Menu Project, The Food

Guinness Chocolate Cake: See how the dark, cylindrical cake with the
foamy, white cream on top resembles a pint of Guinness? Cute, huh?

As I mentioned in my description of the menu project, the chefs ordered two desserts from my menu of high-end twists on comfort food: the Guinness Chocolate Cake with Creme Fraiche Ice Cream, Creme Fraiche Cream, and Guinness Chocolate Sauce (a twist on chocolate cake); and the Brie, Chocolate, and Basil Panini on Sourdough with an Orange Basil Salad and Orange Philadelphia-style Ice Cream (a twist on grilled cheese). I had to plate two of each and bring one of each up to the chefs at a designated time. That was intense...so intense that I didn't even get to take photos of them in class. Luckily I'd practiced one at home before and had enough left over of the other to plate it at home today so I do have photos of the desserts, just not from the night I made them in class.

A few relevant details of the project I forget to mention before: we were allowed to bring our own plates, but didn't have to. We were not required to make an amuse bouche, but it is allowed (although not mentioned by the chefs, I figured it out from taking to former students). The chefs sit up at the front of the class and you must carry everything up to them (in contrast to the usual judging where they come to you) at a chosen time that is different for each person so that hot food stays hot and cold stays cold (in contrast to the usual judging where everyone finishes at the same time and the judges get to you when they get to you).

Now that that's out of the way, I can tell you what I did. I decided to make a sort of amuse bouche. I bought different plates for each of my desserts and a beautiful tray that matches my restaurant theme perfectly (you can see it in the picture of the cake, above) to use to carry everything up to the chefs on. I knew I needed something to carry them on since I was going to be bringing up one of each of the ordered desserts plus an amuse for each of them and I don't have four hands--shocking I know--and I thought a sheet pan covered with parchment would look crappy.

My first dessert (pictured above), the Guinness chocolate cake was a hit. My ice cream came out perfectly, something I surprised myself with because I tend to have a bit of trouble making a perfect creme anglaise ice cream base. My cake, the chefs said, was not quite Guinness-y enough and ever so slightly dry. They said I should have "refreshed" them in the oven and then doused them in a Guinness soak. Actually, I'd thought of doing that, but was afraid I'd over soak them and make them soggy, so I opted to go with the plain cake because I know it's really good. I'm a bit annoyed at myself that I didn't take the risk, but they still liked the cake and really liked everything else on the plate.

I cut the crusts off when I did this in class and served it
with slightly less salad.

My second dessert, the panini, came out almost perfect. My panini got ever so slightly over cooked, so there was a tiny bit of burnt cheese, but other than that (and iced cream that slid a bit on my plate) everything was actually exactly how I wanted it. The chefs didn't even mind the iced cream moving on the plate--to be honest they probably didn't notice, I only knew the scoops were wrong because I knew where I wanted them. The chefs liked my panini and the concept of a dessert panini. By the way, Philadelphia style ice cream (or iced cream, as I call it) is ice cream that is not churned in a ice cream machine so it comes out a bit icy but actually slightly lighter than regular ice cream. I'm really happy they liked this one so much because, out of the two, this was a bigger risk than the cake.

Sorry about the really strange coloring of the photo, perhaps I should have
used my real camera instead of the one on my iPhone.

My amuse went over very well. It was a sample of one of the small plates from my menu--a chocolate chip cookie and steamed vanilla milk. The chocolate chip cookies had a little bit of cocoa powder in the dough so they are almost chocolate chocolate chip cookies. I made them really small and served them with a demitasse cup of steamed milk. Technically, since we didn't have a steamer it wasn't steamed milk, it was frothed milk--I used one of those aerolatte thing-ies. I scalded the milk added some vanilla powder (it doesn't change the color like vanilla extract would) and just a dash of amaretto (I like the almond flavor with the cookie). The chefs both liked the amuse. I think part of what they liked was the taste and part of it was the fact that I put that extra effort into making something that wasn't required.

I'm thrilled with how well everything came out and with how much the chefs liked everything. We have three final projects (this, a wedding cake, and our final exam showpiece). I definitely got off to a good start with these!

