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The sum of yum

A new Tampa patisserie, Chocolate Pi, brings our infinite urge for sweet delicacies full circle.

By CHRIS SHERMAN
Published December 14, 2005

	[Times photo: Joseph Garnett Jr.]
	These Christmas goodies at Chocolate Pi, called Molly’s Petit Fours, are a sumptuously concocted combination of vanilla sponge cake and raspberry jam filling.
	Kim Yelvington

No matter how many decimal places you carry it out, you could not make pi as precisely delicious as Kim Yelvington's chocolate pi.

Waves of dark glistening chocolate mousse rise and repeat in a perfectly swirling rose that seems as fragile as meringue and yet richer than fudge. It would be infinitely chocolate except that under the waves are the surprising tart fruitiness of banana slices, the cool comfort of custard and the crisp crust of shortbread.

When Yelvington adds them together, the sum is the signature treat of Chocolate Pi, her cozy new shop in South Tampa (2821 S MacDill Ave.; (813) 831-2195). With a price, logically, of $3.14.

It's also the product of a life in chocolate and an education sprinkled with famous names: Baskin-Robbins, where she first decorated (ice cream) cakes, Bern's Steak House, where she made the desserts, and Valrhona, the grand French chocolate maker, where she has studied.

After a variety of projects, including the short-lived Sugar Cubed, she has opened Chocolate Pi in the former kitchens and display space of Pane Rustica, redone in dusty rose and cocoa brown. Tables are stacked with beribboned samples of wedding cakes and the cases filled with crackling macaroons, cupcakes and cookies, plus all manner of chocolates and French pastries. Chocolate chip cookies are 75 cents, wedding cakes are up to the bride.

In the spirit of a season when visions of chocolate dance in the heads of children of all ages - and in the kitchens of brave home cooks - we put some questions to her.

Personally, I never met a chocolate I didn't like, although Valrhona is my absolute choice. I do prefer French chocolate above other imported chocolates or domestic brands. Dark chocolate is more flavorful and less sweet, and therefore is better for some pastry applications.

I use a variety of dark chocolates and milk chocolate in varying degree of intensity. Valrhona makes a 41 percent milk-chocolate couverture that is sublime, not too sweet but very smooth.

The most important defining element in chocolate is the quality, i.e., is it a couverture chocolate or not, which basically means it has a certain percentage of cocoa butter content, not vegetable fat or other substitutes.

The trick to working with chocolate is chemistry. It is about temperature, time and crystallization. For chocolate decoration, a process called tempering recreates a crystal pattern between the cocoa butter and the chocolate which reflects light and creates the smooth taste in one's mouth.

For pastrymaking, combining chocolate with other ingredients, especially fats such as butter and cream, requires an understanding of emulsions, like making a mayonnaise. You have to respect the temperature of all ingredients involved in a recipe, not just the chocolate - how is one going to affect the other.

This is the difference between making chocolate mousse or chocolate cement. Patience is definitely required.

The Valrhona school is amazing. The whole town of Tain-L'Hermitage on the Rhone River Valley smells like hot chocolate when they are making chocolate. Amazing. The machinery is all original and manned by artisan chocolatiers that know more about chocolate that I ever will.

The chocolate takes two days to complete. Most companies make the chocolate in half the time, therefore not expelling the bitterness of the raw cocoa. Valrhona is one-of-a-kind company. The school is intense, but very fun. The kitchen overlooks the most beautiful landscape of the Rhone River Valley, all windows. The head of the school is Frederic Bau, an amazing pastry chef. I owe much of my technical ability to his teaching. The school is professionally geared for very accomplished pastry chefs, invitation only.

Yes, I still use Valrhona. It will always be my first choice.

I am having a Hershey Kiss right now, don't tell my trainer. I like it all, that is my problem.

Store-bought chocolate is what it is - not wonderful after you have had the best, but a pleasant snack. I do like Toberlone bars.

Outside the fridge at room temperature about two to four weeks, if not exposed to humidity. If moist air cannot reach the chocolate, the ganache is pretty stable inside the chocolate coating, but a little moisture or heat and you have one day to eat your chocolate.

White chocolate is basically sweetened cocoa butter. Too sweet for me. It is not really chocolate.

Of course, I eat too much chocolate, hence the continuous diet I have been on my whole life. I love sweets, particularly chocolate candy. I believe you can't make something tasty if you don't love to eat it.

What I like and what I can sell are sometimes two different things, but I particularly enjoy exotic fruits with chocolate. Such as passion fruit, mango, banana, coconuts, litchi.

Raspberry is great with chocolate, but I hope to convince my clients to try other combinations. Banana with chocolate is a childhood favorite of mine, as well as most people, and it works very well.

Yes, I have had some great mole sauces, and some bad ones as well - with grainy chocolate. Chocolate is very versatile. One of the chefs from Valrhona and I always talked about doing a seven-course chocolate dinner from savory to sweet, but it just hasn't happened yet.

(Because) it is all about balance and contrast, just like life.

[Last modified December 13, 2005, 10:11:05]