The Mango is not a mango. The Lemon is not a lemon. Starting this week, the Strawberry is not a strawberry.
But they are sensations online, trompe l’oeil pastries of light, airy mousse and zesty fillings that have gone viral on TikTok from the tables of the CSCA Cafe, an independent coffee shop and bakery in North Cambridge.
They are the flashiest feature of a cafe that is bigger than it seems: Across the street is the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, founded 50 years ago by Roberta and William Dowling and bought in January 2017 by Sean Leonard, a 1996 alumni, and his partner Randy Freidus. The cafe, which celebrated its first anniversary on Feb. 3, is an offshoot, showing the culinary expertise of the school’s chefs and students to the neighborhood and the world.
In its first year, many people walked by the cafe without realizing it was accessible to the public and not just for school staff and students who stop in before classes, Leonard said. This month, he hung a sign replacing the acronym with “Cambridge School of Culinary Arts Cafe.”
“Now, I watch people look up, look across the street, then come in,” Leonard said.
A highlight of the cafe are the entremets, sophisticated, multilayer French desserts. Also popular are the croissants, cardamom bun, scones and macarons. The café offers other breakfast items and lunch, too.
The entremets were the idea of Fred Csibi-Levin, scientist turned pastry chef and author of “Mastering Macarons.” After graduating from the CSCA with a pastry degree, he worked at the now-closed Jonquil’s Cafe and Bakery in Boston’s Back Bay. When Leonard struggled over planning the menu for his own cafe, he called for backup.
“Fred came in, cleaned [the menu] up, and that’s when we started with the Mango,” Leonard said.
It took off. “We have had people visiting from Texas, Tennessee, Connecticut, all over,” Leonard said, “just to see these deserts.”
The Mango is touted as the “No. 1 selling viral sensation” at the cafe, its mousse made from mango and passion fruit and complemented by a zesty lime filling. Inside you find a vanilla sponge cake soaked in passion fruit syrup, topped with a gratifying crunch from a milk chocolate feuilletine – caramelized crepe flakes – that is mixed with almond.
Julia Marion can be thanked for the social media attention. The barista took over the cafe’s account on the TikTok video app, giving it a creative tone that appeals to a younger generation.
“Remember that 11-year-old boy?” Leonard asked Marion during an interview. “His mom was ready to kill him.”
The cafe was ready to close when a mother and son driving from Dedham – a 35-minute trip even when there’s no traffic – called, hoping to buy a Mango. Leonard and Marion agreed to stay open until they arrived, which was an hour after closing.
“It’s on me,” Leonard recalled telling the frantic mother. “She said ‘Thank you, he was driving me crazy over this Mango!’”
Leonard appreciates that social media captures the pastries’ complexity. As Marion slowly presses a spoon over the Mango in one of the videos, you can hear the satisfying crack that you wouldn’t in a photo. Texture is key. “That’s what everyone wants,” Leonard said.
The pastries are elevated with drinks suggested by Marion and other baristas, who look for ways to put a CSCA spin on nationwide trends – hot and cold matcha lattes, for instance, to reflect a recent craze for the powdered green tea.
“The first thing I think about when I make a drink recipe is what people are looking for right now,” Marion said. “Once I know the trend, I think about the flavors we have and what will pair with them.”
The Ladybug drink, a cherry mocha, was developed to pair with the Heart, a pastry of dark chocolate mousse complemented by a raspberry confit. Marion started with an idea to pair cherries with chocolate and used Luxardo cherries, a premium Italian maraschino often considered the gold standard for sweetness. The combination creates a warm experience, Marion said.
Other pairings include iced matcha with the Lemon, for a deep, earthy, citrus tang; raspberry mocha with the Raspberry Brownie; and lavender white mocha, which has a bright, aromatic and sweet flavor, with the Blueberry Lemon Scone.
“It’s amazing to utilize the resources the culinary school has to make drinks,” Marion said. “It’s such a cool way to collab and combine flavors to push past what a regular cafe has.”
All drink syrups are housemade, as is everything. The cafe crew prides itself on going above and beyond on every item to make stepping out for coffee and pastry into an experience, rather than a quick bite. Particularly in this inflated economy, it’s not just grabbing something to eat and drink anymore, but about finding a third space for people, Marion said.
“If I am making a coffee for someone,” she said, “I will spend the extra five seconds, even if it is busy, to make the best experience for everyone.”
The new Strawberry is a crème fraîche mousse, vanilla sponge cake, strawberry confit and chocolate feuilletine in the shape of a strawberry with hand-sprayed chocolate crunch.
Csibi-Levin walked me through the making of this entremet. His book “Patisserie Extraordinaire” – coming out in September – details the foundations of the pastries: how to make them, what to look for, tips and tricks and the science behind them. He offers DIY alternatives for those who do not have professional molds.
During a recent visit, I got to see Csibi-Levin and CSCA cooks make the Strawberry. The steps are as follows: prepare components, assemble into mold, dip, spray and plate. Sounds easy, right?
After the confit is cooked, fresh strawberries are folded in for texture and fresh taste. The confit is poured into a half-dome mold and frozen for later use. The molds are washed and baked in the oven so that no water, which may create impurities in the final shaping, remains.
The feuilletine is prepared, first by adding caramelized crepe flakes to chocolate. The chocolate acts as a binding agent that stabilizes and protects the feuilletine from becoming soggy, ensuring its crunchiness. It is shaped using a circular cutter to be placed in the mold later.
The mousse is a pâte à bombe – a French pastry technique combining hot sugar and egg yolks, to which crème fraîche and cream cheese are folded, adding to its flavor and fat content. Gelatin is soaked in water, strained, melted and added to help the mousse retain its shape.
The vanilla sponge cake is baked on trays and trimmed to fit the mold, and elderflower and simple syrup are brushed onto one side to enhance the flavor.
The assembly process begins with pouring the mousse into a mold. Csibi-Levin rotates the molds, allowing the mousse to fill all pores to ensure consistent texture. Next, the confit is popped out of its mold and placed into the Strawberry mold.
Sponge cake is added to the mold. Excess mousse is wiped away, and the feuilletine circles are placed last, as a base for the Strawberry.
Glucose is pipetted onto the presentation mat, ensuring the pastry won’t shift after being placed, as sliding can shatter the delicate chocolate shell. The strawberries are placed in a blast chiller for 30 minutes, then popped out of their mold to prepare for a chocolate dip and spray.
The colors for the Strawberry start as green and red food-grade dyes, mixed into a combination of liquid chocolate and cocoa butter. Its temperature is raised to 95 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, allowing the chocolate to temper – a process of melting, cooling and reheating that creates a glossy, snappy finish. The strawberry is dipped into green chocolate.
The Strawberry is finally ready to be sprayed. The red-dyed chocolate is loaded into a hand-held, food-grade airbrush and meticulously dispersed along the Strawberries – all facing the same direction to get a similar, thin coating. Cooks use a spraying technique called flocking to produce a fuzzy texture called “the velvet effect.” Finally, the original stems from the strawberries used to make the entremet are put on.
About The Author
