Kevin A. Roberts
This article was published in the January 2023 issue of SLM under the title of "Short and Sweet."
Ellen Farrell may be the most experienced but under-the-radar pastry chef in town. Self-taught, she’s been at Cobalt Smoke & Sea since its 2019 inception and was at Cardwell’s for 22 years prior to that, spending 16 of them as its executive pastry chef. At Cobalt, she creates a different three-item dessert menu every month. This month, it’s an unconventional carrot cake. “I love carrots, and I love carrot cake,” she says. “But I can’t eat walnuts or pineapple, so I created my own recipe.” Without those other ingredients, her iteration tastes “more carrot-y,” she says, especially because she grates local carrots before mixing them into the batter. To make up for the pineapple juice, she uses vegetable oil and extra virgin olive oil. For the caramel filling (a recipe she says she “borrowed” from Bill Cardwell), Farrell adds chopped pecans and toasted coconut. In lieu of standard cream-cheese icing, rosettes of cinnamon-flavored Swiss buttercream are applied. Next comes a drizzle of homemade bourbon caramel sauce, then a candied carrot curl, and finally a caramelized sugar sculpture that looks like a splash of water. Dive in. 12643 Olive, Creve Coeur.
