Chef Aaron Davis Interview

Excuse our somewhat saccharine sentiment, but Chef Aaron Davis is one smart cookie. As the Pastry Lead at Chateau Luxe in Phoenix, AZ, Chef Aaron brings a thoughtful, experimental lens to everything he creates - from molecularly precise pastries to nostalgic bakes. And as a chef early in his career - there’s no telling just how he’ll revolutionize the pastry world. 

We sat down with Aaron to talk inspiration, the underrated power of salt, the science of baking, cooking competition shows, and more. Read the full interview below:

Why was your grandma the biggest influence to go into baking or pastry?

“I've always known that I wanted to be in a kitchen. I don't think there was ever a question of that throughout any point in my life; there's never really been a plan B or a fail safe. My grandmother was influential because she was such a pivotal part of raising my siblings and I and, she's really the only grandparent that I have a strong relationship with. When my dad was our age, she had a bakery and deli counter: we always had cookies, fresh pies and jams and bread on hand. 

Making things from scratch and having that appreciation for the time and art that goes into  baking has stayed with me throughout my career. I also learned a lot of foundational baking from her prior to going to school to get the science behind it.

Which is one of my favorite parts of baking is that there's so much science involved. I can just geek out about that forever. And learning those fundamentals and holding strongly to those memories means nostalgia plays really heavily into some of my inspiration.”

Talk to me about the more scientific side of baking. 

“You might as well be getting a chemistry degree, going to school for baking. I think people take for granted having access to such good recipes and not always knowing how much time and energy can go into the creation of that recipe. Or even take it a step further, the fact that they can take these base recipes and manipulate one or two things in really small ways that have such a huge impact on the flavor. 

Take sugar for example. You can swap out that sugar with other types of sweeteners and that can impact flavor. That can impact how things caramelize. That can impact how chewy or how soft something is because something a lot of people don't know is that sugar is a liquifier. There's stabilizers and liquefiers. Sugar is a liquefier because it's hygroscopic (absorbs moisture). It forms such a strong bond with water, so it helps soften things in baking. 

I love incorporating liquid sugars: molasses, sorghum, syrup, honey, all of those have different flavors and nuances and they impact the color of your bakes, as well. Those are always really fascinating to experiment with. If you swap your granulated sugar out for liquid sugar, now you're introducing something that's going to keep it even softer because, addition of moisture aside, most liquid sugars are inherently acidic, which is going to break down some of the bonds of those sugars.”

What advice would you give to a chef just starting out?

“Start out in a resort or hotel. The hours are going to be brutal and arduous, and there's nothing you can do to avoid that. You're going to have to sacrifice your holidays. 

But I think resorts and hotels are some of the best places to get a well-rounded culinary experience because they have so many different parts of the resort you can work in: banquets, bakery, you can do bread, you can work with chocolate and sugar sculptures and learning that kind of aspect of pastry. You can go work in a small pool kitchen, in-room dining service. Small events where it's very high-end or big events. 

That's how I started out before I went to culinary school. I worked at a local resort and my chef said, ‘We're going to rotate you through the different parts of the resort so you have a little bit of experience in every area before you go to school.’ I think that can help cue people into where they want to go.

I also think the perspective and definition of success within this industry has changed so much. When I came into the industry it was very streamlined like you have to work in restaurants - if they’re Michelin Star or James Beard nominated - that's the end goal. And there's nothing wrong with that if that's truly what you want to do and if that's what you're passionate about. But that approach can also be limiting for people if they don’t want to go that route - students go into culinary school, they start in the industry, they get tunnel vision in terms of scope of where their career could go.

One last piece of advice is to start taking care of your mental health now because while the conversation has changed a lot since I've been in the industry, it still can make a lot more progress.”

What is a spice that you think is undervalued in baking or pastry baking?

“Salt, though I recognize is not a ‘spice’ per se, is egregiously underused in baking. For a long time you would see salt on a lot of recipes as optional, for me, salt should not be left to interpretation - you have to put salt in bakes because scientifically it helps things from a flavor standpoint, it enhances the sweetness and flavors of so many things you include in your bakes ,it balances things, and helps with browning. Have you ever forgotten the salt in bread? You’d remember. 

Balance has always been a huge area of focus for me and my desserts in terms of hitting the mark of acidity, sweet, bitter, and salt. Salt is such a key component that a lot of people miss the opportunity to include more of. 

And it goes beyond just adding salt. There are so many inherently salty ingredients that you can use in your baked goods. Whether that's something fermented, things like soy, things like miso, things like cheeses, that add a lot of salt, but also umami and balance to your desserts.”

People around you, music, books, travel, research - where do you find inspiration when developing dishes?

“That's always a tricky question for me because I'm the type of person where inspiration can come from anyone and anything. I can be driving down the street and I see some mural that someone painted and think that would be a cool design on cake. Some of it comes from nostalgia and flavors that are familiar and near and dear to me. I have also taken inspiration from album art and music that I listen to. But I can also take inspiration very literally sometimes from both an aesthetic and flavor standpoint. 

