Thanksgiving Desserts (Number Two)

I also made an excellent trifle because, well, I always make a trifle for Thanksgiving. This year I made a chocolate, chestnut, tiramisu trifle. Let me say that again: chocolate, chestnut, tiramisu trifle. Or as my mom called it, a trifle-misu. It was so good, it was ridiculous. It's layers of chocolate-chestnut mousse, Marsala mascarpone sabayon, and lady fingers soaked with espresso and amaretto and dusted with cocoa powder. The latter two layers are, basically, tiramisu. But with extra mascarpone to thicken up the sabayon and, of course, the chocolate-chestnut mousse between the layers. Also the layer of whipped cream and dusting of cocoa looks like a tiramisu but is more trifle like in flavor.

White Chocolate, Blackberry and Lime Eton Mess

As I understand it, Eton mess was first served at Eton and was a messy dessert of strawberries (or bananas) and cream (or possibly ice cream). Later they started adding meringue to the dessert and thus the dessert we know today--meringue, strawberries, and lightly whipped cream--was born.

I love traditional Eton mess with strawberries, but I decided that after our dinner of onion tart and filet mignon I couldn't just serve plain old strawberries and cream. I decided to substitute blackberries for the strawberries. That's not really much of a change so I figured I'd add some white chocolate (it's so good with blackberries) to the whipped cream. But white chocolate crème d'or, no matter how delicious, mixed with blackberries is no longer Eton mess. So I whipped up some cream with a bit of lime juice and zest (both pretty and delicious) and folded the meringue pieces into that.

Milk Chocolate, Orange, and Mascarpone Mousse

This, like my usual chocolate mousse, is not technically mousse. But it's delicious and mousse-y, so close enough. I made this by whipping heavy cream and mascarpone to soft peaks with a bit of orange zest and extract. Then I folded in melted milk chocolate that I'd allowed to cool to about 100*F (that's basically body temperature, so if you stick your finger in and the chocolate doesn't feel warm or cold, you've got the right temperature) into cream and cheese mixture.

You can serve this right away, but it keeps perfectly in the fridge. I recommend making it before you start making the meal (it doesn't take long since you can whip the cream while the chocolate is melting--just keep an eye on the chocolate, you don't want it to burn), letting it chill, and serving it just before you eat.

To serve, I used an ice cream scoop to get nice even scoops and plopped them into tea cups. I topped the mousse with a sprig of basil--basil is a cousin of mint and is underused in sweet applications, which is a shame really as it's lovely with citrus and chocolate--and voila, a delicious, no cook, gluten free dessert.

White Chocolate Citrus Parfait

I'm surprised at how much I liked this. I'm not a huge white chocolate fan and I wasn't sure how I felt about it with citrus. I really did enjoy it though. I think parfaits are one of my new favorite desserts to eat (but not to make...they are not terribly enjoyable to make). They are basically a frozen mousse set atop a slice of moist cake, so they are light, almost creamy, cakey (where the cake is), and, obviously, cold, which I always enjoy. We served it with a strawberry salad, strawberry coulis, chocolate sauce, and a lace cookie. I'm not sure I approved of the garnish, I think I'd have preferred leaving off the dark chocolate sauce and lace cookie and adding white chocolate decor (such as a fan or cigarette).

Two-Tier Chocolate Cake

This is the first multi-tier cake we make. It's chocolate genoise imbibed with a raspberry liqueur spiked simple syrup, filled with chocolate-raspberry mousse, covered with chocolate buttercream, and decorated with bands of chocolate and a modeling chocolate rose.

Before we decorated our cakes, we had to assemble them. To do this we used wide straws (like the kind for bubble tea) as supports. We cut them exactly to the hight of the bottom tier of the cake and then stuck them in, so they would support the top tier (which was on a cardboard circle) and keep it from caving into the bottom one. You can do this same process on each layer to support a very tall, multi-tiered, wedding cake.

Apologies, I know it's a bit difficult to see the lovely
flowers and leaves on the branch. The problem is two
fold: the colors were a bit darker than I'd anticipated,
so they didn't contrast as well with the dark chocolate
as I would have liked; and I had left my proper camera
at home so I took this with my phone.

The chocolate band around the bottom tier was remarkably simple to make. I used a small paint brush to paint cocoa butter based food coloring on a band of acetate. Then I spread tempered dark chocolate over the design and, when the chocolate was at it's cutting point, wrapped it firmly around the cake.

The top tier was even easier. I just drizzled tempered chocolate on another band of acetate and wrapped that around the top layer.

Petit Four Tray

Every other class during the petit four unit, we tray up our creations like we would if we were making a petit four tray at a restaurant. My partner and I made this tray with our tuiles, financiers (with chocolate chips), chocolate and raspberry macarons, rum raisin cookies, and Sarah Bernhardts. If I had it to do over again, I'd switch the financiers and rum raisin cookies so that the colors and shapes would be a bit more varied. Ah well, it still looks good and every tasted delicious.

