Orange Yogurt Cake

I'm trying something new here; I'm going to try to make this blog ever so slightly more like a normal blog where I discuss more than just food. Not that it won't remain food focused. Every post will still start and end with whatever I've baked and many will, I'm sure, never vier from my tied and true formula of discussing the recipe I've used or developed. But in at least a smattering of posts I will talk about me and what happens to be going on in my life.

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!

Baked Ricotta with Orange Basil Salad and Orange Iced Cream

This was another practice dessert for my menu project. I'm glad I practiced it, because I've decided that I don't really like the baked ricotta--a twist on cheese cake--with the other two components. The problem with baked ricotta--this version was based on a recipe I found in a Gordon Ramsey cookbook--is that it isn't terribly flavorful and the salad and iced cream totally overwhelmed it. Also, it was harder than I'd expected to get the texture right, they came out either tough or almost runny. The salad was brilliant and the iced cream (basically whipped cream and fresh orange juice and zest frozen solid) was really nice, but perhaps a bit too icy.

I think I'm going to keep the salad and iced cream but switch from the baked ricotta to a chocolate, basil, and brie panini. It keeps cheese as part of the dish and ties in with the basil in the fruit salad, plus chocolate makes anything better. If the chefs order this, I'll discuss all the components in more detail.

Olive Oil Cakes

Ligurian Lemon Cake

Olive oil cakes are cakes made with olive oil in the batter...shocking, I know. They are incredible! The oil makes them moist but doesn't weigh them down too much. Plus the lovely flavor of the olive oil comes comes through in the cake, in contrast to most cakes where you add vegetable oil so that you won't be able to taste the oil. Now that I've said oil so much it has stopped seeming like a word (at least to me as I'm the one typing it) I'll get on to describing the whole dessert.

My favorite of the two desserts was the ligurian lemon cake with raspberries baked right into the cake and topped with bruleed Swiss meringue (although I could have done without the meringue). We served this with a very clear raspberry sauce, an almond tuile, and incredible honey almond gelato. I think the tuiles were a little out of proportion for the plate, but they did taste good so I don't mind too much.

Beaumes-de-Venise Cake

The other cake we made was not my favorite of the night but one of my favorites of the unit. It was a beaumes-de-venise cake with has grapes baked into it; served on a rectangular cookie made out of linzer tart dough; with an uncooked grape compote (to me that's more of a grape salad, but semantics aside, it was delicious), fromage blanc sherbet, more of the raspberry sauce (I may have left this off), and a cocoa nib caramel tuile. I liked the first dessert more because I loved the combination of tart lemon and sweet raspberry in the delicious, moist, rich but still light cake and the honey almond gelato was to die for. Still though, the grape cake (with a hint of beaumes-de-venise, also know as muscat, wine) and all its accompaniments were excellent. I'd be extremely happy if I got either of these desserts in a restaurant.

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.

Creme Caramel and "Yummy" Tuiles

Yum, indeed.

Yesterday we also finished our crèmes caramels. These are kind of like flan...I'm not a huge fan of either. That said, these were nice. We served them with orange and strawberry salad, which was delicious, and tuiles. My partner and I made the tuiles. The chef thought it would be nice to make orange tuiles with chocolate "yum"s written on them. It was not easy to write with the batter and tuiles have to be baked in tiny batches so that you have time to curl them before they harden. But in the end I think they looked pretty great.