Not so sweet treats! Chef fed up of traditional desserts now serves up versions that look deliberately DISGUSTING – including an old ashtray and a kitchen sponge
Ben Churchill, of St Albans, made a career out of creating optical illusion treats
His latest dishes look very unappetising but he says they still taste delicious
They include a disused ashtray that's actually a vanilla panna cotta
A chef who grew bored of traditional desserts has started serving up treats like look like very unappetising objects - including an ashtray, a washing up sponge and a mouldy orange.
Ben Churchill, 31, of St Albans, has made a career out of creating some very unusual sweet dishes that look uncannily like other items.
Although every dessert is completely edible, you'd be forgiven for not wanting to dive into his latest treats however as they look off-putting on purpose.
But the private chef promises that every ultra-realistic-looking dessert he makes is perfectly balanced in flavour.
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This may look like a disgusting ashtray but in fact it is a delicious vanilla panna cotta dessert. It contains a smokey lapsang gel, which is coated in black meringue powder, with a silver chocolate crumb and the cigarette butts are made out of modelling chocolate
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One of Ben's most famous desserts is an olive oil sponge cake that looks like a dirty kitchen sponge. It's topped with a mint crumb and sweet milk 'soap suds'
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In revealing videos, Ben shows how he brings the dishes to life by using ingredients such as bubblegum meringue dust to replicate mould on an 'orange' that is secretly a parfait.
For a disgusting used ashtray dessert, which looks just like the real thing, he uses modelling chocolate and syrup to make treats that appear to be cigarette butts which top a vanilla panna cotta.
The full-time chef started creating and filming the creation of his spectacular optical illusion desserts in his spare time, and how he has a book dedicated to the art of 'food illusions'.
Ben said: 'My desserts are always well received. My guests can experience anything from confusion to apprehension to humor, constantly making them think outside of the box with my creations.
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This dessert is not what it seems! Ben has created an orange parfait, coated in a mirror glaze, which is finished with bubblegum-flavoured meringue powder to imitate mould growth
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Ben's Dessert Hotdog is actually a choux bun filled with a strawberry and chocolate cookie dough, topped with strawberry sauce and apple 'onions'
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This may look like a cheeseboard but it's actually sweet! The Stilton at the back is a vanilla and mint baked cheesecake, cleverly disguised as blue cheese, while there is also a panna cotta, white chocolate and a grape chutney
'If there's anything my guests will get from this, it's inspiration.
'I grew bored of conventional desserts so started questioning how far I could take it.
'People can be put off by the appearance, understandably, but they always enjoy the taste.'
When thinking of a new 'gross dessert' project, Ben thinks of the end goal like a puzzle and works backwards.
It can take him between one day and six months to come up with a clever new dessert.
What a hoot! Just goes to show that
"awful" looking desserts can be really
fabulous.
Back in the day (waaaaaay back in the
day) people thought that tomatoes were
poisonous - now we can hardly pass a
day without consuming some sort of
tomato product.
Some of his efforts would be fabulous on
Halloween.
