Think of dessert and the sugary sweet tends to come to mind. But that was before Hanna Leinonen landed in Australia, the young Finnish pastry chef who is proving that the third course can be far from traditional. The inventive recent addition to Stanmore’s Sixpenny prefers the unusual to the typical, turning away from the likes of chocolate to dishes like a wagyu beef fat caramel.

Hanna comes to Sydney from Helsinki, via a short stint in Melbourne. While she now has a firm foot in the food scene, Hanna did not always plan on being a chef. “I never knew I wanted to be a chef, it happened by chance,” she explains. “I was applying to a university, but I started to think that it wouldn’t be right for me. Culinary school was my second choice for school, so I switched, it turned out to have been one of the best decisions in my life, at least so far. I found everything about it interesting and the more I learned, the more my passion grew. I was lucky to fall in love with this job so fast,” she says.

And while Hanna is a rising star when it comes to desserts, her path has not been set in stone. “I’m not classically trained Pastry Chef. I have been mostly an all-rounder in kitchen and doing all sections, so I haven’t always worked only on the pastry side but I do feel that my strengths are here. My interests have grown more towards the sweet side and desserts, which became very close to my heart in the early years of my cooking.” she says.

It’s the possibility of the dessert field that attracted Hanna. “I like how diverse it is, from the very simple things, classic and new techniques, bread baking, understanding doughs, chocolate, batters, pastes and pastries, developing and testing new recipes and creating that final part at the end of a meal,” she says.

And experiment she has. Take for example the sea buckthorn, carrot and liquorice dish she recently made for The Gantry’s special July degustation. “The inspiration for my dish comes from my Nordic region of Finland. There are a lot of arctic berries which are my absolute favourites to use in a dessert. Most of them are very acidic so they can hold quite a bit of sugar. I decided to pair the sea buckthorn with liquorice and carrots as I love to work with vegetables in desserts. Most of the time I bring a lot of root vegetables into my desserts, they remind me of my background and Finland’s longest seasons, when there’s not a lot of produce available,” she explains.

While the combination may seem confusing, thanks to Hanna’s methods it’s a trio that works well together. “This combination of three flavours are my personal favourite, and I really wanted to see how Australian people would react and hopefully welcome these flavours. The feedback was a pleasant surprise!,” says Hanna.

It’s her personal passion for testing the traditional that continues to inspire Hanna in the kitchen. “Every day I learn something new,” she says. “I’m able to create something, finding inspiration from random things and experience new and exciting things. It keeps me motivated and humble, and eager to continue growing and moving go forward,” Hanna continues.

But the chef’s interest in experimental desserts isn’t the only thing that sets her apart in the food world. “Most of the kitchens I have worked I have been the only woman,” she says. It’s the differentiation between the genders that Hanna would really like to change. “I would like to think that there is no ‘female chefs’ and ‘male chefs’ in kitchen,” she says, “just chefs.”