In honor of the 152nd Kentucky Derby May 2, we tasked local pastry artists with crafting edible chapeaus worthy of the Run for the Roses. Denise Elrod, executive pastry chef of Blackbird Modern Asian restaurant in Jupiter, delivered a dramatic hat with undeniable allure.
“This iteration incorporates Blackbird’s signature black, red, and gold palette, and is far too striking to sit on a plate,” Elrod says. “It was meant to be worn.”
To make this one-of-a-kind sweet, Elrod used dark chocolate, miso paste, cream, hazelnuts, butter, sugar, and salt. She notes that shaping the chocolate base to capture the silhouette of couture headwear and achieve a smooth, velvet-like finish was the most challenging aspect of the construction. But her efforts resulted in an accessory that is as appetizing as it is beautiful.
“Every bite delivers a delicious mouthful of rich dark chocolate,” she explains, “but the real showstoppers are the salted hazelnut praline and miso-caramel ganache I’ve hidden beyond the petals inside the flowers.”
Stacy Paret of Sweet Stacy’s in West Palm Beach also rose to the challenge, creating a feminine hat with soft colors, gum-paste flowers, a large sugar-wafer bow, and a replica of a circa-1930s Derby ticket, also made of gum paste. As an homage to the state’s signature sip, the base of the hat is a Kentucky bourbon vanilla cake. While Paret shares that forming the brim and lining proved difficult, the hardest part of the project was finalizing her design.
“There are so many styles to decide on,” she says. “The hat has its own personality.”
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