Down to my last 2 classes - Adv Baking this semester - looking for spectacular dessert ideas

M

music-city-missy

Well-known member
We have to have a dessert menu with two restaurant style fancy dessert each with at least 4 components one being an edible garnish and one of the two desserts has to utilize cake. So send me your ideas, recipes, pictures, articles, etc. I'm looking for the best to tweak and make it my own.

 
REC: Honey Mousse with Pinenut Brittle---with a garnish of praline or hardened caramel

Honey Mousse With Pine Nut Brittle

Recipe By :Azure

HONEY MOUSSE:
6 egg yolks
1 cup honey
1 cup heavy cream
PINE NUT BRITTLE:
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup pine nuts

Pomegranate syrup -- store bought

To Make Mousse:
Whip yolks and honey in a standing electric mixer until thick (approximately 10 minutes). Whip cream. Fold cream and honey/egg mixture. Freeze for at least 40 minutes.

To Make Brittle:
Mix sugar with a little water at a time, until it reaches the consistency of wet sand. In a non-stick pan, caramelize the mixture until amber. Pour onto aluminum foil and sprinkle with nuts. Let cool. Break up into medium size pieces.

Assembly:
In champagne glass, layer mousse with pomegranate syrup and brittle until the glass is filled. Finish with a sprinkle of brittle.

 
Music City Missy, May I suggest Pierre Herme's "Regal au Riz Basmati," ...<

Just to give you an idea - Here is the first page:

"Pierre calls this cake a Regal au Riz Basmati, which translates to a "Basmati Rice Treat." The fact that it contains chunks of Nestle's Crunch and is finished with caramelized Rice Krispies (yes Rice Krispies), makes it near impossible to recall those marshmallow snacks of American children's dreams.

Needless to say, the resemblance between this treat and that of childhood ends with the Rice Krispies. What you have here is a posh -- but playful -- dessert with a connoisseur's mix of flavors and textures. Because it is ringed with a band of lemon-soaked ladyfingers, it has the look of a classic charlotte, but the filling inside is neoclassic if not downright nouvelle. Composed of cinnamon-scented rice pudding, chunklets of Crunch, and small pieces of toasted hazelnuts, the filling is soft (except when it's crackly) and creamy, ricey and lemony (except when it's chocolaty). The cake is finished with a thick layer of smooth chocolate cream and either a speckling of Rice Krispies or a shard of caramaelized Rice Krispies, a great treat on its own."

This might fit the bill, however, I can't type the recipe as it is too long. Perhaps your local Library will have a copy of the book by
Pierre Herme, written by Dorie Greenspan, titled "Desserts by Pierre Herme," also the book won Book of the Year from the International Association of Culinary Professionals - The Julia Child Cookbook Awards.

Gay

The book is an amazing book and think you will appreciate it.

Scroll down the page for the recipe at the link.

 
Mozarttorte! Viennese pastry always impresses...

recipe at the link. there is a finished picture in the next link down when you open it. The torte has many components consisting of sponge cake, whipped ganache, shortbread, kirschsyrup, 3 different flavors of stabilized whipped cream, garnishes of chocolate and candied violets. You can also go over the top with garnish, one of the variants is to make little cordial cups out of chocolate, nestle them in little rosettes of the cream, and fill them with a homemade cordial--more components and fussiness. LOL

http://eat.at/swap/forum1/43052_Rec__Mozarttorte

 
I tried this "stained glass" trick out....completely bombed on me...

I used my kitchen scale and her measurements don't match the gram weight. I'm not sure which she used, but I used 250 grams of sugar and 35 grams of water.

I don't work with sugar very often and think I evaporated too much of the water away. The mixture wasn't deep enough to test with my large candy tester so I did the cold water test. The drop was pliable so I dumped it over the OIL-based colorings. This is another issue. Some colorings come in a dropper bottle. Mine are in jars so I had to spread it manually as opposed to dropping some.

Use small amounts and space different colors apart because the dye was pulled together by the sugar lava and turn it into one large black blob. Distinct colors were still visible around the edges, but the syrup was very granular and sandy-looking....not clear at all.

I want to try this again, but think I need a better pot or different thermometer.

 
What about the dessert made of cream puffs and has sugar/caramel spread all over. I believe Lisa or

Carianna posted the link a few years ago. Sounded wonderful. I believe it was on epi. Does anyone remember it? I will try to search.

 
Here's my one and only experience with a croquembouche:

The only fiasco was the spun sugar for the croquembrouche which collapsed because it was raining the day of the wedding.

Oh, yes, and the fact that my pastry bag couldn't easily pierce the creampuffs. Testruns had shown a 1/4" opening was perfect! and it wasn't--the puffs cracked! So I was filling them with a mini-plunger and could only fill 3 creampuffs before having to stop and reload it with the pastry cream. Fill, fill, fill, stop, open plunger, refill plunger, wipe off plunger, wipe off hands, fill, fill, fill. STOP. SWEAR. Open plunger, fill....

Finally, it was midnight on Friday and the first 100 puffs were finally done with 230 more looming in the background when suddenly I had an epiphany! Basically, I didn't give a hoot anymore if the cream puffs cracked!

So I grabbed that pastry bag with my burnt, blistered fingers (oh ya, THAT happened everytime I dipped one of these little suckers in the hot scalding caramelized sugar where--by virtue of physics and the "center of mass" theory--they would flip over onto the TOP of the creampuff and immediately adhere to the closest dipped puff, demonstrating conclusively the Nils Bohr postulate of covalence bonding between negative electrons and positive pastry protons.)

Well...Lo and behold...the pastry cream (take 100 egg yolks, 1 gallon of milk, 1/2 gallon of heavy cream, six cups of sugar, slug down a healthy shot of Frangelica liquor....) held the puffs together even when they cracked.

 
well, on second thought, I guess it's good for the skin, which counts for something these days.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top