On the trick of it

A trompe-l’œil pastry is, at first, a magic trick. Walk into the case for the first time and the lemon you reach for is not a lemon. The peach is not a peach. The pleasure of being briefly fooled — that’s the front door.

But the trick is also the least interesting part. We’ve been making these long enough now that we’ve stopped thinking of them as illusions. The lemon shape is the dessert, in the same way that a quenelle is the shape of ice cream. It’s just how this particular thing is held.

What’s actually interesting is what’s inside. The peach contains a stone fruit conserve we make every July from a single grove’s worth of peaches, lemon thyme from our own pots, and a vanilla cream cut with cultured butter. The lemon contains lemon-curd folded through Italian meringue and sits on a brown-butter sablé.

The illusion lasts a second. Then you cut into it, and what you have is dinner.

That’s the bargain we make with you.

— Alchemy Bakery