Plated Dessert for the Jewish Holidays

I made this dessert (honey milk chocolate semifreddo on apple almond cake with caramel apple sauce, milk chocolate almond bark, marzipan and nougatine) for the Yom Kippur break-fast meal this year. Yom Kippur was in mid-September, but I guess with all the excitement of starting school, I forgot to post this.

The beautiful thing about this dessert is it could be for almost any Jewish holiday! I had been away from home for Rosh Hashanna so I decided to use the traditional flavors from that holiday--apple and honey--as inspiration for my dessert. Since some of my cousins can't eat gluten- the whole dessert is gluten free and is therefore suitable for Passover (obviously if you keep Kosher there are other considerations besides leavened goods and flour, but in my household that's pretty much the extent of Passover.)



Because it was a large group, I figured I'd make a plated dessert--it's just a pain to make an elaborate plated dessert for three people since there are so many components to make and the quantities can only be so small so I really only like doing them when I'd be baking en masse anyway.

So on to the dessert. As I said, I wanted to use honey and apple in the dessert, so that was the springboard for my recipe hunting. Knowing I had to to keep it gluten-free, I decided I should go for one of the almond-based cakes I make. Nigella Lawson has a few delicious ones (mainly for Passover) and I quickly settled on her Passover apple and almond cake. I still needed honey and I figured cake and ice cream are a good pair. Since I don't have an ice cream machine anymore I decided I'd need to make something like a mendiant or semifreddo. Wait...semifreddo...had't I seen a recipe for a honey semifreddo? Yes I had, also from Nigella as it turned out.

The plating process: just before I took the semifreddo
out of the freezer I got everything as ready as possible.  

So now I had a basic idea about what I was going to make I just needed the garnish and sauce. I imediately thought about the apple caramel sauce we made at the FCI. So that tied in the apple from the cake. But I didn't want the honey just sitting there so independent (flavor-wise) from the rest of the dessert. Then I thought about chocolate. I love chocolate and I can't belive I was contemplating making such an elaborate dessert without it. I decided that I had to mix it in. Since the dessert was quite sweet and nutty I thought dark chocolate would be overpowering and possibly a bit bitter but white chocolate would be far too sweet. So I decided to use high quality (valhrona) milk chocolate, which has a slightly caramel-y flavor. I figured I'd fold a ribbon into the semifreddo and use it as a garnish. My plan was to make chocolate cigarettes, but I've never been good at them and quickly gave up, poured my tempered chocolate onto a piece of parchment and sprinkled it with toasted, slivered almonds (I had some left over from the nougatine I'm about to discuss.) I figured it would tie in the almonds from the cake and still look good. That wasn't quite enough for me--one chocolate cigarette/strip--so I made a cross between nougatine and hard caramel--basically caramel that I stirred some toasted almonds into before cooling it on a silpat and breaking it into shards. That was all good but very brown color-wise so I decided to brighten it up with some marzipan flowers (my cousins love marzipan and it helped tie in the almond flavor.)

I made all the components in advance (obviously the semifreddo has to be made in advance since it needs to freeze and the marzipan flowers needed to dry a bit to hold their shape). I even cut the cake and semifreddo the night before, so all I had to do on the day of was enjoy the holiday (and make dozens of potato latkes--yes, I know they aren't really traditionally made for Yum Kippur, but they are delicious and easily made gluten-free--with my mom). Anyway, the only thing I had to do to prepare was warm the sauce (the caramel sauce, even will all the fat added, still congealed when it was refrigerated).

I think I made do quite well with my mismatched plates. 

As you can see, I don't have many of any one nice white plate, so I just used all different shaped plates. My favorite was the long narrow one (the photo at the top of the post) but I did quite like the effect on the square(ish) plates (both the rounded ones above and the wavy one below).

The dessert was a hit and, if I do say so myself, rightly so! Every element was delicious on it's own (I'd tasted everything as I made it) but all together it was AMAZING! The moist, dense cake with the light, creamy semifreddo and the crisp chocolate bark sticks and nougatine was perfect (texture contrast is always important in a plated dessert.) The flavors worked together like the different elements of a song, you can pick out the melody and the harmony and whatever other components there are (I've never been very musical) but only together do they really wow the listener (or eater!) The almond in the cake and the garnishes tied together the dish and, along with the slight tartness of the apple in the caramel sauce and cake, kept the honey and caramel from becoming overwhelmingly sweet. The milk chocolate was inspired. It wasn't overtly chocolaty at all, but you got subtle hints of it in the semifreddo and, obviously, from the piece of chocolate bark. Overall I was thrilled with the entire thing, from the baking process (which, since every component could be made in advance, wasn't overwhelming even in my small, apartment kitchen) to the final product (the appearance and of course the taste)!