Pastry is different from cooking because you have to consider the chemistry, beauty and flavor. It’s not just sugar and eggs thrown together. I tell my pastry chefs to be in tune for all of this. You have to be challenged by using secret or unusual ingredients.

Ben-Israel distinguishes pastry from general cooking by stressing its triad of demands: technical precision (chemistry), aesthetic design (beauty), and sensory satisfaction (flavor). The quote frames pastry as a disciplined craft rather than casual mixing, implying that small deviations in ratios, temperature, or technique can radically change outcomes. His advice to pastry chefs—“be in tune” with all three dimensions—casts the work as both scientific and artistic, requiring attentiveness and taste. The final emphasis on “secret or unusual ingredients” highlights creativity and experimentation as essential to excellence, suggesting that innovation and surprise are part of what elevates pastry from competent to memorable.