A la Minute Cakes

A la minute desserts are desserts that are baked to order. These two warm cakes were delicious. The first, a warm chocolate fondant (I don't know why it's call a fondant...it has no resemblance to the fondant you use on cakes and doesn't even have that as an ingredient), was delicious. It's basically a warm chocolate mousse cake. We served it with pistachio creme anglaise, chocolate sauce, decorative curls of tempered chocolate, and vanilla-raspberry swirl ice cream. The pistachio creme anglaise was a bit too green and not nutty enough for my taste. Other than that, I liked everything.

The chef's plating of the warm hazelnut cake.

Shockingly, I liked the non-chocolate dessert more! The warm hazelnut cake was delicious, the texture was perfect, and it unmolded much more easily and neatly than the fondant. We served it with white peach compote, vanilla salad, a hard caramel coated hazelnut, and salt sorbet. The peach compote was actually made in the sous vide machine so that the sweet white peaches were infused with basil and balsamic vinegar (I believe...I didn't actually make it). Because the peaches weren't cooked except for a few seconds so that the skin would peel off easily, they were still somewhat firm instead of being peach mush. The vanilla salad is not actually a salad, it's that giant ball of tuile. It's basically an abstract shaped flat tuile that is "tossed" when it comes out of the oven to shape it into abstract shaped tuile ball-like shape. It's interesting looking and really simple to make. Now I know you're thinking about that salt sorbet and wondering when I'm going to explain that...sorry I made you wait, I just want to make sure you keep reading. Salt sorbet is exactly what it sounds like--it's sorbet flavored with salt. It didn't taste salty, per se, instead it tasted like the milk left over after you've eaten a bowl of kix. Yes, I know that's oddly specific, but we all thought that (except for the people who have never tried kix--if you are one of those people you absolutely must go get a box and try it--and even they said it tasted like cereal milk.) The chef gave the students who made the sorbet the recipe, which isn't in our book, I must get it from them or from him. It's so unusual and so delicious I have to make it again. Anyway, everything on the plate was good alone and it all worked together, I was very happy with it.

My plating of the warm hazelnut cake. It's a strange plate,
 but I think I did a pretty good job with it. If you look
closely you can see the caramel tail/spike on the hazelnut...
I think it looks really cool.

Souffle Day

I have to say I was very nervous about souffle day. Souffles have always seemed so intimidating and the popular portrayal of them as delicate creations that collapse if you look at them wrong. They are finicky don't get me wrong, but they aren't nearly as difficult as I had expected.

We made three different souffles: a chocolate souffle, a fruit souffle, and a savory souffle (in that order). My favorite was the chocolate--not just because it was chocolate, though that helped--my least favorite was the fruit.  I'm going to explain them in reverse order of preference, so I'll save the best for last.

Raspberry souffles piped normally

We had a choice of raspberry or passion fruit for the fruit souffle. My partner and I chose raspberry, which gave the souffle a lovely pale pink hue, not to mention a nice raspberry taste. These souffles rose beautifully and looked really impressive and the berry flavor was nice. The problem was the texture; they were a bit gummy. They were gummy because they have a relatively large amount of pectin in them, which makes them very stable so they rise well. So I guess it's a trade off. I might try them again with a little less pectin, see if I can find a happy medium. By the way, because this is a relatively stiff batter (do you call it batter for a souffle? I'm not sure) we could pipe it above the rim of the ramekin. You see, typically souffle molds (ramekins or another oven safe container) are filled to the top, but not above. That gives souffles their flat top and, if done correctly, their straight necks. With these we made some the classic way, as pictured above, and some a less traditional way. We piped piles of swirled souffle mixture (perhaps that's a better term than batter) on top of a traditional souffle before baking it. That way they looked like a fancy and really impressive twist on a cupcake:

We served them with creme anglaise and chocolate sauce.

