Archives Under "dessert" (RSS)
Now That’s a Cake.
10 August 2008 | cake, Ten 01, dessert | 2 Responses
I’ve been mentally putting this cake together for two months. When I finally attached the last rose, and stepped back, taking it all in…I was quite pleased with myself. After 12 or so hours total prep time over 4 days, the thing looked pretty damn sharp. I could hardly remember all the baking and prepping of the fillings and the 6 a.m. rolling of the fondant. It all seemed like a dream now. At service time, I pulled off the lace so the newlyweds could get the first slice. It felt like foreplay as the thin black fabric fell away. Watching the bride and groom grin and cut into it and stuff each-others faces, I knew I had a silly smile, too. I waited in the the crowd with a sharp blade. Foreplay was almost over. And you know what that means. This was the first cake that I’ve made that I also got to cut and serve, and while intimidating at first was easy and fun to do so. There was a certain bent appeal to spending so much time to get this perfect, then just wheeling over and hacking it apart. In spite of the fondant, I knew also this cake tasted great. Two of the layers were Grand Marnier soaked chocolate sponge with chocolate mousse. One was lemon pound cake with lemon pastry cream, and finally a vanilla sponge with vanilla pastry cream. With sticky hands I plopped piece after piece onto to an endless line of plates being rotated in front of me. As I cut it, the servers ran pre-sliced chocolate truffle cakes from the back. 200 people were caked in about fifteen minutes. The rest of the food we put out for the party was really nice as well. From sushi to prime rib, they ate it all. It was a good day. Days like this remind me why I love this business, why I have no problem with the long-hours and sometimes less than ideal conditions. We came, we cooked, and it was good. That’s F&B, baby.
The Latest Dessert Menu.
30 July 2008 | Ten 01, delicious, plated dessert, dessert | 3 Responses
So I took the chocolate flour-less cake recipe that I used for Chocolate Whiskey Cake, and I piped and swirled some NY Cheesecake batter into it and I’m calling it Marble Cheesecake. I discovered this process by mistake at Carlyle, where I had the two batters ready at the same time. Funny how stuff comes together sometimes. I learned one recipe from Tony, and one from Mark, it’s as if I delivered their bastard child. The creaminess of the cheesecake flirts with the fudge-like chocolate, blackberry coulis and delicate horseshoe chocolate garnish sells it. Pretty cool looking I thought, and hell of decadent. I used this cake for a recent off-site event, and it was well received. Some people even want it for their birthday. Right now Bramble-type berries are so good in Oregon, and these blackberries are no exception. Viridian farms delivers, and the berries don’t disappoint. Take for example their blueberries, which are an integral part of the Lemon Blueberry Tart, below. This is an extremely simple dessert, pate sucre, lemon curd, the blueberries and coulis, a bit of chantilly. It’s selling well. I didn’t know how it was going to work until I had it on the plate. Simple and delicious. I’m also using their raspberries for the new Bread Pudding set, with raspberry caramel ice cream, a different but delicious frozen treat. Also new this menu is Funnel Cakes. I wanted to try these again to see if I could actually produce them, instead of just piping a few like I originally did. I can. I can also serve it with roasted banana anglaise and call it a day.
NY Cheesecake…Kind Of.
4 June 2008 | creative presentation of the week, delicious, plated dessert, dessert | 1 Response
People go nuts for this dessert. Eyes pop out of people’s heads. It changes worlds. Even Chef cleaned his plate and he rarely does with sweets. So it’s this month’s Creative Presentation of the Week. Just a little New York Style Cheesecake with Balsamic Strawberries and Hazelnut Scone. As I look at the plate now, I marvel at how I put TWO leaves of mint. C’mon dude! It’s a basic cheesecake recipe I learned from Mark Metzger at the Vail Cascade. I used it also at Carlyle for the cheesecake three ways. Thanks Mark!! The balsamic strawberries were Chef’s idea, and after some tinkering we reproduced them. Look at those babies! All glistening and shit. The “crust” on this cheesecake comes form of scone. I always liked scones for strawberry shortcakes and this dish had strawberries so I thought, what the F. Toasted hazelnuts and sugar crust it up. It’s a little weird, sure, but damn yummy. My faithful readers need these recipes. So…here:
Metzger NY Cheesecake
1 1/2 # cream cheese at room temp
6 oz sugar
Pulp of 1 vanilla bean
3 eggs
1. Preheat the oven to 250 (200 for convection.) Place the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla pulp in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle. Beat on low speed for 5 minutes
