While shock freezing technology is most often used to preserve your peas, sashimi, ice creams and pre-made meals, one pastry chef in Toronto is repurposing the method to create beautiful, high-end cakes that can stay fresh in your freezer for weeks.
Ito Desserts is a Japanese-inspired pâtisserie run from the home of Nami Tamai and her husband, Paul Huang, a software developer and product engineer at Pinterest. Trained at École TSUJI Osaka—a French culinary school in Japan—Tamai has been placed in several patisseries in Japan and Canada, including Duo Pâtisserie, where she currently works.
With a passion for the food science behind desserts, Tamai was inspired during COVID to apply her pastry skills on a lifestyle product that would elevate those moments of decadence at home. With the help of her husband’s web design and product photography skills, Ito Desserts and Gifts was brought to life.
“Just like how we stock up on tea or coffee at home to make indoor times more pleasant, we hope to provide an option to allow cake lovers to stock up on desserts at their comfortable homes,” says Tamai.
In regular freezing, the water inside the food takes longer to crystalize and creates larger ice crystals, which can change the quality of food in the process. Shock freezing (or blast freezing) works by bringing down an item’s temperature so rapidly that their components are as close to intact as possible.
While this method speeds up the freezing process, it is by no means a shortcut when creating cakes as intricate as Tamai’s desserts.
At Ito, every layer of the cake is shock frozen separately to ensure an even and uniform freezing before they’re assembled in the montage stage. The cakes are then sealed inside their packaging using airtight wrapping film, then shock frozen again to maintain its hydration and oxidation through its subsequent storage in regular freezers.
In addition to a microscopic approach to preservation, every ingredient in Tamai’s creations is carefully thought out and experimented before securing a place on her monthly rotating flavours.
“Not all ingredients freeze well,” says Tamai. “I had to experiment a lot and come up with alternative recipes.”
Even whipped cream, which can separate during the shock freezing process, proved to be a challenge.
“I experimented with a few ways to stabilize the emulsification during freezing and ended up mixing in chocolate ganache to make sure the whipped cream stays airy and creamy after defrosting.”
The resulting ganache whipped cream is a main component in Ito’s Valentine’s special, Terrine de Chocolat––a dark chocolate cake topped with white chocolate ganache montée cream that’s part of their February flavours.
The Griotte, a wonderfully balanced cherry pistachio cake that’s also available this month, contains another challenging ingredient that Tamai successfully tamed: cherries. Because of their high water content, cherries lose a lot of their freshness and texture, even when shock frozen. Using the water retention properties of sugar, Tamai experimented with a fresh cherry compote and discovered it froze perfectly to preserve that cherry tartness.
Though it was difficult for her to choose, Tamai eventually named the Rikyuu as her favourite flavour this month. Based on the classic opera cake, the Rikyuu is infused with matcha flavours and balanced with condensed milk. Its six layers are glued by matcha syrup and each melt at a different temperature, releasing the flavours little by little. Inspired by karesansui, or the Japanese zen garden, the design of the Rikyuu is meant to inspire what matcha lattes always do for Tamai: de-stress and re-focus.
For the month of February, you’ll also find the Fraise, a classic Japanese strawberry shortcake fused with a hint of grapefruit, and the Tigre, a Lunar New Year special that uses mango, passionfruit and caramel to create tiger stripes.
Combining traditional French pastry-making, comforting flavours, old and new, and modern technologies, Ito Desserts is a meticulous passion project that’s paving the way for a more convenient and accessible way to enjoy high-end desserts at home.
“At Ito Desserts & Gifts, our goal is two-fold... reminds us that we should celebrate even small wins in life and connect people with what's around us.”
The duo is currently working on a cake flight subscription to help keep your freezer constantly stocked with decadent bites. They also hope to eventually turn their online store into a brick-and-mortar store with a larger variety of cakes and baked goods.
For now, Tamai and Huang are keeping their concept brimming with “life” by creating new flavours every month. Stay up to date by following them on their Instagram page.
Ito cakes come in a “flight” of all five monthly flavours. You can order your flight on their website for pickup in North York, Sundays plus Tuesdays through Fridays, between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. They also deliver to certain areas on Saturdays and Mondays, between 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
