Savory Inspired Plated Dessert

The basil and candied pine nut ice cream was very good, but as with any ice cream it is better as an accompaniment to dessert. In this case I used white cake I'd had in the freezer (I toasted it slightly to refresh it) and just a drizzle of really good extra virgin olive oil. If I'd been planning this I'd have made Thomas Keller's madeline cake (I really must post about that, it is delicious) and some sort of citrus olive sauce, probably thickened with xanthan gum. Still, it was a delicious dessert--and not just for something thrown together on a whim.

Basil and Candied Pine Nut Ice Cream

I got a new ice cream cookbook that uses a non-custard base. No custard means no pain in the derrière slow cooking and tempering eggs and curdled batches (yes, I've had scrambled egg custard more than once). Of course it also means a corn syrup and cream mixture that, while delicious, doesn't quite have the depth of a custard based ice cream. Still with fun flavors, like this one, it's a nice base and it is easier to make.

Caramelized Waffles and Chocolate-Hazelnut Ice Cream

I bought myself a small Breville waffle maker for the holidays. It's a great waffle maker! So great that I have made far too many waffles. So I froze some. To heat them up I coated them with cinnamon sugar and fried them. They got all nice and caramelized and toasty warm. I served them with homemade ice cream.

The ice cream was amazing. It's a creamy chocolate and sour cream ice cream base (from the New York Times food section) with some toasted hazelnuts and a dash of Frangelico added in for good measure. I didn't add much liqueur because it can interfere with the freezing point of the ice cream, but with Frangelico on top of the hazelnuts, a little went a long way. This was, hands down, the best batch of ice cream I've ever made, and I've made some good ones. I think it was the sour cream. You couldn't taste it at all (which was good, sour cream would have been all wrong with the hazelnuts) but it made the texture unbeatable.

Plated all together, the warm, crisp waffles and the cold, creamy ice cream were just perfect! (Happy New Year, by the way.)

Thanksgiving Desserts (Number Three)

Alright, this is really just dessert number one--the apple crumble pie--again. But this time I decided it really needed ice cream. And not just any ice cream: homemade bourbon pecan ice cream!

Thanksgivukkah

As I'm sure you heard, Thanksgiving and Hanukkah overlapped this year (on the 28th of November), a rare occurrence that (apparently) complicated things for American Jews who had to have celebrations two nights in a row. Since I'm currently studying in the UK, I had class on Thursday until 6:00pm, so no chance of a proper Thanksgiving regardless of the timing of Hanukkah. So we combined both celebrations and pushed them until Saturday so that our British family (who had to work Friday) could come over, enjoy the day, celebrate Hanukkah and, of course, eat lots of turkey.

Coffee Sorbet with Walnut Sauce in a Chocolate Tuile Bowl

I made this years ago, well before I started a blog. I found the photo on my laptop today and thought I had to share it.

It was incredible! The coffee sorbet--which I had made in my new ice cream machine--was smooth (but a little icy, in a good way) and richly coffee-y. The sauce, which was from Dessert University, I think, was really good. It's surprising to have a sauce flavored with nuts, but it worked nicely. It was sweet and nutty and thick without being heavy. The tuile bowl was good, although, if I remember correctly, I made it a bit too thick. Also it wasn't quite chocolaty enough--but then again tuiles are never terribly flavorful. These flavors worked together so nicely, the walnut sauce and the coffee sorbet were delicious together; add in the mild chocolate flavor and wow that's good!

Baked Brownies with No-Churn Coffee Ice Cream

Some of my favorite brownies are the Baked brownies (I think the recipe is in their first cookbook, Baked, but they have variations thereof in all of their books.) We had some bad news today (nothing terrible, but not great) and we decided we needed brownies--and people say I stress eat...humph. The Baked brownies are a relatively simple recipe, no mixer needed (meaning I can put all the equipment in the dishwasher rather than hand washing), and the recipe makes a 9x13in pan rather than a 9x9in pan (as with the recipes from my other favorite brownie brand, Fat Witch brownies). Regardless of my stress and need for an easy recipe, I love this recipe. They are chocolaty, gooey, and delicious!

