Jordi Roca is one of the three brothers who run El Celler de Can Roca, in Girona, Spain, which has three Michelin stars. It also topped the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list last year. In 2014, Roca was voted the world’s best pastry chef.
Jordi was the youngest and the last to be part of El Celler de Can Roca. He was born in 1978, and he is considered one of the Spanish cooking scene’s leading pastry specialists. It is not a coincidence that Jordi and his brothers; Joan and Josep have chosen to put their professional visions on cooking. They also keep in mind that they have spent half of their moment in the restaurant of their relatives since their childhood. In fact, they still have the restaurant in their mind as if it were their beloved home.
Jordi’s probably best known for his perfume desserts, which he creates not by pouring the scent into, like, ice cream – that would be disgusting – but by deconstructing the fragrance, figuring out its various elements, such as bergamot, passion fruit or vanilla, then putting those smells on the plate in edible form.
The desserts Roca creates at El Celler de Can Roca aren’t going to be easy to make for the home cook, but many of the recipes in the book are surprisingly accessible, and he rates them according to difficulty.And we are sure the fantastic lemon verbena cupcake (Jordi) – version of this dish will spark your taste buds.
Ingredients (10 serving):
- 245 g eggs
- 130 g honey
- 245 g flour
- 120 g confectioners’ sugar
- 10 g baking powder
- 3 g salt
- 50 g milk
- 200 g butter, melted
- 20 g lemon verbena
Directions:
- Mix the eggs and honey in a blender at low speed.
- Gradually add flour (formerly sifted together with sugar and baking powder), salt, butter, milk that has been infused with lemon verbena and lemon verbena powder.
- Leave in the refrigerator for 12 hours.
- Pipe the batter onto silicone mats on oven trays.
- Make sure you make thin layers and bake at 180ºC for 7 minutes.
- Freeze and cut into small dice. Store.