Smoked Salmon Souffle

The savory souffle we made was really flexible. It is a béchamel sauce base so you can flavor it however you want. We could use cheese or smoked salmon. I opted for the salmon because I love it but I don't get it very often. It cooks a little bit in the souffle which is nice, especially for some of my classmates who didn't like the texture of fresh smoked salmon.  It was quite good, but mine didn't rise as much as I would have liked, it just sort of domed instead. Ah well. We served them with a small side salad, yum!

Chocolate souffle with the chocolate sauce poured in.

Finally, the chocolate souffle. This was amazing. They tasted almost like a rich chocolate brownie, with a texture something like a mousse-y, molten chocolate cake. They didn't get as much hight as the fruit souffles, but they did rise nicely. We served them with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Traditionally, just before eating the souffle you (or the server who brings it) cut a hole in the top of a souffle and pour the sauce in. It's really good! The barely sweet, slightly vanilla-y, cool whipped cream was delicious with the rich, sweet, warm, dark chocolate souffle. I'm so happy with souffle day!

Fry Day on a Wednesday

Bomboloni with Caramel Ice Cream and a Trio of Sauces

Today was fry day--everything we made was deep fried. It was a good day, even if I did smell like oil and look all greasy after. We made brioche dough last class so we could fry up some bomboloni. We also made some sweet wontons and fruit beignets. Everything was great!

Bomboloni with Raspberry Coulis and Chocolate Sauce

The bomboloni were almost as good as the ones Jacques Torres made at his recent demo. I think they would have been as good had I not let the dough over proof slightly. We filled them with vanilla and chocolate pasty cream. I opted for making mostly chocolate ones. I also made one shaped like a doughnut without filling. We served them with raspberry coulis, chocolate sauce, and vanilla creme anglaise and caramel ice cream. They are also incredible plain, or served simply with one or two sauces.

Beignets with Spiced Nuts, Coconut Foam,
and Tamarind Ice Cream

The beignets are not traditional New Orleans-style beignets as far as I know (I've never had beignets in New Orleans). They are large pieces of fruit, dipped in a yeasted beer batter, and dunked in a deep fryer. My favorite were the apple rings (which we cut horizontally and cored, so they resembled very thick onion rings or, perhaps, doughnuts). We served these with delicious spiced nuts, coconut foam, and tamarind ice cream. Tamarind has a sour taste that is quite unusual but in a good way. I didn't like the ice cream on its own very much, but with one of the nuts or a bite of beignet, it was quite pleasant.

Apple Wontons with Apple Cider Dipping Sauce

The wontons were great! I made the apple compote for the whole class (we divvy up tasks and I got that), which was really good practice as I haven't made a compote in a while. Plus Chef said I could flavor it however I wanted so I had some fun with that. I digress. So we filled wonton wrappers with the apple compote and fried them. We served them with a hard apple cider dipping sauce. Gosh they were good.

Brioche

Bomboloni are made with brioche dough. Well we could only fry up so many, so we made brioche loaves with the rest. Mine was slightly over proofed, which is why the top isn't quite evenly shaped. Ah well it was still brioche, so yum!

Night of Desserts

As part of the pastry program every class hosts a Night of Desserts. We invite friends and family for two shifts of dessert service. We create our own menu and each team of two makes one dish. My partner and I were assigned the chocolate dish and came up with a chocolate and Guinness pastilla with creme fraiche ice cream. It was incredible!

A pastilla is a savory Moroccan dish made with chicken in a flaky dough (I believe it's a relative to fillo dough) flavored with cocoa, cinnamon, and sugar. I've only had a proper one once, when I lived in the UK, because they--like good Moroccan food in general--are difficult to find in the States.

What we did was make it a proper dessert. First things first, we got rid of the chicken and upped the chocolate content. Instead of using cinnamon we decided to get a rich, deep, nearly spicy flavor from Guinness. So we baked a batch of plain old, fudgy, chocolate brownies and cut them into squares. We topped them with a Guinness and dark chocolate ganache and wrapped them in layers of buttered fillo dough. We kept them in the fridge until we were ready to use them the following class when we baked them until the fillo was golden.