2. Scrape the bowl thoroughly with a spatula.
3. Add the eggs, one at a time scraping thoroughly between each addition. The more careful you are here, the better your end product. Add and scrape!! Visualize that nipple in the bottom of the mixing bowl, and scrape it well!!
4. Transfer the batter to a square flexible mold.
5. Bake in a water bath for 25 minutes, then rotate the pan, and bake for another 15 minutes.
6. At this point, the cheesecake should be set on the outsides, and slightly jiggly in the middle. Open the oven door for a sec, then close it and turn the oven off. Set a timer for 45 minutes. I finish all of my custards this way, it works really well. Thanks Alton.
7. Chill the cake for at least 3 hrs before attempting to de-mold and slice. I usually flash mine in the freezer for about 25 minutes to get a clean square.
Balsamic Strawberries
3 cups balsamic vinegar
1 cup honey
granulated sugar to taste
2 vanilla beans scraped
2 pods toasted star anise
2 1/2 - 3 cups hulled local strawberries
1. Measure the balsamic and honey into a pot and whisk to combine. Whisk in the the sugar 1/2 cup at a time until you reach the desired sweetness. Remember the strawberries have a good sweetness as well.
2. Scape the vanilla pods into the pot and bring the mix to a boil.
3. Add the berries and kill the heat. Cover and steep for 25-30 minutes until berries are tender but still slightly firm. They will carry over, so…
4. Create an ice bath with water, ice and two vessels. Stop the cooking process.
5. Carefully pour the steeped berries and liquid into the ice bath. Try not to agitate the berries as they cool, they become very fragile.
Scones
I left the scone recipe at work. Eat your fucking cheesecake. Here’s a good scone recipe for you. And here’s a picture of some ice creams.
Here’s a New Dessert.
18 May 2008 | Ten 01, plated dessert, dessert | No Responses
Actually, it’s an one that Tony taught me, I give it a little spin with caramelized banana’s and creme anglaise. It’s a brownie base, peanut butter crunchy layer, and milk chocolate mousse. Peanut florentine cookie garnishes. I’m also doing Bailey’s Creme Brulee with double chocolate cookies. Fucking Fantastic! A weird and interesting dessert was Melon in Lime Syrup with Crispy Phyllo and Black Pepper Ice Cream (below.) It was an adaptation of one of David Lebowitz’s ideas from his book the Perfect Scoop. Damn Tasty. As we roll into summer I’m trying to get more frozen treats on the menu, y’know ice creams and such. I made a Mint Chip the other day that was probably the best ice cream I have ever made. Fresh and minty, I ate it right from the machine. Soon I will unleash it on the public. I also saw some good berries at the farmer’s market this saturday. Hopefully I can get some soon to make short cakes. Hey, check out this web comic I found today: Obscene Cuisine by John McDowell. It’s all about restaurants and written by an actual disgruntled chef. Funny shit.
I Make Dessert V.