We all bring our trays to the front at the end of class.
Aren't they pretty?

Sarah Bernhardts

These were very, very good. Basically, a Sarah Bernhardt is a plain almond macaron cookie (made with almond paste) topped with crème d'or and coated with chocolate glaze. Yum, yum!

On a side note, they are named after the actress, Sarah Bernhardt. There are two theories as to why they are named after her, both having to do with their shape. Either they are meant to emulate her tears, after all she was a dramatic actress, or her breasts, which apparently were quite voluptuous. I prefer to believe that it's the former, but I have to say they do look a bit more like the latter.

Chocolate Hazelnut Cake

According to everyone in my family who tasted this, it was incredible. I, however, wasn't enthralled. I liked it don't get me wrong (what's not to like about chocolate hazelnut cake?) I just didn't love it. Perhaps it was a reflection on making it. I had a lot of trouble--the cake layers were slightly under baked and the mousse (which we used as filling and frosting) wasn't quite thick enough--and maybe that just turned me off the cake. The outside was fun to decorate, at least. We made the decorative chocolate sheets with different chocolates (milk and dark) and stuck them to the mousse to decorate the cake. I would have used larger pieces that stuck up more, but we were running out of chocolate, so I couldn't; I still think it looks good though.

Chocolate Mousse Cake

This was excellent! The base of the cake should have been chocolate cake but we were running short on time so we used plain cake...bummer...I bet it would have been even better with chocolate The outside of the cake is a very thin layer of cake that is decorated with pâte a cornet (an almost brownie-like mixture that you can spread over a stencil to create a pattern, then remove the stencil, chill, cover in cake batter and bake...how cool?!) The whole thing is filled with alternating layers of dark chocolate and white chocolate mousse and then topped with whipped cream rosettes and curls of chocolate (we used gianduja--hazelnut flavored--chocolate but anything would work) for decoration. The mousse was thick and so rich, the cake was, well, cake and the gianduja chocolate is so delicious and decadent. Yum!

Look at those beautiful layers of mousse!

Miroir aux Fruits

This was very impressive looks-wise, not so much taste-wise. The bottom edge of the cake ring is lined with cake slices that have been layered together with jam. Then a layer of plain cake lines the bottom of the ring. The whole thing is filled with black currant mousse (isn't the color of the mousse just amazing?) and topped with nappage (apricot jam that is thinned with water and used as a glaze) that is colored with creme de cassis. Unmold and voila a beautiful, centerpiece-worthy cake! Unfortunately, the mousse wasn't great; in my opinion it was too light and the taste was only so-so since I'm not a huge fan of currants (not that I dislike them, just they aren't my favorite fruit) and the nappage and jam between the cake layers was too sweet. Ah well. We brought home two and a half other cakes today so there's no lack of cakes!

Chocolate Mille Feuille

This was amazing! This is a classic napoleon with a chocolate twist. Instead of regular puff pastry, it's made with chocolate puff pastry. Instead of vanilla pastry cream, the filling is chocolate cream. The chocolate cream, by the way, is called crème d'or. It's made by folding melted chocolate into whipped cream. I've made that before, but I call it chocolate mousse (I do know that mousse traditionally has eggs, so I knew that this wasn't officially mousse, but it seemed like the best description, because it closely resembles the taste and texture of chocolate mousse,) but I digress. Instead of fondant with thin chocolate lines on top, we used chocolate ganache with thin white chocolate lines on top, reversing the traditional chevron pattern's colors. It was beautiful and delicious! This is one of my favorite things we've made all class, and definitely my favorite thing from the puff pastry unit.

Chocolate Bavarois Tart

A bavarois or bavarian cream is made of three main components: a crème anglais (or fruit puree) base, gelatin, and whipped cream. You can add flavoring to it; in this case we added chocolate, which we melted into the crème anglais. While not officially a mousse (after all it's a bavarian cream) it is quite similar in taste and texture, though because of the gelatin this is somewhat denser and smoother while still being light and airy. We spread the cream into a full baked tart shell, decorated the top with chocolate shavings and sweetened whipped cream, and voilà an incredible, light, delicious, chocolate tart. Yum!

I actually bought a plain white plate so that the food shows
up better in photos. I think it worked well!