We served them with chocolate Guinness sauce that we made by thinning down the ganache with extra heavy cream and creme fraiche ice cream held in place on a pile of brownie crumbs. We also used freshly made raspberry coulis, fresh raspberries, and a tiny basil leaf for color. Yum!

It was delicious and we got rave reviews!

Tiramisu

Tiramisu means pick me up. Apparently this name came from the days when women cafes during the day. It was considered uncouth for a woman to drink in public (while men, of course, could) so they would order this cake spiked with marsala wine and coffee--quite a pick me up.

We served our tiramisu--made with lady fingers soaked in an espresso syrup between layers of zabaglione (aka sabayon) made with marsala wine and lightened with whipped cream--with a healthy dusting of cocoa powder, coffee creme anglaise, chocolate sauce, a tuile, and coffee granita served in a chocolate bowl. Each element was delicious alone and even better together. And how cute is the little tuile spoon sticking out of the granita?!

White Chocolate Hazelnut Semifreddo

This was delicious, but not quite as nice as the mendiant. That's really only because I prefer milk chocolate to white chocolate. Semifreddo means partly frozen in Italian. Just like the mendiant or the parfait, it's a frozen dessert that isn't frozen solid because of all the air whipped into it, not to mention the fat and sugar. Anyway, we served this with drizzled with dark chocolate (which sets up when it comes in contact with the frozen semifreddo), set on top of a piece of hazelnut cake, sitting on a long curved piece of chocolate, with chocolate sauce, raspberry coulis, raspberry compote, and raspberry cream (raspberry flavored whipped cream) filled with chocolate sauce. It was not easy to make the filled raspberry cream scoops. They were worth it though...raspberry cream with a chocolate surprise inside!

Chocolate Hazelnut Mendiant

This is even better than parfaits! It's easier to make--basically it's frozen creme legere (pastry cream lightened with whipped cream)--and just as delicious. Plus I love chocolate hazelnut flavored anything. I think the presentation is lovely. We drizzled tempered chocolate onto acetate and then wrapped that around the unmolded mendiant (which is sitting on top of a piece of delicious chocolate hazelnut chocolate cake) to create a cage. When the chocolate was fully hardened, we pulled off the acetate. That, unfortunately, was easier said than done and a bunch of the cages ended up somewhat broken. Ah well, those ones still tasted good. We served them with chocolate sauce, clear vanilla sauce, strawberry coulis, fresh strawberries tossed in a bit of vanilla sugar and liqueur, and a hazelnut tuile.

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).

Chocolate Mint Dome

We are doing plated desserts again. The first plated desserts unit wasn't my favorite unit and I'm not convinced that the second one is going to be an improvement, but I do really enjoy the food we make and it's certainly an important learning experience. This was really nice! It is a dome of mint parfait (a frozen dessert made of a frozen mixture of whipped cream and pate a bombe) filled with chocolate parfait and set atop a piece of flourless chocolate cake--it's actually built in a silicon dome mold, so the cake goes on last and, once it's frozen, it's flipped out. We sprayed it with chocolate (that's melted and thinned with extra cocoa butter) to give it some texture. Also on the plate is orange and mint salad, a chocolate cigarette, candied orange peel, chocolate sauce, and shortbread. I'm not sure why we used the shortbread with it as it was rather unnecessary, but it was good.

Manjari Chocolate Tart with Coconut Ice Cream

Oh yum! The bittersweet chocolate custard--manjari chocolate is a somewhat acidic, bitter, dark chocolate that is mellowed out here by the addition of, among other things, sugar--in a chocolate tart shell was great on its own (seriously--I brought home some extras, so I know they were really good without all the fancy plating!) The coconut ice cream was very nice, as were the coconut creme anglaise, the chocolate sauce, and the raspberry coulis. All together they were wonderful.

Chocolate Crepes

These chocolate crepes, like the orange ones, were filled and served warm. Instead of orange pastry cream, they were filled with chocolate ganache. They were topped with sauteed pears, chocolate sauce, blueberry sorbet, and fresh blueberries. I'm not a huge blueberry fan, but even I have to say that the blueberry was really nice with the pear and chocolate. I admit that I could leave off all the toppings and just eat the filled crepes as is. Yum!