26 March 2008 | Ten 01, delicious, plated dessert, dessert | 4 Responses
Awww…it’s cute!! Well as Tony once said, we’re in the cute business. This is the Sorbet Trio, dreamed up by Jack Yoss, and realized by me. Chef wanted to do this dish for this past New Years Eve, and they we kept it on the menu as the light choice. At first, before I got Gelatoo-D2, we were buying all of our sorbets (and ice creams) from Great Northwest Ice Cream in Vancouver, WA. Now that we make our own, I use the simplest of techniques for sorbet. Mix 2 parts fruit puree to 1 part simple syrup. As a general rule this works for every puree I’ve tried. Pictured above is pear, strawberry, and marionberry. I adjust sweetness to taste by adding water, add a little lemon juice, and spin it. An easy test for proper ingredient porportions in the “egg test.” I don’t know why this works, but it does. I believe it is somehow measuring brix. Anyway, after you mix together all your ingredients, gently place a whole egg in its shell into the sorbet base. If the egg floats so that only a dime-size portion of the shell is above the liquid, he has achieved the right balance of ingredients. If it sinks lower, the mixture requires more sugar. If more of the shell is visible, the recipe needs more water. Like I said, I’m not sure of the science here, but I’m okay with that. So you’ve got your sorbet, how about those adorable little cones? Those are made from a simple tuile cookie recipe that I stole years ago from Charlie Trotter’s Desserts. The batter is spread into a flat cone shape, sprinkled with chopped hazelnuts, baked, then molded while still warm in a pastry tip. In an airtight container, they last forever. I rotate the flavors of “broth” that the sorbet’s sit in, it’s basically a sweetened fruit puree and a complimentary wine that is brought to a simmer and then chilled. This week it’s Raspberry-Rose. I use little stray pieces of pate fruit (gelee) to garnish the soup. Here’s some recipes:
Basic Sorbet Base
2 cups fruit puree
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
juice of half a lemon
1. Combine the sugar and water in a saucepot and bring to a boil. Chill completely.
2. Mix the 2 cups puree with 1 cup of the simple syrup. Add the lemon juice. Taste it. Is it too sweet? Add water.
3. Perform the egg test as described above…go ahead…it works.
Tuile Cookie Batter
6 tblsp (3 oz) butter
pulp from 1 vanilla bean
3 egg whites
1/2 cup plus 1 tblsp sugar
1/2 cup plus 1 tblsp a.p. flour
for chocolate use:
1/4 cup plus 1 tblsp a.p. flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1. Melt butter with vanilla pulp and cool to room temp
2. Whip egg whites and sugar to soft peaks
3. Sift in flour and mix to combine
4. Store or spread thin and bake @ 350 for 5-7 minutes
I Make Dessert IV.
23 March 2008 | Ten 01, delicious, plated dessert, dessert | 3 Responses
Now, as my faithful readers know, I love Bread Pudding. If I see it on a dessert menu, I order it. Something about soaking brioche or croissants in a rich custard and then baking it (and then frying it,) really appeals to me. In the case of Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding , pictured here, I use brioche. I serve it with caramelized bananas, dark rum sauce, and salted caramel ice cream. It’s starting to beat out the Chocolate Cake as our top selling dessert. The idea for bread pudding, is as old as the hills, and its no wonder. Set the Way Back Machine for the middle ages, at the advent of custard. Dude’s sitting there eating his baked custard, or more likely, swirling his day-old bread in his creme anglaise. Ever the frugal cook and lover of bread (in spite of its short window of delicious,) he swirls and dunks and lifts and chews. POP! The light bulb goes off, bathing everyone in the light of pudding history, bread pudding is born. Seriously, though, a better use for stale bread bread cannot be found. It’s actually better with stale bread, because it’s more absorbent. Old cookbooks have tons of random recipes, but I like to take a slightly different approach. Chef Tony showed me a way to make the custard that makes a lot of sense. Creaming. If you follow the creaming method, you get a nice rich custard where the butter is evenly dispersed in tiny little particles that melt into the bread in the oven. Overnight soaking is key, getting that bread good and permeated with eggy flavor and creamy goodness. Below is a huge recipe, adapted from Chef Tony Martin’s Bourbon Bread Pudding that to this day, is the best I’ve tasted. I added chocolate chips to his base, but you could add almost anything to this, and it would be damn good. This recipe is 1/3 of what I use, it makes one 2″ hotel pan. Want a smaller recipe? Try this one.
Bread Soaking Custard
1 lb 4 oz butter
1 lb sugar
15 eggs1 qt heavy cream
1 qt half & half
vanilla extract to taste
1. Cream the butter and sugar light and fluffy with the paddle attachment in a stand mixer.
2. Add the eggs slowly, in three additions, waiting until the eggs absorb and scraping before each addition.
3. Switch to the whip and add the cream and half and half.
So now that you have your custard, you need to soak some bread in it. You need enough stale bread (brioche, croissants, or other bread-remove crusty crusts) to soak up almost all of the custard right when you mix it in. Then cover it and soak it over night. Next day mix in the desired amount of chocolate chips (or ripe bananas, caramel apples, scales of a sea serpent, eye of newt, or whatever tickles your fancy.) and bake it, covered with foil, in a 325 degree oven for about 45 minutes, until its set. If you like, pull the foil off 10 minutes before its done to brown the top. Try something else delicious: omit the sugar, andbefore baking, add sauteed mushrooms, or chunks of foie gras, or bacon, or something savory. It’s gonna be great.
