Sweet! She has a love for pastries

For Kate Milashus, the new executive pastry chef at Room21 in Chicago, making pastries every day is a "sweet" deal.

Chef Milashus, a resident of Oak Park, says she has always been interested in baking, but "didn't consider a career in the industry until much later at the age of 28."

A 2004 graduate of the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago, Milashus honed her skills in Chicago at Avenue M, Dine, Pili Pili, Zealous and D. Kelly. In 2006, she was a nominee for Rising Pastry Chef at the Jean Banchet Awards for Culinary Excellence.

When she's not in the kitchen, Milashus likes to relax, read, catch up on sleep and eat out. She'll eat just about anything except cooked cauliflower and roast lamb.

What is your earliest food memory? I was born in Poland and I remember my grandmother cooking everything from scratch. She would lay dishtowels out all over the kitchen when she made pierogi. She cooked every day.

What was the hardest lesson you learned in cooking school? I quickly learned that this was a labor-intensive endeavor; you are on your feet all day and it is tiring. At school you are sheltered, but you get a taste of what you'll experience in a real restaurant.

How much time do you spend in the kitchen? I'm in the kitchen 95 percent of the time, between 40 and 60 hours a week on average depending on the season and whether we have private parties scheduled.

What baking and pastry task do you enjoy most? Making ice cream is one of my favorites. I also like to prepare crème brulee because it is a classic and can be varied any number of ways. It can be a main dessert or a mini served as an accompaniment.

What is the key to a perfect dessert? A dessert always starts out as the vision of the chef, but it should contain a few elements: different temperatures, warm and cool; different textures, creamy and crunchy; and different colors. There should not be too much on the plate, between two and four components.

Do you have a favorite dessert? I have always been a cheesecake person. I bake mine in a water bath.

Do you have a funny kitchen memory? At my first job on Valentine's Day, we were extremely busy. We made little cookies to give with the check. They were sugar cookie hearts made with light pink sugar that we had in the pastry kitchen. I didn't taste the cookies until the end of the night and realized the sugar was actually pickling salt, which is much saltier than regular salt. I have no idea why that salt was in the pastry kitchen. I didn't tell a soul and nobody came back with any complaints.

How do you organize your recipes? At home, I use binders and organize by type of dessert. I am constantly weeding out. At the restaurant, I file by the current menu.

Whose pastry work do you admire? I like Ina Garten; she's a genuine, regular gal. You feel you can make anything of hers because she makes it approachable. I also like Martha Stewart. Her work is so perfect it's insane, but you keep trying to do it because it's so beautiful.

As a pastry chef, what trends do you see on the horizon? It's more of a constant, really, making familiar desserts and putting a twist on them. We are going back to the 1940s and '50s diner desserts and making them our own. People eat what they are familiar with. You can make an apple pie, but do it many different ways. If customers don't recognize ingredients, they won't try it because they can't connect with it.

What advice do you have for aspiring bakers? Use a scale and an oven thermometer. Not to bad-mouth home magazines, but invest in a good pastry cookbook or two. Magazine recipes can be dated, and just because the recipe is printed doesn't mean its going to work out. You may have to make things two or three times before you get it right.

Tell us about this recipe. Warm Cardamom Doughnuts. I chose this recipe because it's very easy to make, tastes great and doesn't require fussing with yeast. Who doesn't like fresh, hot doughnuts!

Try this at home or at Room21, 2110 S. Wabash St., Chicago. (312) 328-1198.

Warm Cardamom Doughnuts

2½ cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

½ teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup light brown sugar

1 cup buttermilk, room temperature

4 tablespoons butter, melted

2 eggs, room temperature

Oil or lard for frying

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Place dry ingredients, including brown sugar, in the bowl of an electric mixer. Using the paddle attachment, mix ingredients on low speed until combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, butter and eggs.

With the mixer on medium speed, add the wet ingredients. Continue mixing until batter is smooth making sure you scrape any flour from the bottom of the bowl. Transfer batter to a plastic container; cover and chill for at least 6 hours.

Fill a heavy sauce pot or Dutch oven halfway with canola or peanut oil, or melt lard if you prefer. Heat fat to 375 degrees.

Using a ½-ounce scoop, drop batter into hot fat. Be sure not to crowd the doughnuts as they more than double in size when fried. After 3 minutes, turn doughnuts over with the edge of a slotted spoon. Continue frying until doughnuts are a deep golden brown.

Transfer doughnuts with the slotted spoon to paper towels to drain.

In a shallow bowl, combine sugar and cinnamon. Roll doughnuts mixture. Serve immediately.

Makes about 24 doughnuts.

Chef Kate Milashus, Room 21, Chicago