Chocolate Marquise with Cranberry Swirl Ice Cream, and Cranberry Compote

This was really nice. The chocolate marquise disks were incredibly good...sort of a frozen chocolate mousse (but much more complicated to make). The mint creme anglaise and chocolate sauce complimented it perfectly. I'm not sure I liked the cranberry swirl ice cream and cranberry compote with it though. I think that might be a reflection on the cranberries we used, which were a bit bitter, rather than the idea of cranberry with it. Regardless of the taste, it looked really nice with the cranberry compote and the cranberry swirl ice cream.

Chocolate Puff Pastry Disks (and what to do with them)

Chocolate puff pastry disks.

The name pretty much says it all, they are disks of chocolate puff pastry. To make them, bake a sheet of puff pastry. Just before you are ready to take it out of the oven, you brush it with watered down corn syrup. After the corn syrup stops bubbling, take it out. (This makes it sweeter and somewhat water proofed.) While it is still quite warm, cut it into the desired shape (i.e. rectangles for a chocolate napoleon) or, in this case, rounds. At this point, you can do a number of different things with them.

The Banana Chocolate Tartlet, without the finish.

In class we made Banana Chocolate Tartlets. This is a terribly misleading name; they are not really tarts. Instead, they are a plated dessert. Basically you start with a chocolate puff pastry disk, top it with slices of bananas, top them with some sugar, brulée the sugar with a blow torch, and finish with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and some chocolate sauce. If I liked bananas, I'm sure I would have liked this!

The finished tartlet.

Since we made these to eat with dinner and I don't like bananas, I made myself a variation on this, sans bananas. It was a chocolate disk topped with the lovely vanilla ice cream that the chef made and the equally lovely fresh chocolate sauce. Then I just sprinkled some of chocolate puff crumbs on top for good measure. It was delicious!

Yum!

I still had more disks left, so I took them home. I happened to have left over lemon curd, so I made a quasi-napoleon with lemon curd and raspberries sandwiched between two disks. In the center of the circle of berries was a small and completely hidden scoop of ice cream, for a sweet surprise. Yum.

As it turns out, lemon curd pairs wonderfully with chocolate puff pastry.

Profiteroles

Yum! The were little choux puffs filled with fresh vanilla ice cream and topped with chocolate sauce (both the ice cream and the sauce were made by the chef and were excellent). Since the ice cream wasn't transportable, I had to eat them in class. That wasn't a problem; they were delicious. Basically they were the same choux we've been using, made into nice small rounds. Cut the top off (just a small amount, not the whole top half), put a scoop of ice cream on the bottom and top with the top and chocolate sauce. So good!

Leftovers, they aren't just for casseroles!

I had left over pound cake from New Year's that was getting a little stale, so I didn't want to eat it plain.  I also had left over ganache from the anniversary cake which I needed to use for something and I didn't want to make truffles.  So I melted the ganache in a glass bowl over a pot of boiling water and added some warmed up skim milk until it was a very thin sauce.  But I decided it needed more, so I mixed in some cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg...sort of a spiced hot chocolate taste to it.  Then I cubed up the left over pound cake, put it on top of some vanilla frozen yogurt and poured a ton of the chocolate sauce over it. YUM!

P.S. I'll post a photo at some point, I promise.

Pumpkin Ice Cream with Chocolate Sauce

I made this in lieu of pumpkin pie this Thanksgiving.  It tasted almost exactly like pumpkin pie filling but creamier.  Actually it really was like pumpkin pie filling but creamier...after all it was ice cream.  The chocolate sauce added a really nice touch.  The chocolate sauce accented the seasoned pumpkin ice cream...but then again I'm someone like me who thinks everything should have chocolate on it!

By the way, I'm so sorry it has taken me so long to post this, I know Thanksgiving was almost three weeks ago.  I have been writing papers and studying for exams.  I still have two exams left, but I will bake something this week and post it, I promise!