I Make Dessert III.
20 March 2008 | Ten 01, creative presentation of the week, delicious, plated dessert, dessert | 4 Responses
So we’ve all had creme brulee, and we’ve all had peanut butter and jelly, but who out there among my faithful readers has had PB&J Creme Brulee? I love this fucking dessert. I think it deserves Creative Presentation of the Week. Why, you may ask? Well, it’s the culmination of alot of hard work, during which I subsisted on pb&j sandwiches, and also, I’ve known this peanut butter custard recipe was solid since The Velvet Elvis. This idea had been struggling to come out, and it took the influence of Chef Jack Yoss to see it’s realization. I made him the peanut butter brulee to try and he suggested putting marionberry jam into the ramekin first, ’cause he loved the custard…and he loves pb&j, too. We first tried it in our regular brulee molds, but after one day the jam would seep through the custard and create this gnarly looking scar when you tried to brulee it. We went to a deeper dish to avoid that problem, and also started reducing the jam first to remove any excess moisture. House made honey roasted peanuts are sprinkled on after carmelizing the custard. The shot of chocolate milk actually came about because of a guest suggestion: it was good, but needed chocolate. After some experimentaion, I went with good old Hersheys choclolate syrup to make it because let’s face it, that’s what chocolate milk is. A little heavy cream adds some creaminess, as if this dish needed it. This is my favorite item on the current menu…I don’t know why we don’t sell more of them…C’MON PEOPLE!!! The only thing missing is the bread, and you had some with your salad!! Anyway, here’s the recipes:
Peanut Butter & Jelly Brulee
1 1/3 cups whole milk
1 1/3 cups whipping cream
6 tablespoons plus 6 teaspoons sugar
5+ oz creamy peanut butter (do not use old-fashioned style or freshly ground)
8 large egg yolks
marionberry jam as needed (or any other jam that you prefer)
1. Combine milk, cream, sugar and scald
2. Temper in eggs
3. Temper in peanut butter and whisk until smooth
4. Taste the cream. I always end up adding a little more peanut butter, up to 1 cup
5. Strain the cream and chill overnight or at least three hours.
6. Place the jam in a saucepot and reduce it by one-third over low heat, stirring occasionally.
7. Cool the jam slighty and then spread it in an even layer into the bottom of desired (deep) ramekin. Pop them in the freezer to set the jam.
8. When the jam is super cold and won’t be distured by pouring in the custard, pour in the custard
9. Bake the custard in a 300 degree oven, in a water bath for 30 minutes or so, or until set at the edges, and a little loose at the center. Open the oven, turn it off, close the door, and finish them for another 45 minutes.
10. Chill the brulee’s for at least 3 hours before sprinkling some granulated sugar and a blowtorch to carmelize. Sprinkle with loose chopped honey roasted peanuts if desired.
Chocolate Milk
2 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
10 oz Hershey’s Syrup
1. Place all ingredients in a blender and blend. Serve ice cold in a chilled glass.
I Make Dessert II.