Tea at the Peninsula

Day before yesterday I officially graduated! To celebrate, my mom, pops and I went to afternoon tea at the Peninsula. I love their afternoon tea. It's the best tea this side of the Atlantic. The sandwiches are excellent and very fancy (but in a good way). For example, one of them was lobster salad on a mini brioche roll...yum! The scones are good, British scones, nothing out of this world, but really nice. They serve them with real clotted cream (none of this whipped crap that American restaurants tend to use) and very nice jam. Then there are the desserts. I find that some are OK, but not amazing, and some are just perfect! What's especially nice is they will bring you extras of everything, without making you feel like a pig for asking. They are so nice, if you say "oh I really like that chocolate cake," they'll bring you a plate with extra pieces of that cake! And if you tell them that it's a special occasion when you make the reservation, they'll give you an extra dessert (because that's just what I need, more dessert...not that I'm complaining, mind you)! They gave me a gorgeous piece of chocolate cake layered with a light whipped chocolate icing or mousse, topped with a chocolate ganache and beautiful chocolate decorations.

Dessert at Cafe Luxembourg

I graduated yesterday!  The day before was the presentation of degree candidates.  So to celebrate being a degree candidate we all went out to a big dinner at Cafe Luxembourg.  It's on the upper west side of NYC and it is really good.  It's basically an upscale French bistro.  They have excellent desserts (I highly recommend their homemade ice cream, though that's not what I had on Tuesday.)  I had their special molten chocolate cake. It was excellent.  Warm and gooey on the inside, cakey on the outside, and the chocolate ice cream was creamy and delicious. They put a candle in it and wrote happy graduation in chocolate on the plate, which was very nice.  And yummy!

My mom got a chocolate mousse cake, which was also incredible. And it was topped with salted caramel ice cream that, I have to say, was slightly better than my chocolate ice cream. The cake was good too! It was two layers of good chocolate cake with a layer of mousse between and a layer of chocolate on top. The plate was decorated with caramel sauce and dark chocolate tuiles.

Chocolate, Orange, Chestnut Trifle, con't

   

Sorry, the color came out oddly faded when I uploaded the photo...I have no idea why...

Here's the photo of my chocolate, orange, chestnut trifle.  Doesn't it look wonderful?  I love the orange zest on top (not my idea, Giada suggested it in the recipe).  Yummmmmmm.

Chocolate, Orange, Chestnut Trifle

I saw this recipe on Giada de Laurentiis' cooking show and thought, "I have to make this for Thanksgiving."  So I did!

I used my pound cake instead of store bought, but other than that I followed her recipe (with the slight exception of not having enough orange liquor and having to use part liquor part simple syrup, rather than one or the other like she says).  I've only made one other dessert of hers and it didn't come out great, so I was slightly hesitant, but this was wonderful!  It came out perfectly.  And it was relatively straight forward, albeit a little tedious, to make.  Perhaps the best thing is, if you make the cake in advance or buy it, it doesn't use the oven so you don't have to worry about timing it around the turkey!

Basically, it is a layer of pound cake soaked with orange liquor or simple syrup (or, in my case, both), then a layer of chestnut whipped cream, a layer of imbibed pound cake, a layer of chocolate-orange whipped cream/mousse, cake, chestnut, cake, chocolate.  Yum.

As for the taste, my mom and pops loved it.  I really liked it but, as it turns out, I'm not a huge fan of chestnuts.  I'd only had them once before in a dish with green beans, brussel sprouts (which I hate) and chunks of pancetta, and I liked them, but I think they were rather disguised by wonderful flavor of the pancetta.  I digress.  Still the orange and chocolate and pound cake was incredible together.  And I didn't mind the chestnut layers, I just wasn't crazy about them.  I may have to make this again without the chestnuts.  Perhaps I'll substitute orange whipped cream.  Or better yet, just use more of the incredible chocolate-orange mousse.  I'll let you know if I do!

By the way, I'll post a photo soon, I promise.

New Year's Eve Trifle

This is similar to my Thanksgiving trifle, but better.  Instead of store bought pound cake, I used my home made pound cake.  (And lucky me I had a whole extra pound cake left over!)  I know I said that store bought pound cake was fine for trifles, and it is, but wow homemade pound cake is really good!  I layered the cake with raspberry jam, sliced strawberries and homemade chocolate mousse (the type made with whipped cream and melted chocolate, rather than the egg based type).  The trifle dish fit three layers of cake/jam/berries/mousse.  I just piped some whipped cream dollops on top and topped the dollops with strawberries.

Thanksgiving Trifle

While I get my blog up and running, I am going to post some old desserts I’ve made.  I made this last Thanksgiving.  It is a delicious variation on a traditional trifle.  It is marble pound cake (I admit, it is store bought pound cake...you can make your own, but there isn’t much point for a trifle) layered with seedless raspberry jam, fresh raspberries and blackberries, chocolate mousse, and fresh vanilla whipped cream. Each layer is repeated, to ensure that everyone gets a scoop with all the layers.

By the way, I really have no reason to call this a Thanksgiving Trifle other than that I made it at Thanksgiving.  Really it isn't Thanksgiving-y at all.  In fact, it would make a great summer dessert...you could substitute angel food cake for the pound cake to make it really light and summery.