Cyrus Restaurant’s ‘pastry wizard’ makes wildest dessert dreams come true

“I’ve always loved art and creating things,” Josh Gaulin said.|

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

February 12, 2024

Pastry chef’s top 3 tools

Bakers who want to improve their dessert making skills should have these three items in their kitchen, according to Josh Gaulin, pastry chef at Cyrus Restaurant in Geyserville:

1. A scale that weighs in grams. “100%. In pastry you’re lost without a scale,” said Gaulin.

2. A torch. “I like to burn stuff,” he said.

3. An offset spatula. They’re not just for icing cakes. Gaulin uses them for spreading tuiles and for placing herb garnishes because they’re gentler than tweezers which can bruise delicate herbs.

He’s been called brilliant. He’s hash-tagged as a “Pastry Wizard” and some of his desserts are described as “gravity defying” on Cyrus Restaurant’s social media.

As the pastry chef for the Michelin-starred Geyserville restaurant, Josh Gaulin creates both the first tastes and the final finishing touches to the dining experience.

His gougeres and savory madeleines greet guests in the Bubble Lounge, while his sorbets and bite-sized mignardises bid guests a sweet farewell.

He executes them all with an artistry that is awe-inspiring in both presentation and flavor. His skills are far beyond the scope of mere kitchen mortals.

“I’ve always loved art and creating things,” he said. “I feel like with pastry, your ability to create from the ground up with eggs, flour and fat is exponentially greater than in savory. I can construct dishes based on an aesthetic or a geometrical approach.”

His Mont Blanc is a testament to that. Gaulin’s teardrop presentation of this popular Parisian dessert is a study in shades of winter white. It has the chic sophistication of Audrey Hepburn in a white Givenchy gown.

“We try to keep our desserts pretty light and kind of feminine. We try to make everything a balance of textures, pleasing on your palate, not super, heavy, aggressive flavors,” said Gaulin.

He pushes boundaries with the flavors he works into the dessert course, using things that normally have savory connotations like parsnips and mushrooms or ingredients that most of us never knew existed.

Gaulin plucked a silver bag off a shelf near his pastry station, and offered a few morsels of dried wild Thai banana. They were an intensely distilled essence of banana that he includes in a caramel for the Mont Blanc.

These aren’t flavors that most diners would choose for dessert, if left to their own devices, which is why Gaulin likes the set tasting menu format. It gives him ultimate creative freedom to show others what’s possible.

“You have an opportunity to introduce people to ingredients they aren’t normally exposed to,” he said.

Gaulin grew up in Richmond, Virginia. A self-described picky eater, he grew up eating well-done steaks, casseroles and canned vegetables — a far cry from the fine-dining world he inhabits now.

After high school he worked at a local country club, planning to go into hospitality management. At the time, the club’s new executive chef was looking to fill some kitchen positions.

On a whim, Gaulin, who thought it might give him good perspective on the industry, took the job as garde manger, doing things like making salads and plating desserts for the pastry chef. Soon, he was hooked.

At his next job at a fine dining restaurant in Richmond, his station was next to the pastry chef, and he enjoyed watching him work.

“I’ve always loved sweets. My mom is probably the only person in the world that loves sweets more than me. I was always interested in dessert,” he said.

When that chef gave notice to take a job in New York, he offered to give Gaulin a two-week crash course in pastry, who continued learning on his own as the restaurant’s new pastry chef.

“I was just reading a ton, trying different recipes from different people, changing one little thing to make it my own, but basically ripping off some of the well-known pastry chefs at that time,” he said.

His next stop was Wine Country at The Restaurant at Meadowood, followed by a few years at some of San Francisco’s top restaurants, before being recruited by Doug Keane to come to Cyrus as it prepared to open in 2022.

Gaulin found Keane and business partner Nick Peyton’s vision for a kinder, gentler work environment a breath of fresh air. The restaurant offers employees things like health insurance and a four-day work week.

“Their hearts (are) in the right place. It's new to me to work for people that genuinely care about the individuals that work for them,” he said.

That four-day work week means Cyrus, which is closed every Wednesday, will be closed this Valentine’s Day, which he acknowledges is a bit of a relief.

It’s a notoriously busy night for restaurants filled with diners with high expectations when it comes to food, service and romance.

When the restaurant opens for business as usual on Thursday, the Bubble Lounge, which features a scaled-down experience of Cyrus’s multi-course tasting menu, Gaulin said the menu will include a “tip of the hat” to those who come in for a belated Valentine’s celebration — a classic chocolate souffle for two.

And that, unlike so many of his other-worldly creations, is something most anyone can make at home. Nevertheless, Gaulin cautioned, for a dish with only four or five ingredients, what you put in it matters.

“Don’t skimp on the ingredients. Get high-quality eggs. Get high-quality chocolate,” he said, mentioning that coverture chocolate is best and readily available at most markets these days.

“Don’t get the Toll House baker’s chocolate and expect to get a restaurant-quality result,” he added.

For those who want to go a different direction than chocolate, Gaulin said it’s the perfect time of year to lean into citrus, which he is currently doing with a mandarin and shiso sorbet on the tasting menu.

He suggested a tart filled with citrus curd topped with rose-scented meringue, and offered a unique way to make it for those who may not have a sous vide circulator at home, although those are becoming much more common in the home kitchen.

