Plated Desserts 2

Plated desserts continues to be my favorite part of school so far. It's so exciting to see how you can put items together - both visually and by taste. I love it!

Mint dome with flourless chocolate cake base, orange salad, orange coulis, chocolate sauce, chocolate cigarette. The flourless chocolate cake base was BOMB - it was thin and rich, and was the perfect base. I didn't like the glaze we used - it was too sticky and tacky. I also am not in love with chocolate, mint, and orange all together.

Omar and Rachel pointing out that the goos from coating the dome looked like a swarm of killer squid!

White chocolate citrus semifreddo, pear compote, pear chip, white chocolate decoration. I liked the citrus and pear combination. The citrus semifreddo was delicious.

Milk chocolate semifreddo, hazelnut biscuit, pear compote, pear chip, balsamic reduction. Liked this dessert. Balsamic reduction really good with the chocolate and hazelnut. Good flavor combinations.

White chocolate hazelnut mendiant, raisin cream, maple tuile, white chocolate decoration. Raisin cream looked like straight up poop. Tasted good. Bad presentation.

Marsala sabayon, caramel apples, pistachio. I LOVE SABAYON! Why was I not introduced to this before? It's like the perfect sauce!

Sabayon, berries.

Tiramisu, coffee creme anglaise, espresso granita, chocolate espresso cup. Tiramisu really good. I don't think I like granita. It's like a slurpee, and the flavor just drains to the bottom.

Buttermilk panna cotta, sesame tuile, fruit spice soup, almond cubes, pineapple. This was the best dessert of the unit. Panna cotta was delicious, and all the flavors in this were really balanced. I thought the soup was too sweet, though. And I don't like how we call it soup, either.

At the culmination of our 2nd plated desserts project, we hosted an "Evening of Desserts", at which our friends and family were invited to come and enjoy our food. We each made a plate with our partner. Rie and I made a Lebni tart, with a pear yuzu compote, honey ice cream, pine nut brittle, currant paper, and currant coulis. The picture shows the plate upside down, but the woman who worked the event totally sucked.

Plated Desserts 1

By the time I actually get around to posting anything, a month has passed.

Plated desserts was one of my most favorite units. We finally got to put components together, and feel like we were working in a kinda sorta kitchen. Each team made their main component, plus a couple of extra side components to the dish that we all would share. This allowed for independent work and some creative freedom. The composition was up to Chef Jae, and wasn't dependant on our hard and fast curriculum. This freedom was welcomed, and we got to make some cool stuff, which I'll get to right now...

Our first plated dessert was a chocolate marquis (triangle thing), with dyed spun sugar (troll hair on top), toasted marshmallow, mint creme anglaise, blackberries, and shortbread crumbs. I wasn't a fan of the texture of the marquis, but the flavor was good. Didn't like the dyed spun sugar. Mint creme anglaise was on point. Overall, I didn't really see all of these components going together. Seemed a little scattered from a composed dessert. Not the worst start, though.

Creme brulee with shortbread cookies. All of the components were super tasty. But I really don't like them together. I like my creme brulee with some fruit or some kind of acid. Not some other rich-tasting sweet thing.

Creme caramel, with pineapple compote, mango salad, tuile, caramel sauce, mango coulis. Rachel and I must have burned our caramel a bit because it was NASTY BITTER. However we did make the pineapple compote and it was BOMB. All of these things would have tasted delicious together had our creme caramel turned out well. However I don't like putting sprigs of mint on shit for the sake of putting some mint on shit - ya dig?

Fig tart, port reduction, vanilla bean creme chantilly, olive oil ice cream. Figs were mushy, I suspect they weren't the best quality. Port reduction on point - made with a dry caramel with a bottle of port, slowly reduced. Olive oil ice cream delicious! I love making ice cream. From this point forward, Rachel and I volunteered for every ice cream opportunity- which kicked our ass because it was time consuming. After realizing how easy it is to make ice cream, my mind has since exploded with ice cream ideas.

Chocolate crepes with chocolate ganache filling, carrot orange sorbet, candied carrots, chocolate sauce, creme chantilly. The sorbet was great, didn't really think everything went that well together, though.

Orange crepes with orange pastry cream filling, vanilla ice cream, vanilla orange caramel sauce, caramel sauce. Hated the orange pastry cream, everything else bueno. I didn't like the way he presented the caramel sauce - looked too 80s.

Kiwi and milk marmalade tart. Puff pastry, milk marmalade, lemon-cashew frozen yogurt, kiwi cookie, kiwi salad, kiwi coulis. I liked the "milk marmalade" (I hated the name) and kiwi paired together. The frozen yogurt was way too tart. But the acidity of the kiwi cut through the richness of the puff pastry filling. Like texture combinations too.

Manjari chocolate tart, toasted coconut ice cream, coconut creme anglaise, chocolate sauce. Chocolate tart was good, don't like chocolate sable as a crust. Toasted coconut ice cream - maybe the best ice cream ever. SO GOOD. Good textures, good flavors. Didn't like the sauce presentation.

Spinach and mushroom jalousie, scallion bechamel, chives, parmesan. Thought this was pretty tasty. Very rich though. I accidentally put too much salt into our puff pastry (didn't know Rachel had put it in already - whoops), which revealed, lets say a saltine-like flavor.

