This amazing chef creates mind-blowing food illusions that will definitely impress you!

Chef Ben Churchill has been a professional chef for over 10 years. Around 3 years ago, he realised there was one area of cooking he had never really dabbled in: pastry. He started teaching himself the basics but soon grew tired of the conventional aspects of the pastry world. Everyone was doing the same cakes, mousses and pastries. This is when he started thinking about lemons. Could chocolate be worked to form the shape of a fruit, but contain a hidden surprise? He crudely constructed a chocolate shell by moulding yellow chocolate around a lemon, cutting the citrus fruit out then joining it back together, but not before filling it with chocolate ganache. It worked! It was rough, and crudely made, but it worked! Now his mind was opened. What else could be done? What else can be made? How far can desserts go? So he started experimenting. Carrot cake shaped like a carrot, beetroot shaped brownies, coconut mushroom meringues. With each dessert he was teaching himself new skills, new ideas. This is when he started to move even deeper into what he calls ‘food illusions’; desserts designed to trick and confuse. The ethos has always been the same however. The flavours must always remain true to the theme. A dessert based on the computer game Fallout, for example, should include flavours relevant to a post nuclear wasteland: sour sugar, lemonade, popping candy.

As the desserts became more elaborate, so started the criticism. Some people in the world online couldn’t believe they were edible. They must be constructed with something other than food. So he decided to start filming himself making them. He showed himself creating, then eating the food illusions. This is when his profile really grew. His Facebook and Instagram started gaining followers, the video quality and editing skills improved, and the desserts kept on coming.

People watching the desserts just wasn’t enough for him. He wanted people to experience them for themselves, to try making them, to start thinking like he does. So he began writing «Food Illusions volume 1». A compilation of some techniques, thoughts, articles and of course full desserts. Completely self-produced, from the photos to the design, it was released in November 2017 through Amazon. It was very well received by food illusion fans both new and old, and has shifted over 1,000 copies to date.

What next? As of late his desserts have taken a sinister turn. Following on from the success of his washing up sponge dessert (olive oil sponge, topped with a mint crumb and served with a milk foam and apple puree to replicate a scrubbing sponge) he is now playing on the idea of not only making desserts that look like other things, but making them resemble unappealing items. The idea is to challenge people’s perceptions of taste. To add that element of surprise, and be delicious. Examples include the edible soap bar (lemon parfait, lavender gel and chamomile shortbread), the mouldy orange (a conventional mirror glazed imitation orange, but with the addition of bubble gum meringue powder for a realistic mouldy look) and most famously, the edible ashtray. A vanilla pannacotta set in an ashtray, topped with silver chocolate, meringue ash and chocolate cigarette butts. The reactions have been better than expected. Love it or hate it, they definitely get people talking. These desserts will set the theme for his next book, «Food illusions volume 2». There will be many desserts in the same style as these. Food to make your skin crawl but stomach celebrate, as well as tutorials on silicone mould making, more techniques and musings.

TIMESTAMPS:

0:12 — Washing Up Sponge Food Illusion;

0:42 — An Ashtray Illusion;

1:27 — The Mouldy Satsuma Dessert;

1:57 — Dirt And Worms Illusion;

2:42 — The Edible Soap Bar;

3:35 — Raw Chicken Food Illusion;

5:55 — The Fried Egg Illusion;

6:33 — The Jacket Potato;

7:19 — Beetroot And Chocolate Brownie;

7:52 — Fish Finger Sandwich Illusion;

8:34 — Victoria Sponge And Beans Dessert;

9:38 — Dessert That Looks Like A Boiled Egg;

10:48 — Full English Breakfast Illusion;

11:29 — The Maggot Infested Apple Illusion.

Via:
www.facebook.com/thefoodillusionist
www.instagram.com/chefbenchurchill

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