Please help me name my donation dessert entry for Taste of Chocolate fundraiser

M

marilynfl

Moderator
Here's the scoop:

It's an event at the local country club to aid senior citizens unable to pay for prescriptions (11th year for this event).

Open to amateurs and professionals.

Requirement: Provide 100 bite-size samples. If submitting donations, must enter application with NAME by Monday (April smileys/bigeyes.gif.

I'm setting myself the challenge (again) to use up ingredients I already have in the house.

Today I'll test out this idea:

1" French Sablés cookie (3/16" thick)

Piped on top will be a swirl of:

Dyslexic sauce blended with strained raspberry jam, Chambord raspberry liquor and (possibly) blended with melted-down Trader Joes truffles if I don't have enough Dyslexic sauce.

On top of that will be a dusting of pulverized freeze-dried raspberries.

On top of that (possibly) a piece of edible gold. Not sure about this...I may not have enough for 100 pieces.

So...if the taste ends up the way I'm hoping, I'll need a name to describe...that. I'm not about to explain the etymology of Dyslexic Sauce to 100 patrons, so my usual title is out.

Each piece will be in a paper candy wrap. That's why 1" is as large as I'll make them.

I can serve my entry if I want, but from the conversation I just had with the event planner, the patrons supporting the event can be...let's just say, quite greedy. He proceeded to describe a guest last year who said: "Look John!" and then he mimed her putting her purse at the level of the table, scooping her hand across the candy donation and shoveling them INTO her purse.

I'm all for helping someone get medicine they need but can't abide watching greed.

 
Truffle Tart

We had something not-at-all-the-same smileys/wink.gif that was called Nutella Tart but was really two cookies sandwiching a Nutella filling and topped with raspberry drizzle, whipped cream and a hazelnut. Hoping your "paper candy wrap" is a small muffin/candy paper liner rather that wrapped candy. Colleen

 
Thank you. I'll use Raspberry Truffle Sabl

when her face just showed puzzlement, I had my answer. Also, that meant using Paris in the name could confuse patrons since Chambord wasn't declared and the cookie may not be known here.

Cookie dough had to chill overnight, so I'll be testing that soon. Made the raspberry jam and Chambord blend last night. God Bless whomever invented the chinois. There were SO MANY SEEDS!!

Had to drive over to Asheville just to buy new freeze-dried raspberries. Apparently, they do not stay "crispy" once the package is open. Trust me, no one wants spongy freeze-dried raspberries so I tossed them out for the birds. It's possible they tossed them back.

Sadly, my edible gold flecks (saved for a SPECIAL occasion!!) had faded to nothing but white shards. I may see how they look blended with the pulverized NEW raspberries, but I'm not buying more gold just for this.

 
Marilyn, Sounds wonderful.....I must say this outloud.....you are truly

a very gifted, kind individual and I am so proud to know you......

 
Oh, so not gifted. So far, I'm at 1 win, 2 losses: The sable dough worked perfectly. I used

a large pastry tip which has a 1" diameter to cut out the chilled dough. They stayed a perfect 1" although I now understand why the pastry chef says to use blanched almond flour. I, on the other hand, always buy whole ground almonds BECAUSE ALICE MEDRICH SAYS IT HAS MORE TASTE. And if Alice Medrich told me to jump off a cliff, I would probably do so.

But in this particular dough, some of the "skin bits" in the flour catch on the edge of the cookie when it is cut. So if I were looking for perfection, I'd use the blanched almond flour. But darn, they taste just right to handle the chocolate.

Oh, the chocolate. Ya, the two jars of Dyslexic sauce I "thought" I had turned out to be homemade strawberry jam, which kindof defeats the whole purpose of selecting this idea. So I had to make up a whole new batch of sauce, which is still allowed in my totally screwy set of self-imposed rules as I already had all the ingredients in the house, so....so.

But then my Cuisinart stick-blender started making a noise like a wild animal in heat. I'm not exactly SURE what that sound would actually sound like, but this was horrible. Grinding, whining...ugh. I'd only recently started using the stick blender as the final step to emulsify the butter, fooling myself that I was "conching" the chocolate. So I didn't panic when I had to stop using that.

Ya, sure.

Anyway, that got made and then I added the 18 oz of de-seeded raspberry jam and 1/2 C of Chambord to the 2 pounds of chocolate sauce and ....nothing. You can barely taste the raspberry. I was hoping for a happy HIT on the taste bud, but I used 72% Belgium chocolate and apparently it is higher up the food chain on the tastebud hierarchy than raspberry.

I'm chilling some now to see if the raspberry is more pronounced once it's chilled. If I can't taste it, I can't use it in the name because I don't want folks saying "Where's the raspberry?"

I've also got to test to see how this lasts. I'm to deliver at 4:00 and the event starts at 6:00 and goes to 8:00. So my test will be to set one out for 4 hours. I'm also going to plead my case to pipe the chocolate AT the event site so I don't have to worry about things moving when I go down my roller coaster driveway.

But, thank you, Gay. That was a very kind statement and if I weren't so spacey from all the chocolate sampling, I'd write something better than just thank you.

 
Okay, red or white candy paper for Truffled Sabl

I thought of using both, but then figured people would grab 2 samples because they'd think they were different.

We're on time test now. I've got to wait until midnight and see how they look after sitting out on counter for 4 hours.

God, the things I do for chocolate.

Oh, the raspberry still isn't very pronounced, even when cold. Ah well.

https://pix.sfly.com/ErFBBJ

 
Marilyn, Loved reading your experiences......and what you wrote was just perfect.....

 
Good one, mistral, but I had to turn in the name today. I gave a sample to the volunteer lead

and his assistant. Both guessed at the raspberry flavor (without seeing the name) so I guess it will be okay.

However, the look on the lead guy's face when he held that tiny 1" piece told me something else. It was too small, even thought he SPECIFICALLY SAID to make it "bite-size". So I'll be bumping them up to 1 3/8" which is the diameter of my next biggest pastry tip. It will be a tad too big for the 1.25 candy cups but will look more impressive. Or conversely, a tad too small for the 1.625 mini muffin papers.

Test run was perfect, thought. The cookie did not soften with the chocolate swirl (that's due to two coatings of egg wash, drying 10 minutes between. Thank you, Mr. French Pastry Chef, for your anal retentive detail). And the raspberry dust didn't dissolve or bleed.

 
"spacey from all the chocolate sampling" smileys/wink.gif

Finding myself sometimes spacey and sometimes asleep from the dark chocolate I consume. Never know which will hit smileys/smile.gif Colleen

 
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