Lemon tart, basil creme anglaise, berry sorbet, berry coulis, basil powder. Lemon tart was super tasty - Adam deemed it the best lemon tart ever. Loved the basil and berry flavor with it. Good acid, not too sweet. Maybe my favorite dessert of the unit. I brought 6 lemon tarts home with me, because it is Adam's favorite dessert. The next morning, Adam decides to eat one for breakfast while getting ready for work. From the bathroom, I hear "uh-oh" to find that while putting on his deodorant he stuck his arm up, sticking the lemon tart to the ceiling. Good thing we had 5 more for back-ups.

Sorry these pictures are shitty. Rachel took these and sent them to me because I forgot my camera.

Banana macadamia financier, granduja ice cream, creme chantilly. These were awesome. Really nice flavor, kind of heavy.

Mini raspberry charlotte russe, red currant ice cream, red currant sauce, candied rose petal. Meh.

Pineapple tart tatin, orange butter sauce, mojito frozen yogurt. Didn't like the frozen yogurt. The crust and the pineapple part on the tatin was too separated - I wish we had baked them together.

Apple raisin charlotte, apple sorbet, caramelized macadamia nut, apple caramel sauce, currant sauce. This was a real hodge-podge of stuff. I made the green apple sorbet, which was a FAIL. Chef told me not to strain it, and the resulting texture was like frozen applesauce. We were also introduced to stabilizers that class, and so it had a weird aftertaste. Lindsay called it booger sorbet (she always adds a touch of class to our group). Apple charlotte = good, other components = weird.

Pate Feuilletee

Puff pastry! This was maybe one of the most fun units we've had yet. I loved the process of it: making a butter envelope, rolling and folding it, and then repeating it over and over to create a layered dough/butter dough. When you bake it, the butter melts and boils, creating steam that pushes the layers apart, resulting in a very flaky dough. We made rapide, classique, inversee and chocolate versions.

Clockwise from top: Papillons, Speedy Vol-au-vents, Regular Vol-au-vents, Palmiers. These were ways in which we manipulated puff pastry to take advantage of its natural poofing abilities.

Fruit strip. Puff pastry, creme legere, fruit. Nothing mind altering about this, tasty nonetheless.

Apple Gallette.

Milles Feuilles de Forme Ronde (Round Napoleon). We baked puff pastry between sheet pans (to make it not puff, which I think is weird - why did I go through all of that work, just to dock and restrict poofing?), cut them and filled the layers with creme legere. This picture was taken after it had been saran wrapped and carried on the train - I promise it was much more appetizing looking in the classroom.

Bar Tart. I actually made this on my own at home. Puff pastry baked between 2 sheetpans, with almond cream and sliced pineapple.

Pear in a Cage. I was introduced to a lattice cutter - one of the coolest tools ever. I was pretty proud with how mine came out. I enjoyed decorating it. Puff pastry, almond cream, poached pears.

Conversations. These I thought were bizarre. Layer of puff pastry, almond cream, another layer of puff pastry. Topped with royal icing and then baked. I didn't know royal icing could be baked, and it was meringue-like, sweet and brittle, which I liked. The almond cream baked into the puff pastry nicely, I thought. The whole thing was a little too sweet for my taste, but pretty good.

Seasonal Fruit Galette. We made a nectarine compote (I put ginger, cinnamon, and cardamom in mine) and baked them in a puff pastry shell. Pretty straight forward.

Jalousie. This was like the best toaster strudel I have ever had. Flaky and sweet. Puff pastry, filled with piped layers of almond cream and raspberry jam. This ish was da BOMB.

Pithivier. This was supposed to represent the King's carriage wheel, but I thought it looked more like a jellyfish or a frayed boob. Layer of puff pastry, frangipane (pastry cream + almond cream) in a mound in the middle, with another layer of puff pastry on top. Imprinted with a weird design. Pretty tasty though - the frangipane baked into the puff pastry so it was almost homogenous.

Chocolate Napoleon. We made chocolate puff pastry for this (a version of inversee, this was the biggest pain in the ass to make due to temperature issues in the classroom and the fridge). We made a creme d'or (whipped cream + warm melted choc) and creme legere to fill it with. Made a fancy glaze top design HOLLER! This did not taste as good as I thought it would. The chocolate puff pastry does not taste like chocolate. It only has a small amount of cocoa powder in it, which adds very little flavor. The difficulty in making it yields an inferior puff, so I don't think it's worth the trouble.

Cinn-choc Palmiers. A version of the first Palmier, only with cocoa puff pastry and cinn-sugar. My friend in class referred to them as tasting like choc teddy grams, and I can see the similarity. Again there was little to no chocolate flavor and this puff did not puff like others. I like the addition of spice to the sugar mix though.

Apple Dartois. Same as pear in a cage only with an apple compote and in a different shape. Pretty tasty. Not mind blowing.

Strip Napoleon. I think this was the best Naploeon we made and I am not sure why, because it had the same components as the round one. I was particularly proud because I made it one of my goals this unit to work on my presentation. I had been rushing before and getting sloppy with presentation for the sake of time. With this unit, and this Napoleon in particular, I took my time to decorate it properly and I think it came out beautiful!

Not pictured: Cheese straws, tart tatin. Forgot my camera.