Teacher Feature: Jordi Bordas Explains his B-Concept Method of Baking

Keeping it Light and Still Sweet

by Genevieve Sawyer

Desserts and pastries are meant to tempt, promising customers and loved ones pleasing taste and texture. But deciding whether to consume dessert is seen often as a binary of health versus enjoyment. This makes sense, as classic European and Northern American desserts tend to be loaded with simple carbohydrates and fat, which have been directly linked to medical problems ranging from cavities to heart disease. Chef Jordi Bordas has an answer to this age-old dilemma; he has designed a method by which we create recipes that truly satisfy a need for taste and health.

Bordas is owner and founder of the renowned Jordi Bordas Pastry School and the Pastry Innovation Center, located in Viladecans, Catalonia in Spain where he fell in love with pastry at Santacreu Pa Pastes Pastissos, his parents’ bakery. He wrote Healthier, Lighter, Tastier Pastry and published it in 2021. After winning the Coupe de Monde in 2011, Bordas took stock of his experience and noted that most of the recipes he relied on professionally were from the canon of classics and didn’t truly belong to him. He began living a healthier lifestyle and it became clear to him that these familiar dessert formulations simply didn’t fit in. In 2014, he developed the B·Concept Method as a response to these epiphanies, and in 2015 he founded the Jordi Bordas Pastry School to teach it.

Bordas has reimagined molecular interactions in order to create creams, ganaches, foams, gels, meringues and mousses without falling back on traditional, less-healthy sources. He uses fibers, rather than traditional fats, as texturizers, emulsifiers and sweeteners, using, for example, locust bean gum and citrus fiber emulsifier in places of egg yolks and whipping cream.

With this method, Bordas teaches professionals and home cooks to use a step-by-step process to create their own recipes from scratch. In the B·Concept, his students select the flavors they want to use, describe the need the desired recipe fills, choose the texture they seek, and then balance the recipe for a lighter, tastier result that satisfies the palate. This Spring, Bordas went on a worldwide tour teaching the B·Concept Method. You can join in on the learning at his website, Jordi Bordas Pastry School – Innovative Pastry Education Jordi Bordas, sign up for online and onsite courses, and read all about the process of creating healthy pastries from scratch in the blog. Also available are his cookbook, the probiotic-containing Di&Vi chocolate bars Bordas developed with Xevi Verdaguer, Integrative Medicine expert.

Where are you going and what are you doing on your tour? Do you worry about travel with so much international turmoil?

We did U.S. stops – New York, L.A., Las Vegas – to explain the B·Concept method, recipes that serve as examples, and a simple presentation on our philosophy. Also, we went to Korea, then Hong Kong, China, Russia. Sometimes people give me their opinion about geopolitical things. I only discuss pastry in my classes. Everywhere, in all the countries there are both good people and not nice people. In all my life, I have never had a bad experience with someone. They want to learn pastry. They want to understand. 

Why and how did you decide to enter the baking and pastry world?

My parents started their business when I was eight. I was in school full time. My mom worked in the shop, my father in production. I remember waiting for Saturday to help my father. One of my favorite moments was the smell of puff pastry with apple and caramelized butter from the oven. In Spanish, it’s called the Pastel con Manzana. Working with my hands has been my passion since I was pretty young. I finished my school at 14-years old, and started to work with my parents at 16. First baking, and then pastry. Teaching is just one way to help. At any moment in this business, we are here to help people.

Why go to the effort of recreating the whole recipe, or creating a new one from scratch? Why not just use low-fat products and sugar substitutes?

The first thing that I try to share with the people is how to realize that recipes were created 80 years ago and built to keep products outside without any change in texture. Sugar is a preservative. Fat can be used to preserve food. Today we can reduce these ingredients. We need to be conscious of the ingredients we use.  

We need to consume excellent quality fats. Olive oil and nut oil are really good. For healthier and conscious pastry, we explain the adjustment of fats and sweetness. This can be used for Keto diet, diabetes, or other diets. For example, we can substitute sugar for oligofructose in a 1:1 ratio. 

Special diets have to manage dessert, to find other options. With the B·Concept method, these options are equally satisfying, or better. At the end, B·Concept is the way to formulate from scratch.  We discuss our philosophy, explain all the ingredients, walnut oil, etc. All of us want to work in that direction. What we do is healthier, lighter, and tastier. Classic is too heavy. Take the classic lemon pie meringue. We create a new product. We focus on the lemon concept; less sugar, more taste. We also add fiber. In the classic version, there is too much egg yolks, so we reduce egg yolks. We build in the direction that we choose. 

Do you feel that technology has made it possible to focus on healthier, more flavorful desserts?

When my 85-year-old mom opened her pastry shop, she displayed products on a table with no temperature control in the shop. She used fat and sugar in order to preserve and to build shelf life. Now we have refrigeration, freezers, air conditioning.

Have you ever seen B·Concept fail due to method and not skill?

Yes. The B·Concept was created to formulate recipes, ganaches, mousses, creamy texture, foams, meringues, gels and compotes.  We created the method to formulate these different textures. Sometimes the method cannot be applied, not in all directions. We explain all that.

When you teach B·Concept method to people who are completely unfamiliar with it, are there moments when it all ‘clicks’ and people ‘get it’? What is that like for you to see as a teacher?

With on-site courses especially, professionals on the first and second day want to kill me. It’s a little deep, difficult to understand. They are not used to sitting and learning. Professionals work, work, work. They have to slow down when someone wants to explain something, like the function of each ingredient. It’s very challenging. At the end, they start to match everything. They say wow. Then they move quite fast. In our online program, we discuss molecules and techniques. They are quite intensive too.

Your students have a wide range of experience and backgrounds.  Do you ever find that yelling and harsh language is a good way to get through to students who are having trouble mastering the B·Concept?

We have a mix of everything. We have professionals with a lot of experience and pastry amateurs who really want to understand what they are doing. People are coming to the school from the other side of the world: United States, China, Australia. They come on planes. Yelling, harsh language – I don’t like these. I cannot do these kinds of behaviors. Respect is everything.

What would you say to people interested in entering the industry, young or old?

Connect to what they are missing in their life. At the moment you understand, everything aligns with what you want to be and do. 

Genevieve Sawyer is a freelance food writer who graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 2009. She is a frequent contributor to Pastry Arts.

(This article appeared in the Summer 2025 issue of Pastry Arts Magazine)