I had my biggest breakthrough moment of how I look for inspiration back in 2020. I was doing an Art of Pastry project at school, and we were each put into groups and tasked to talk with a local artisan about their art and take inspiration from them in order to create a dessert.

My partner and I spoke with a local florist, talked about her philosophy, how she sources her flowers, and how she arranges them. We visually wanted to represent those flowers on the plate, but we also wanted to consider the parts of her philosophies in composing our dessert. She only sourced local flowers, she’d repurpose flowers and elements in other arrangements, it was always the flowers first and then the vessel. And she tried to minimize waste as much as possible. 

We developed a dessert that embodied this florist’s approach and philosophies: we used in-season and locally sourced ingredients, reused different parts of the components in multiple ways, we kept it to a minimum of five elements on the plate because she talked about only putting up to five flowers in the base. And then we were very cognizant of the way we made things and how we plated them to minimize waste. 

That particular project really opened my eyes to the fact that you can take inspiration from anything. I’ve had some really rough periods of inspirational burnout. But just remembering back to that class and that I can look at other art mediums and use that as inspiration helped pull me out of that burnout. And that freedom has changed a lot of my approach to how I compose desserts, whether that's flavor or how they look.”

What's a technique or trick that you've kind of learned along the way, whether in school or now that even a home cook could use?

“You can use different flours interchangeably and that is going to affect the consistency of your bake. You can even use it from a flavor standpoint. So when you're thinking about flour, it's on a scale based on levels of starch and protein:

• (Most protein) Bread flour: it's going to build up that gluten matrix faster and give you a nice chewy texture on your bread

• Whole wheat flour: a little bit more chew, nutty/earthy flavor to bakes

• All-purpose flour: mid-level chew, good for all bakes dependent on mixing/development

• Pastry flour: lighter chew but still structured, best for things like biscuits, scones

• (Most starch) Cake flour: a softer, spongier texture and chew

When you're making something like cookies, for example, if you want a cakier cookie, use cake flour or add cornstarch because that's going to increase your starch content. If you want to add chew to your cookie, use bread flour because it has more protein. It's going to give you a little bit more chew, similarly to how it gives bread chew. 

And you can apply this anywhere in baking: your bread flour is going to add more strength to things. Cake flour is going to give a weaker structure to things. And that all has to do with the eating experience. I personally always use bread flour in my cookies because I like them chewy.”

How do you mentally prepare for food competition T.V. shows?

“Is there such a thing as mental preparation for a competition show? That's a tough one to answer because it depends on the show. Going into my first competition reality show there was much less preparation about it, much more the excitement of just getting to be there because it was something that I've wanted to do for so long in my life. 

Because it was my first show, I had no base level of expectation. Once I started filming a second food competition I had an idea of how to communicate with the people that I'm working with, how to work with and talk about the bakers, what to expect in terms of what a day looks like on set. 

When I did Holiday Wars, that one really threw me for a loop because when I was going through the casting process I was auditioning as a baker. And then they cast me as a cookie decorator. And I was like, ‘Excuse me?’ I very intentionally avoid decorating cookies. Like what do you mean I have to do this on national TV now?

That show was very much learning on a curve throughout the competition once I kind of gauged a base level expectation of the judges. I very quickly learned to lean into the fact that I wasn't a cookie decorator because it inherently set me apart from everyone else. I approached it like what other types of cookies can I incorporate into this aside from just decorated cookies?

It was a great learning experience to work with those other bakers and being put in a situation where I might not always know the best route to approach doing cookies. But then when I went back and did the Halloween Baking Championship, I will say I think I went in there the most confident just because I had done a show like that before and had an idea of the process. 

I'm not sure that that necessarily gives me an advantage going into the competition just because every season is different. Sure, I'm in a familiar kitchen, but I'm with new bakers. There's still 20 cameras around me. There's still ovens that we're sharing, equipment that we're sharing, ingredients that we're sharing, and each challenge is different. 

And at the end of the day, in these competitions, it really does just take one bad bake to send you home. Regardless of how confident you are or whether you've done a television show before. But I was able to come in with the foresight of needing to manage my time in a very specific way to get a certain outcome and keeping in mind the things that the judges are telling me as I go throughout this competition and apply those things because they pay attention to that.”

What's a baking technique you still find intimidating?

“There are two that immediately come to mind. I think a lot of bakers gravitate towards saying macarons and I would agree that it's a very hard skill to master, but I would say it almost becomes a cop-out because it's such a common answer. 

I would say choux because similarly to macarons there's so many things that can impact your batter: if the liquid ratio is off, if you've added too many eggs, if someone opens the oven too soon, if it's not at the right temperature, and then sometimes it just plain doesn't work. Choux is an extremely hard product to bake on a consistent level where it's puffed correctly, it's hollow on the inside and crisp on the outside. Sometimes I bake it and the choux turns out great. Sometimes they're flat as a pancake, even if no one opened the oven. It’s very hit or miss.”