Food & Wine Magazine: Best New Pastry Chefs 2012

Food & Wine’s editors ate their way across America to find the top five pastry talents — Table Three Ten’s pastry chef, Stella Parks is one of the chosen few!

Stella Parks

Restaurant Table 310 (menu)

City, State Lexington, KY

Why She Won She creates playful American desserts, like “Faux-reos,” with a precision and rigor inspired by her reverence for Japanese technique.

Born 1981; Lexington, KY.

Formative Experience “I loved the six months I spent in Japan. The Japanese hold pastry chefs in such esteem. But everywhere I went, people just wanted me to make chocolate chip cookies!”

Ingredient Innovation “In Japan I got into all different flours, like roasted soy flour. Then I thought, Why not use nut flour to make gluten-free brownies?”

Recipe Hazelnut-Brown-Butter Brownies Sprinkles “I grew up eating packaged foods, so the first time I made marshmallows, it was so exciting I cried. I make everything from scratch now—even my sprinkles”

Culinary School The Culinary Institute of America; Hyde Park, NY

Background Holly Hill Inn (Midway, KY); Emmett’s Restaurant (Lexington, KY)

Standout Dessert Blood orange panna cotta with a toasted Champagne marshmallow.

Editor Notes “Her desserts are the homiest of this group. There are only three or four each night. Think grown-up pop-tarts and cookie plates but also elegant desserts like this panna cotta.”

Full article here.