Week 8

Cheese-Based Plated Dessert

I chose Blue Cheese for this dessert. I made a Blue Cheese Souflee with a Fig-Chamomile Compote, and a Grape Salad. I chose blue cheese because I wanted to try something more out of the ordinary instead of cheeses more commonly found in desserts, like goat cheese, ricotta, etc. I knew fig went well with blue cheese and I found a recipe for a fig-chamomile compote. My challenge was determining a side component. Chef helped me out and suggested a grape salad with parsley. Surprising to me, it tasted quite nice. I tossed it in a balsamic reduction along with some of the sauce from the compote.

This was the first time I had ever made a souflee. I crossed my fingers that it wouldn't deflate...and it didn't!
I was pleased with how this dessert looked on the plate, and with the taste as well. It was a nice mix of temperatures, textures and colors.

Week 9

Mystery Bag: Asian Pear, Green Tea and Bacon

The mystery ingredients were asian pear, green tea and bacon.  The first step in my approach was searching for asian pear and green tea recipes, as I knew one of these would be the main component for my dessert. The bacon would be secondary. The whole time I searched for recipes I was keeping in mind textures, temperatures, color and how all of this would work and come together on the same plate.

I made asian pear mousse, green tea pound cake, and a bacon and pear marmalade. I garnished with a slice of bacon, which was probably a bit much and too savory, in hindsight. Even after I chose my recipes, I still felt a little like I was going somewhere without a map. When I started making the pound cake I wasn't quite sure how I was going to present it. I had several different options lined up before I started plating, and I tried a few different things to see what looked best. There wasn't an exact asian pear mousse recipe, but you can adapt any mousse recipe to incorporate your flavor of choice. It worked out, and luckily my mousse set up in time for the class presentation (but I was prepared with a filled pastry bag of the mousse just in case!)

The pear mousse had very subtle flavors of pear, but when coupled with the green tea pound cake and the marmalade...it was a nice marriage of flavors. Despite the fact that the marmalade didn't look very pretty, it tasted great! It was probably my favorite flavor on the plate. The green tea pound cake added some nice color. I wanted to do something different with the cake so I cut bite-size circles and positioned them on their side.

This was my first mystery basket project, and I was a bit nervous about it. It turned out to be an intense, but fun, exercise. It was definitely out of my comfort zone...but often times those are the best and most educational experiences.

Week 7

Frozen Plated Dessert: Banana-Peanut-Chocolate Dome
This dessert consisted of a peanut crispy base, chocolate chiffon sponge, and a banana cremeaux disk, all surrounded by a dark chocolate mousse. The dome was covered in a chocolate mirror glaze. It was garnished with a banana tuile and peanut butter sauce.

I enjoyed making this dessert as it was challenging and had about 8 components to make. It was a lot of work, and I learned about planning and timing especially since freezing was involved. My peanut butter sauce was a bit thick, it looked like peanut butter straight out of the jar. I should have added more milk to thin it out a bit. A thinner sauce would have been more attractive on the plate, too. I loved the chocolate mirror glaze, as it was so shiny it looked like glass.

Making this dessert was uncharted territory. I'd never made a single dessert with so many components. I felt really good about the end result, and it tasted good too.

Week 5

Chevre Panna Cotta
This was a dessert that had some interesting components, and I wasn't sure how well they'd all come together in the end. It consisted of  chevre panna cotta as the main component, with vanilla granny smith apples draped on the top. It was garnished with a nutmeg tuile nest, and a thyme gelee and port sauce on the side.

The goat cheese panna cotta was very rich, therefore the small portion was perfect. Further, the thyme gelee by itself didn't taste that good, in my opinion. But when coupled with the panna cotta and the apples, it worked very well. The flavors all really complemented one another. I'm learning that generally a pastry chef's intention is for guests to taste all flavors on a plate together. This was a lovely, dainty dessert.

Red Velvet Opera Cake
This plated dessert is one of my favorites thus far. I love the taste, the presentation and how well the colors work together on the plate. It consisted of flourless chocolate cake, pecan dacquoise, molasses ganache and milk chocolate buttercream all assembled into the opera cake. The sauce was a bourbon sabayon, and it was garnished with a candied pecan, pecan croquant and dark chocolate.

The cake tasted quite good. However, some of my classmates felt the molasses flavor was a bit strong. I could see how that flavor profile could be in the love/hate category. This was the first time I'd made a chocolate garnish like this. It wasn't as hard as it looks. The more I work with chocolate, the more interested and intrigued I become. There's so much you can do and the legs for creativity are endless. I think the chocolate garnish on the plate really makes a big impact and sells it.

As the quarter progresses, I'm learning to think broader in terms of how everything works together on a plate. For example, when it comes to garnishing and plating, and considering everything that's important (a sauce, height, etc...). 

Week 6

Deconstructed Dessert--Carrot Cake
I chose to deconstruct carrot cake. I really enjoyed working on this project as it was interesting to really think about the flavors and textures, etc...and create something different. I made a walnut dacquoise base, with a carrot gelee insert, all enveloped in ginger cream. My garnish was carrot chips, with carrot curd and brown sugar sauce.

Overall, this dessert turned out well. I learned how to incorporate additional ingredients into existing recipes. For example, I juiced carrots and added the dry part to my dacquoise. Further, I made a carrot curd from the juice. The ginger definitely dominated the taste. If I made it again, I would cut back on the ginger. In class it started melting a bit, as you'll see in the photos below. It would have a much smoother and cleaner look had it remained frozen. I tried three variations of plate presentations. I've found it helpful to look at a lot of books and at photos online for plating and garnishing inspiration.