I ran this dessert as a special last weekend and it sold pretty well. With milk chocolate sauce and hazelnut praline, it looked sharp and tasted delicious. The chocolate base is Tony’s truffle sponge, almost a brownie but with egg whites folded in. The central crunchy layer was a caramel candy filling, which I augmented with a little milk chocolate and feuilletine. The mousse was a new recipe, one I found on Cuisine French. The recipe caught my eye because it assumed a certain level of knowledge and technique. For example, step three in the recipe states “prepare a custard with the milk, sugar, constarch, and egg yolks.”  That’s my kind of recipe. The praline garnish, I’m embarrassed to say, is isomalt.  This synthetic sugar always makes me feel like a cheater, a corner-cutter and a hack.  It is a beautiful garnish however, so I guess it’s OK.  I learned how to make those over ten years ago now.  Hmph….I’m getting old.  Meanwhile, it’s business as usual at the restaurant,  things have been picking up.  The Oregoinian released an excellent review of us last week, and we’ve been seeing increasing numbers. I couldn’t find the review online…even without mention of the desserts-it was a good one.  

So thaaaats how long it takes to use every single whip, spat, bowl, and container in the kitchen.  Actually, its probably not even a third of the small wares, but certainly all the spats.  AB would be ashamed of me.  Anyhoo there was a lot of stirring and straining and spinning going on today making ice creams.  Today we have blueberry white chocolate, and lemon meringue.  For the blueberry I folded in frozen berries and white chocolate mouse to a custard base. Lemon curd and soft merinque went in more base for the other.  The blueberry was very white chocolatey, and the lemon was tasty.  A good start.   I also made malted milk chocolate peanut butter and  a base for salted whiskey caramel.  I enjoy making ice creams and sorbets, because once I have base made, I can always be spinning.  I’ll be all hell of into doing something else (such as a simple plating) and the machine will go ”BEEP!” Then we eat soft serve.  Just keep spinning..Just Keep spinning

SPINNING ALL DAY!!!

The first night of the new dessert menu for Carlyle…well…it kicked ass.  The Car Bomb was of course the big seller, closely followed by The Deep Fried Caramel Apple Bread Pudding.  I was really happy with how the Cheesecake Three Ways went out, it was a study in cheesy custard.  We only sold two Velvet Elvis, but it was so great to hear the chef call it out across the kitchen, and to see dessert go out with bacon on it.  When the runner picked it up I called “Elvis has left the kitchen!”  The Rosemary Pinenut Tartlette was the sleeper, but a guest told the owner it was “damn good.”  I also put out a special order Apple Pie, for which we charged an exorbitant price.  The menu was so well recieved by the staff and guests it almost made me forget about this.

If I can make a custard with one arm, then I can make bread pudding.  If I can make bread pudding, then I can deep fry it.  Jaybill came up with idea as a joke, but I really liked the idea of taking old croissants, soaking them in custard, baking them in a waterbath, breading them with panko, and then deep frying them.  Anyway here’s Panko-Fried Chocolate Bread Pudding.  PFBP for short.  Check out how to make it in my new Recipes section.