Gaulin said you simply add sugar, citrus juice, and egg to a plastic storage bag, seal it and submerge it in a pot of simmering water. He said even if the eggs are overcooked a bit, it will still be okay.

“It’s off-putting at first. It’s going to look like you did something wrong,” he said, explaining that once the ingredients are blended it all falls into place.

He said whether it is a souffle, a tart, or a simple chocolate chip cookie, a well-executed dessert will make for a memorable end to a meal.

“You get the dopamine from the sugar,” he said. “Sugar is an amazing thing.”

Chocolate Souffle

Makes 4 servings

2 tablespoons room temperature butter, for greasing ramekins

1/3 cup sugar, plus 1 tablespoon, divided (plus more for dusting)

4 ounces dark chocolate

4 egg whites

3 egg yolks

Chocolate sauce, to serve (see recipe below)

In a small saucepan bring water and sugar to a simmer, stirring until sugar dissolves. While whisking, add the cornstarch and return to a simmer while continuing to whisk.

Remove from heat, add in the chocolate and whisk to combine.

Raspberry Lime Curd Tart with Rose Meringue

Makes 6 individual 4 inch tarts

This recipe is more involved and ideal for bakers who want to play with new flavors in a familiar format: a citrus tart. While you don’t need to use a sous vide machine to make lime curd, pastry chef Josh Gaulin says it’s a trick the pros use so they can do something else while it cooks rather than standing over a double boiler and stirring.

Pâte Sucrée (sweet tart dough)

8 tablespoons butter, softened

3/4 cup powdered sugar plus 2 tablespoons, sifted

Pinch of salt

1/4 vanilla bean, seeds scraped out

1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk

2 cups all-purpose flour

For the raspberry rose jam:

2 6 ounce containers of raspberries, divided (saving some raspberries for garnish)

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon rosewater

For the lime curd:

2/3 cup fresly squeezed lime juice (about 6-8 limes)

3 eggs

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

11 tablespoons butter cut into small pieces

1 1/2 gelatin sheets

For the rose meringue:

1/3 cup egg whites (approximately 2-3 eggs)

3/4 cup sugar

3 tablespoons water

1/4 teaspoon rose water

To make the tart shells:

Place the softened butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Sift in the powdered sugar, and add in the salt and vanilla and mix until just combined, scraping the sides of the bowl to ensure all is incorporated.

Add in the egg and egg yolk in two additions until the dough starts to come together, scraping the bowl between additions.

Add in the sifted flour and mix just until combined, being careful not to overmix. Bring the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes before rolling it out.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Remove dough from refrigerator and roll out to about 1/8 inch thick. Cut into circles slightly bigger than the tart molds. Gently press the dough into the sides and bottom of the pan. With a rolling pin, roll over the surface of the tart pan. This will trim off any overhanging dough.

Bake at 325 with pie weights (aluminum foil filled with rice or beans works just fine) for about 7-8 minutes. Remove pie weights when the outside crust starts to get a light golden brown. Bake until a uniform golden brown is achieved (approximately 15 minutes total if using convection oven, a bit longer for conventional ovens).

Remove from oven and allow to cool.

To make the jam:

Place 7 ounces of raspberries in a sauce pan with the sugar and rosewater. Reserve remaining raspberries for garnish. Cook over low heat until the mixture thickens to a jam like consistency, about 15-20 minutes.

Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Once cool, spread a tablespoon or two of jam on the bottom of each tart shell and place the shells into the refrigerator to chill for about 15 minutes.

Keep any leftover jam in a jar in the refrigerator.

To make the lime curd:

Add lime juice, eggs and sugar to a bag, seal and cook in a sous vide circulator bath at 185 degrees (85 celsius) for 13 minutes. (See note)

Meanwhile, bloom the gelatin sheets in a bowl with 1 cup of cold water for 5-10 minutes. After 5-10 minutes, remove sheets and gently squeeze out excess water.

When the lime juice and egg mixture is done, open bag and pour mixture into a blender. Blend until combined, then add the gelatin and butter pieces a little at a time, blending until fully incorporated and smooth.

Pass the mixture through a fine mesh strainer or chinois. Remove the tart shells from the refrigerator and divide the lime curd mixture evenly among them.

Return filled shells to the refrigerator and chill for 30 mintues.

Keep any leftover curd in a jar in the refrigerator for one week.

Note: if you do not have a circulator, you can seal the eggs, sugar, and lime juice in a ziplock bag and submerge it in a pot of simmering water. You could also cook them over a double boiler while whisking constantly until thickened. Chefs like Gaulin like the circulator/water bath approach as it requires less attention and frees you up to do other tasks.

To make the rose meringue:

Add egg whites to the bowl of a stand mixer with a whisk attachment.

Meanwhile, put sugar and water in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil. Monitor the temperature with a thermometer.

Once the mixture starts boiling, begin whipping the egg whites on low speed.

Once the sugar mixture reaches 240 degrees, pour the liquid into the egg whites with the whisk running.

Add the rosewater and increase the mixer speed to high and whip until stiff peaks form.

Remove the chilled tarts from the refrigerator and using a pastry bag or spoon, pipe or dollop the meringue on top of the tarts.

Garnish with fresh raspberries and serve.

You can reach Staff Writer Jennifer Graue at 707-521-5262 or jennifer.graue@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @JenInOz.