Twenty-two-year-old pastry chef Jayasurya Murugesan is at her patisserie inspecting the rows of traditional chocolate concords, blueberry cheese cakes, tiramisu tubs, and bon bons. “Cakes have to be visual,” she says. She launched Amote Patisserie, six months ago offering financiers, carrot cake, and Belgium chocolate cakes, almond croissants and more. “Why travel all the way to Europe, when you can taste pastries from there in your city? This is the vision with which I started Amote in Coimbatore,” says Jayasurya adding that she set up a 5000 sq ft bakery unit at Sundarapuram to turn this dream into reality. She imported chocolate machines from Italy, and an oven from Spain, customised as per her requirements.
At Amote’s chocolate making unit | Photo Credit: M. Periasamy
The pastry chef points out that baking industry in India still follows the centuries-old pastry tradition built on eggs, butter and cream. The pastry chef who has a bachelor’s degree in Culinary Arts at Manipal Institute interned for six months at Ritz Carlton in Bengaluru.
After her graduation, though she got admitted at the Academy of Pastry Chefs in the U.S., she chose to start her own patisserie. “I wanted to learn skills like chocolate sculpting but the pandemic made me rethink. I saw a huge business potential for artisanal desserts. Then, I started working on reinventing classic desserts in local flavour pairings.”
At a test kitchen in Dharapuram, where her father Murugesan runs Surya Bakery for over three decades, she carried out trials on flavour pairings, menu, recipes, and packing before moving in to her factory in Coimbatore. “I wanted to have my own creations. Every chef has a signature pastry using local ingredients. I tried coconut and pineapple as it stirs in a sense of nostalgia.” Thus came Tropical, which Jayasurya says is her bestseller. It has layers of coconut dacquoise, a chunk of sweet and tarty pineapple in the middle encased in coconut mousse, sprayed with cocoa butter and an edible flower garnish. The flavour is light and balanced.
The challenge, she says, was to make the flavours work for the Indian palate. “The sourness of passion fruit and cherry didn’t go too well here. So, I tried raspberry and blueberry in white chocolate combo.”
Jayasurya also introduced petit gateaux in multiple textures and flavour pairings. “ I created chocolate concord using seven textures of chocolates in one dessert including chocolate sable, dark butter sponge, a chunk of chocolate ganache encased in chocolate mousse and topped with chocolate glaze and the result is a decadent petit gateaux.”
As she shows around the factory, gift boxes with Turkish desserts like baklavas and kunafas are getting readied for despatch to corporates for Deepavali gifting. “We have launched baklava, biscotti, makhana seasoned with peri peri and sweet barbecue sauce for the festive season. I sourced savouries (mixture) from my father’s bakery and added caramelised sugar to make a sweet-spicy chikki.”
Artisanal bon bon chocolates | Photo Credit: M. Periasamy
A collection of chocolate bon bon, another signature product is designed like a jewel box. “I wanted it to be an experience. I tried some unique flavour pairings for these hand-painted artisanal chocolates. I paired passion fruit with mango in two components, jelly and ganache, to elevate the taste. And strawberry cheese cake in a chocolate, and mandarin in ginger that gives a hint of inji mittai flavour.”
The pastry chef wants to make Amote, a pan-India brand. “We make 25 to 30 handmade, personalised birthday cakes every month. It’s about designs and concepts. For film producer Ishari Ganesh, his friend actor Jeeva wanted us to make one themed on films. We made movie stills of all the films he produced in chocolate and completed the design with a camera on top.”
Amote outlets are located at R S Puram and at the Brookefields Mall
