About me
I am Tanya Novak, pastry chef and author of the Tannov Pastry Journal.
I have spent more than twenty years working with pastry, cakes, chocolate, ingredients and recipe development. My work today brings that experience together through TANNOV and Art Bakery & Gourmet.
I begin with flavour, not decoration.
I want every cake to make sense when you eat it. Appearance matters, but it comes after flavour, texture and balance. Fruit should retain its acidity and character. Chocolate should taste unmistakably of chocolate. Creams should feel light enough for the composition around them. Sweetness should support the ingredients rather than cover them.
This is the principle behind the cakes I create and the recipes I write: technique is valuable only when it produces a better dessert.
Education
Classical training gave me the language of pastry.
I graduated with the Le Cordon Bleu Grand Diplôme, where classical French technique became the foundation of the way I think about pastry. I later continued developing my chocolate work through the Callebaut Chocolate Academy in Belgium.
Formal training matters to me because pastry is a technical craft. Understanding emulsions, crystallisation, lamination, starches, proteins, sugars, temperature and water activity gives a pastry chef the freedom to create deliberately rather than by trial and error.
Professional kitchens
Restaurant discipline changed the way I work.
I worked in the pastry team at J’AIME by Jean-Michel Lorain in Bangkok and also worked at Maxim’s. Professional kitchens taught me that a good recipe is not enough. It has to be repeatable, organised, stable and precise under real service conditions.
That discipline still shapes how I develop desserts today: I look at the entire system — formula, method, temperatures, resting time, texture, storage, finishing and the way the dessert behaves when it reaches the guest.
Teaching & development
Explaining pastry made me understand it more deeply.
My professional work has included teaching pastry technique to chefs internationally. Teaching forces you to go beyond instructions: you need to explain what is happening, why a method works and what changes when one variable moves.
That is also how I approach recipe development. I am interested in causes, not just outcomes — why a ganache breaks, why a mousse becomes dense, why a laminated dough loses definition, or why a fruit preparation needs a particular pectin rather than another.
Art Bakery & Gourmet
Building a pastry business in Spain.
I am a co-founder of Art Bakery & Gourmet, where my work extends from individual cakes and desserts to product development, kitchen standards and the creative direction of the pastry range.
Art Bakery is where many of my ideas meet the practical reality of daily production. Ingredients have to perform consistently. Recipes have to work for the team. Desserts have to travel, hold, serve well and still taste the way I intended.
Tannov Pastry Journal
I write the things I wish recipes explained more often.
The Tannov Pastry Journal is my working knowledge base: recipes, formulas, ingredient behaviour, temperatures, troubleshooting and professional techniques explained from the point of view of someone who actually uses them in pastry production.
I write in the first person because I want you to know where the advice comes from. When I recommend a temperature, a method or an ingredient, I want to explain the reasoning behind it and the conditions in which I would change it.
Current work
Cakes in Marbella, knowledge without borders.
My made-to-order cake work is currently based in Marbella on the Costa del Sol, while TANNOV is becoming the home of my broader pastry work: the cakes, recipes, techniques and knowledge I want to make useful beyond one kitchen or one city.