Anyone who gets Food Arts probably saw this presentation on page 81 of the July issue; yep I totally stole it. The original creator is Chef Sandro Michell, pastry master for Alain Ducasse’s Adour in New York’s St. Regis Hotel. To say that he is a bad ass is a bit of an understatement, to say that his work will be aspired to and emulated the world over is a point of fact. Who knows if I’m even the first to bite his presentation? The design of it is perfect; each bite a perfect portion of the flavors and textures. Faithful readers know of my love of cylinders, this set up was a natural progression from my dulce de leche logs. Chef Sandro streamlines the process by rolling up acetate and piping in the soft ice cream. Anyway, on to the flavors. I’ve always wanted to do a plated dessert version of Ben & Jerry’s Chubby Hubby, so here it fucking is!! Devils food cake, chocolate peanut butter pretzel bark, malted milk ice cream. This dessert had been a fun little path of progressions for me. It’s first incarnation was done like Tony Martin’s Brownie Crunchie, a peanut butter and pretzel layer was spread warm onto the cake then set, and sliced. With that method, the pretzels got soggy; hydrating from the moisture in the simple syrup soaked sponge. I was riding my bike home on Friday night and it hits me: bark!! What I wanted was bark, like we had in Zermatt!! Just with pretzels instead of almonds and shit. Crunch factor, achieved!! The plate is sauced with chocolate and peanut butter caramel, sooooo fucking good!! When I first plated it up, I tweeted a picture of it, which caused a bit of a stir. Next day my buddy Rich was in to eat it; fucking Twitter, huh? The other cool thing about this dessert is the cocktail pairing: White Russian. Naturally you want milk with this right? Or cream? And vodka, right? Kaluha? We all know Kelley makes a killer Caucasian, it’s perfect!!
Pretzel Bark
6 oz milk chocolate
6 oz dark chocolate
6 oz creamy peanut butter
3 cups loose chopped pretzel sticks
1. Melt the first three ingredients over a double boiler.
2. Stir in the pretzels and pour onto a sheet pan with a silpat or parchment.
3. Chill the bark for 30 minutes before cutting into desired shapes. Store in an airtight container in the fridge.
looks sexy! i’d be all over that! i would love to steal it, but would have to tweek it a bit. my boss is allergic to anything peanut. i’d probably just use hazelnut paste instead of peanut butter. whats the piped chocolate creamy lookin stuff under the ice cream log?? and whats ontop of the bark, but under the other piece of chocolate? i love the pretzel thing though! genius!!!
@Bree - awesome, glad you dig!! The piped bit is a peanut butter icing a la Elizabeth Falkner (Demolition Desserts) the other piece is a tempered dark chocolate rectangle; I spread temped chocolate on acetate and cut it out to the desired shape. I think any flavor combo would work here, the beauty is the eatability.
I almost ordered this Friday night, but went for the almond cake (which was awesome) instead. I’ll be back during TBA—hope it sells well enough to stay on the menu a couple weeks!
@ Ben Waterhouse- People are loving that almond cake, sadly apricots are going out of season, I’ll need to shake it up a bit. The Fat Spouse is gonna be around for awhile, don’t worry!
ok this dessert looks awesome and everything….but its time for something new!!! have you been super busy lately?? was hoping for an update with a new dessert! bring on the awesomeness!!!!
@Bree- yeah, you could say I’ve been a little busy. The past few months have been insane at work; oh yeah and in getting married in 2 days. More updates soon, thanks for hanging in there!
well congrats with getting married! thats pretty awesome. enjoy the honeymoon!!!!!