on geometries but not on symmetries, because a plate that is too symmetrical risks looking artificial, and above all let yourself be guided by your instincts! As the chef Maria Vittoria always does, who even during the plating of this delicate mascarpone cream relied on the inspiration of the moment, creating a decoration with quick but decisive strokes.

#2. Verticality

An effect of impact but not always easy to achieve lies in the use of verticality in the construction of the plating. By following a stratification of the ingredients and skilfully alternating elements that differ in color but also in texture, it is possible to create an elegant and certainly original dessert. The final result will not only be pleasing to the eye, but will contribute to giving a feeling of dynamism to your dish, such as our cheffa’s delicious multi-layered millefeuille, which gave further vertical impetus to the dish with the interlayer garnish and raspberry finish.

#3. Spoon desserts

Another simple and very practical idea is that of preparing spoon desserts: creams, ice creams, tiramisu and many other desserts can be placed inside glasses, bowls and jars, to be garnished with flakes of chocolate, crumbled biscuits, fresh fruit or grains of dried fruit, but not only…
Take inspiration from this exquisite yogurt Bavarian cream with granola and strawberries.

#4. Colors and contrasts

The chromatic element is essential in the presentation of a dessert, especially when there is a good play of contrasts. It is also essential to consider the color of the plate, to be chosen according to the final composition we want to achieve.
Don’t the ingredients of your dessert have a particularly lively color scheme and you don’t have dishes available with which to create games of contrasts? The secret is to liven up the chromatically unstimulating sweets by inserting details of a strong and different color to break up the monotony.
Sometimes very little is enough to give vitality to a dish, as for the chocolate crepes served by the cheffa. The bright red of the strawberries, combined with a sprinkling of intense spearmint, adds panache to this whimsical reinterpretation of the classic crepes.

#5. The art of simplicity

The desire to amaze could lead you to overstep your leg and fall into some form of decorative excess. The decorations must highlight the cake without overwhelming it, following the principle of simplification and deconstruction of the shapes. The new trend is precisely that of minimalism and the search for the essential: Maria Vittoria herself reveals to us that the absolute protagonist is always the material and the dish must give the best impression of genuineness. Small gestures are enough to present the ingredients of a dessert in a different way. The chef also teaches us that there is nothing better than the skilful contamination between cooking and pastry, as in this pineapple sorbet with a touch of freshness given by the addition of sage and ginger, served in total minimal simplicity.

These are just a few suggestions, but now it’s your turn to put on an apron, let your imagination run wild and experiment.

The chef’s final advice? Is to reawaken one’s creativity, look at the elements already available to us and take care of the details of our preparations, to satisfy the eye before the palate. With simple precautions you will be able to bring amazing desserts to the table and, at the end of the meal, even receive an applause!