I happened to have some no-churn coffee ice cream in the freezer. The recipe is from Nigella Lawson's newest cookbook, Nigellisma. It's simple and produces a surprisingly creamy, surprisingly ice cream-y result considering that you don't need an ice cream machine to make it. (And considering that I'm currently without an ice cream maker, that's great!) I'll discuss this recipe at greater length soon. The coffee ice cream was delicious on the warm, deeply chocolaty brownies. It was the perfect dessert after a stressful day. Of course it would be the perfect dessert after pretty much any day--you can't go wrong with brownies and ice cream!

Philadelphia-style Orange Iced Cream~With Recipe!

A trial plate from my menu project, with the iced cream as
well as orange-basil salad and a brie, basil, and chocolate panini

Remember the panini I made for my menu project? This is the iced cream I made to go with it. I don't think this is officially Philadelphia-style ice cream, which I believe is still churned in an ice cream machine, but it is reminiscent of the icy texture and strong cream flavor. As I implied, this is not churned in an ice cream machine, which makes it slightly icy. The no-churn aspect coupled with the fact that it is cream based rather than custard based makes this very easy to make--so easy that you can make ice cream on a weeknight if you really want.

A quick suggestion, don't use extra cointreau no matter how tempting. Alcohol is an anti-freeze and if you add too much the ice cream won't set up. On the flip side, don't leave it out unless you have to--if you don't have an orange liqueur, you can use a clear liquor like vodka--because it does help keep it from getting too icy.

This is great served with a brie, basil, and chocolate panini and orange-basil salad. Or with a nice wafer cookie. Or plain. It's really good, whatever you want to do with it. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
Zest of one orange and one lime
Juice of one orange and two limes
1 cup 2 tbsp powdered sugar
1 tsp orange liqueur, preferably cointreau
pinch of salt
2 ½ cups heavy cream

Instructions:
Put zest in a bowl with the sugar and salt
Add the citrus juice and liqueur and stir dissolve the sugar
Add cream and whip to a medium-soft peak
Freeze for at least 3 hours to overnight and store covered
Temper in fridge for 30 min or on the counter for 5-10 min before scooping

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.

Cool Food Science

In class the other day we did something very cool (no pun intended); we made ice cream with liquid nitrogen (okay, so there was a little pun intended). Basically, you put a creme anglaise ice cream base in the bowl of a kitchen aid fitted with a paddle. You have the mixer mixing (i.e. churning) the ice cream. Then you slowly pour in a significant amount of liquid nitrogen.

A scientific aside, liquid nitrogen has a boiling point of -195.8*C (77K or -321*F). If it is kept under pressure, it will boil very slowly, keeping its temperature at a constant -195.8*C. This means that it is very, very cold and will freeze things that touch it on contact. It also means that when it is poured out of its container and hits room temperature air or ice cream base, it will boil and, as the definition of boiling suggests, it will turn to nitrogen gas and float away.

This means that you can pour a flask of liquid nitrogen into the bowl of the mixer and it will freeze the ice cream as the mixer churns it. Because nitrogen is just air (it constitutes about 75% of the atmosphere) you don't need to worry about it touching the ice cream (as you would freon from a conventional ice cream machine). Because it takes a relatively short time to freeze the ice cream, it doesn't churn for very long and you get an exceptionally smooth product. Another benefit is, because liquid nitrogen is so cold, the ice cream is ready to eat right away--you don't need to freeze it to let it harden. One final bonus, it will freeze ice creams that have a lot of liquor in them. Liquor has a low freezing point and can therefore act as an anti-freeze, keeping ice cream with a high quantity of liquor slushy. However, the boiling point of liquid nitrogen is colder than the freezing point of liquor so the ice cream will freeze.

Of course liquid nitrogen can be dangerous, since it is so cold you can easily get freezer burns on your skin if you mishandle it. If you use it in a confined space it can increase the nitrogen in the air to such a high level that you can actually asphyxiate (this wouldn't happen from making one batch of ice cream in a kitchen, but it still seems important to mention, just in case). Since it has potential for being dangerous, we didn't get to make our own batches of ice cream but at least we got to watch Chef Kir act like a mad scientist while he made a batch for the class to try. Speaking of trying it, it tasted just like ice cream, except creamier and denser. In a word, it was excellent!

