USA TODAY SPECIAL EDITION
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Joshua Livsey
Harvest of creativity Rhode Island native Joshua Livsey was a finalist on Food Network’s Holiday Baking Championship in 2017 and is currently competing for the title of Best Baker in America on the same network. Off-screen, he has won legions of fans thanks to his glorious creations at Harvest restaurant in Cambridge, Mass. Livsey’s fanciful Buche de Noel was a showstopper on TV, and this telegenic baker makes the competition nervous with his intriguing combination of flavors. For Harvest, his exquisite creations have included yuzu posset with goat cheese ice cream, strawberries and matcha
Adam Young
French-inspired foodie celebrity
cake, and chocolate almond cake with avocado ice cream. The Johnson & Wales University graduate worked as a baker at a golf club and ran his own custom cake business. After a stint at the Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta, Livsey joined Harvest and was named executive pastry chef in 2016. Livsey’s artful pastries draw diners to Harvest, but this self-proclaimed cookie lover is really a kid at heart: His recent doughnut pop-up at Harvest was Star Wars-themed, featuring flavors (Chew-Babka and Obi-Wan-Cannoli) with names as creative as the desserts.
If you happen to see Adam Young in one of his bake shops, or if you’ve seen him on a Food Network baking show, your first thought might be: How does he make such delicate desserts with those big hands? Young, who stands 6 feet, 5 inches tall, was an imposing presence on the Best Baker in America last year. Not only was he the go-to guy for fetching ingredients on high shelves, but he also won the competition, impressing the judges with his version of the ultimate chocolate cake, which prompted judge Jason Smith to proclaim he was “happy as a hog in mud”
while eating it. Young was also a finalist on Food Network’s Spring Baking Championship in 2017. Heady stuff, considering Young had opened his French-inspired pastry shop, Sift, just two years earlier. Trained at the New England Culinary Institute, Young opened his first Sift in Mystic, Conn., in 2016, followed by a bakery in Watch Hill, R.I. “I am blessed with a team that is (as) committed to quality and service as I am — a team of people who don’t believe dessert is an afterthought,” Young says. Join his TV fans in a pilgrimage to Sift, and you, too, can be as happy as a hog in mud.
Must-tries
Must-tries
Lemon tart with Sorrento lemon cream and coconut sorbet; toffee cake with figs ▶ harvestcambridge.com
Chocolate raspberry torte; carrot cake ▶ siftbakeshopmystic.com
HARVEST; DIANE BAIR
ANNA SAWIN; DIANE BAIR