Rebecca Masson, chef and owner, Fluff Bake Bar, Houston, Texas
Pastry chef Rebecca Masson says she wants all her cakes to taste like Grandma's, but "on steroids."
Lyric Lewin/CNN
Masson, the owner of Houston's Fluff Bake Bar (314 Gray St, Houston, TX 77002; +713 522 1900), takes a Texas-sized leap of faith to combine seemingly incongruous flavors. Like Button, she chooses a central ingredient and builds on it with seasonal elements.
For this meal, she started with pound cake just like her grandmother used to make for Masson as a child growing up in Wyoming. For her version, Masson added pistachios to the mix, yielding an electric green sponge cake that makes the perfect canvas for a deliciously Instagrammable dessert.
"You can add almost any flavor to pound cake, it goes with so many things," she says. "It helps to start with a familiar base and build on it."
She dressed up the cake with candied pistachios, fennel confit and caramelized white namelaka, a creamy Japanese chocolate sauce formed into lattice-like adornments.
"Everyone loves pound cake. I use it whenever I can," she says. "It's almost like salad in its versatility."