In the past few years, we’ve been doing amazing stuff with desserts. Pastry chefs have been using herbs and spices in their desserts. So vanilla cake doesn’t have to be just vanilla, it can have a little thyme. Or you could have a custard with a little lavender in it, which is just amazing.

Ron Ben-Israel is pointing to a broader shift in contemporary pastry toward culinary cross-pollination: techniques and flavor logics once associated with savory cooking (fresh herbs, floral notes, warm spices) are being used to complicate and elevate classic sweets. The examples—thyme in vanilla cake, lavender in custard—suggest that “vanilla” need not mean one-dimensional; it can be a base note that supports aromatic, botanical accents. Implicitly, the quote celebrates experimentation and a more chef-driven, ingredient-forward approach to desserts, where subtle infusions create surprise without abandoning familiarity.