18 March 2008 | Ten 01, delicious, dessert | 9 Responses
Here is another dessert that I serve at Ten-01. It’s called Olive Oil Beignets with Lemon Sage Anglaise. I did this dessert at my tasting for the job here because we have these really sweet bowls. The sauce rides in a little caddy up front, and the dougnuts in back. I think these were what got me the job. Oh yeah, and a little magazine called Bon Appetit is running them in thier June 08 issue. The pastry is a basic pate choux, where most of butter is replaced with olive oil. Typically, choux paste uses water, but I like using good ‘ol whole milk. The batter is basically an enriched roux that eggs are added to while its still warm. I’m not sure what science is going on here, but according to Harold McGee in On Food And Cooking, cooking the flour with the liquid and fat tenderizes the gluten protiens, preventing them from develpoing elasticity, and the addition of eggs adds flavor from the yolks and structure from the whites. This basic recipe dates back to 1540, and was fine tuned much later by none other than Antoine Careme. After making the batter I pipe it into little dougnut shapes and freeze them rock hard. They go from the freezer straight into a 325 degree fryer for about eight minutes, until golden brown. While they’re still a little greasy and pipng hot, I toss them in granulated sugar. Half the point of this dish is the sauce, and with the infusion of sage and lemon zest, it nails that whole sweet/savory thing. Another ancient recipe, creme anglaise, is about as easy as it gets. Bring the cream, sugar, zest and herbs to just boiling, kill the heat and cover it for 30 minutes. Strain out the cream and temper in the yolks and cook it, stirring constantly, to a thick custard, around 165 degrees. Once cool, its perfect for dipping doughnuts or spinning into ice cream. Pastry Chef Heidi Kaufmann at Fenouil gave me this sauce recipe, it’s really quite good.
Olive Oil Beignet
2 cups milk
2 oz butter
6 oz olive oil
2 tblsp sugar
1/2 tblsp salt
2 cups A.P. flour
8 eggs
1. Bring first 5 ingredients to a boil
2. Sift flour and add to pot, cooking until it forms a ball
3. Transfer the mix to the bowl of a stand mixer, and add the eggs slowly, one or two at a time
4. Pipe and freeze
Lemon Sage Crème Anglaise
by Heidi Kaufmann
3 cups heavy cream
6 oz sugar
pinch of salt
Pulp of ½ vanilla bean
1 handful of loose chopped Sage (stems as well)
Zest of 2 lemons
3/4 of a cup egg yolk
1.Combine first six ingredients and bring to a simmer
2.Turn off the heat and cover, steep for 30 minutes
3.Strain the resulting liquid and return to heat, scald.
4.Temper in egg yolk and cook to nape
I Make Dessert.
16 March 2008 | Ten 01, delicious, plated dessert, dessert | 4 Responses
Okay, so I’m no Michael Laiskonis. I am however, a pastry chef, and I’m making some pretty tasty delights at Ten-01. I’m going to use my next few posts to describe my current menu, because I’m pretty proud of it. What better place to start than our best seller, The Chocolate Whiskey Cake. It’s a rich flourless cake that contains all my favorite ingredients: chocolate, butter, sugar, eggs, and booze. The butter is melted and poured over the chocolate. While that cools to room temperature the eggs and sugar are whisked up until they just turn pale and the sugar is dissolved. The to mixtures are then combined, and finished with the booze, which in this case is Maker’s Mark. I pour the batter into a framed half-sheet pan, and bake it in a 250 degree oven in a water bath. The tricky part of this recipe is knowing when it’s done. I pull it when its still loose in the center, and its starting to souffle a little on the edges. It needs to cool and set up before slicing and serving, which I like to do overnite. The cake is covered with ganache and white chocolate lines before slicing. I serve it with a Dulche de Leche ice cream and Brown Butter Caramel. The chocolate flag garnish gives it some height. It’s fucking delicious. To be quite honest, I’m kind of bored with it, and I wish someone else would make it. So here’s the recipe:
1 lb 13 oz chocolate (%68)
1 lb 13 oz butter
13 oz sugar
13 oz whole eggs
3/4 cup liquor (I’ve used whiskey, kaluha, bailey’s, meyer’s…you get the idea)
1. Chop the chocolate into small pieces and place it in a bowl
2. Melt the butter until it just starts to bubble, then pour it over the chocolate-cool to room temp
3. Whisk the eggs and the sugar together in a seperate bowl
4. Whisk the eggs into the chocolate
5. Pour the batter into a prepared pan and bake in a 250 degree oven, in a water bath, for thirty minutes or so.
6. Chill the cake for at least 3 hours before slicing
Christmas Eve: Chestnut Souffle with Meyers Rum Anglaise
25 December 2007 | carlyle, dessert | No Responses
