MINIMALIST BITE SIZED CAKES.

​Co-Written by Chef Alex Mantoglou.
Key Ingredients:

• Olive Oil
• Lemon

I created this particular recipe as part of a breakfast menu for a boutique hotel here in Greece. These minimalist bite sized cakes are best prepared, served and enjoyed in the morning. To begin with, I made sure to set some achievable limitations and restrictions to assist me in the preparation of the ingredients and other cooking factors to consider. It may sound philosophically strange to suggest that restricting yourself is very helpful but my expereinces confirm that it can be. I feel that absolute freedom is somewhat chaotic and ultimately, you maybe compromised in your objectives with endless freedom. With this in mind, I set out to make something sweet and delicate that would utilize local ingredients and give the visiting guests at the hotel a genuine palatable sense of place. At the same time, I restricted myself in making sure that the recipe had to be exciting yet familiar (I can’t imagine that many people would be open to try many of my chef’s extreme suggestions first thing in the morning!), pleasing to the eye yet simple, playful yet serious. After that, it was just a matter of basic culinary arithmetic - experimenting with ingredients and percentages to get where and what I wanted.

Most of the food that I make, and this recipe in particular, are all achievable at home and I recommend giving them a try and truly suprising your friends and family. Along with every other recipe that I have taught at the Culinary institute of the Mediterranean, my techniques and methods help home cooks obtain restaurant quality results by using familiar household ingredients and appliances available in every home kitchen. Actually, it is quite simple to execute a fine dish once you get to understand how things work and how ingredients interact when combined with each other. First give yourself a few minutes to study your recipe, don’t rush, it is important to understand what you are doing, most inexperienced cooks tend to over manipulate food and fail to understand how simplicity and at times minimalism is good food’s most vital ingredient.

True Inspiration in creating recipes is everywhere, but to be honest, I don’t necessarily have a few or particulary one motivator that inspires me to create each recipe that I make. Or to put it more correctly, I don’t feel that I give it enough thought or go through the emotional process of identifying what is inspiring and motivating me in the moment. What I can say is, as an culinary instructor, I am passionate about and really enjoy studying people’s contemporary and traditional cuisines, folklore cuisine, and the histories and meanings behind them. Additionally, I'd mention mediataion as another key influence that certainly helps me better understand myself, what I do as a Chef and where I am going in regards to the future. Having said that, I don’t mean that we should just sit still only focusing on our meditation positions and breathing techniques in silence. We can still do everything that we usually enjoy doing, just in a more conscious manner by being present and aware of the importance of living in the present moment because this is the only reality that we have.