A blurry picture of the finished product on
the mixer's paddle.

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.

Chiboust Day

Today was chiboust day. Chiboust is pastry cream stabilized with gelatin and lightened with Italian meringue. Traditionally it is used as a filling for the Gateau Saint-Honore, but we used it to make individual tartlets. The first was a tart shell filled with a layer or two of sliced strawberries and topped with coconut chiboust. We served this with prune armagnac ice cream, a strip of coconut financier, and coconut foam. Everything was excellent but the coconut foam; we were serving it from one of those metallic whipping cream dispensers (there's a real name for those, but it's not coming to me right now) and the chef accidentally used the soda charger rather than the plain whipping/frothing charger so the foam came out too liquid and somewhat carbonated...oops! 

We also made a chocolate chiboust tart made simple of a rectangle of baked chocolate tart dough with chocolate chiboust piped on top. We served that with a sour cherry compote, chocolate and ancho chili sherbet, a cacao (or cocoa) nib and caramel tuile, and a piped chocolate decoration. Everything was delicious, especially the sherbet, although I'm not sure I liked the cherry compote and the sherbet together. The chocolate decorations were made by taking tempered chocolate and adding enough cocoa powder to it to thicken it to a pipe-able consistency. As the chef explained, basically we are taking couvature chocolate--chocolate with extra cocoa butter added to make it more fluid--and getting rid of the couvature by adding in more cocoa solids. So perhaps if you tempered a Hersey's bar--you can temper any chocolate, by the way--it would have nearly this consistency to start. Once the tempered chocolate is sufficiently thick, it's just a matter of piping it into interesting shapes. We made long rods of chocolate and some squiggly snakes but you could do anything you want. Because they are tempered they set up hard and with a even color and because they have extra cocoa powder they are slightly more bitter than the chocolate you started out with (in this case semi-sweet chocolate). Lovely and delicious!

Chocolate decorations

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.

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!

Pate a Bric Day

Asian Pear Sping Rolls

The third plated desserts unit is organized interestingly, each day we use a different dough or technique in a variety of different ways. Today was pate a bric day. Pate a bric is sort of a cross between fillo dough and a crepe. It's slightly salty and a bit thick (still quite thin, don't get me wrong), so I prefer fillo and I don't think anything we've done with pate a bric can't be done with fillo. In fact, you work with it the same way you work with fillo, you have to keep it covered so it doesn't dry up and you coat it with melted butter (typically clarified butter) before you do anything with it.

We made two things today: Asian pear spring rolls and mango purses. The former were definitely my favorite. The sauteed spring rolls filled with slices of Asian pear were excellent on their own. Served with raspberry swirl ice cream and raspberry gastric--a sauce made with raspberry vinegar and butter. We used caramel decorations to mimic chopsticks.

The mango purses were good. We served them with a sake sabayon and sorbet. The purses were fine, but what was really good was the sabayon and the sorbet.

Mango Purse

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!

Exotic Fruit Soup

I wasn't a fan of this. The problem is, everything was flavored with ginger--which I almost never like--lemongrass--which I really only like in Thai cooking--mango--which I'm not a fan of, but will eat--and pineapple--ditto. So you can see why I wouldn't like a ginger and lemongrass soup, with pineapple and mango lightly cooked and infused with ginger, lemongrass ice cream, and a sesame seed wafer cookie. On the plus side, the sesame seed wafer cookie was delicious.  I can see how, if you liked the flavors, this would be good. The textures were lovely together and, while I didn't like them, the flavors work together nicely.

Hot Apple Charlotte

This was the most amazing thing! The butter caramel sauce was nice and the vanilla ice cream was delicious, but that was nothing compared to the charlotte. These individual size charlottes are made with heavily buttered white bread around the outside and are filled with a buttery, chunky apple compote. When you bake them the butter basically fries the bread. Holy cow they were good! By the decoration on top is isomalt, a type of beet sugar, that has been melted and drizzled onto a silpat to make a pretty spiral.

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.