Archives Under "recipe" (RSS)
The Bomb.
11 February 2010 | Europe, chocolate, delicious, dessert, faithful readers, pastries, plated dessert, recipe | 5 Responses
A fucking bomb went off! Chocolate flourless cake, salty caramel core, milk chocolate shell and blood orange ice cream. The dessert is inspired by a pastry I had in Paris, from the shop of the revered pastry Chef Pierre Herme. It was a bombe, tempered shell and caramel core, I enjoyed it on a park bench in Luxembourg gardens. Mr. Herme ingeniously used a macaron base, his desserts were all marked by inventive skill and imagination. I employ a compressed devil’s food cake sealed with icing to seal in the oozing salty caramel, just a candle held towards Chef Pierre’s brilliance. The milk chocolate shell is just that, tempered 38% milk chocolate. Here’s a recipe for my faithful readers.
Blood Orange Ice Cream
2 cups milk
2 cups blood orange puree
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 oz butter
pinch o’ salt
2 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup egg yolks
P.S. See this in the Willamette Week?
2010: The Future is Now.
7 January 2010 | Ten 01, cake, delicious, dessert, faithful readers, pastries, plated dessert, recipe | 5 Responses
Two thousand and motherfucking TEN?!? The future is now my faithful readers. I command the powers of the internet in my pants. I make ice cream base in an immersion circulator. As a race we fringe on symbiosis with technology; and I can’t wait to realize this next phase of evolution. Anyway, I been busy as shit. The holidays kicked my ass; and with in-laws in town and hell of prep, plating and me plowing through it all it went by in a pop! Shit 2009 was a pop, a bang, a blast, dice cast and rolled and truth be told past year was fucking fast. I turned thirty, I got married, I’ve become a half way decent pastry chef and an annoying blogger. I’ve made some bad-assed desserts and also learned some killer savory food. Pretty standard actually. Looking to the new year, I’m hoping to step up my game. Turn it up to eleven so to speak. I just need to work harder, cleaner. The desserts will be smaller, more precise. Flavors? Louder. Here’s a recipe bitches. I adapted it from one of the best recipes I’ve learned in a long time.
Graham Cracker Sponge Cake
250 g soft butter
375 g sugar
5 g salt
6 eggs
375 g fine ground graham cracker crumbs.
7.5 g baking powder
100 g A.P. flour
1. Preheat your convection oven to 300 F. Spray and line with parchment one half sheet pan.
2. Cream the butter, sugar and salt light and fluffy in the bowl of a stand mixer.
3. Weigh the crumbs, baking powder, and flour into a bowl and whisk them together well.
4. Add the eggs 2 at a time, allowing the batter to fully absorb each addition of eggs. Scrape the bowl twice during this step.
5. Scape the bowl again and add the dry ingredients all at once. Mix the batter on low speed until homogeneous.
6. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and bake 12 minutes, rotate the pans, and bake an additional 6 to 8 minutes, or until golden brown and springy. Use as a base for a no bake cheesecake or serve it warm with a cream cheese ice cream.
Pootang 3.0.
18 November 2009 | Ten 01, chocolate, creative presentation of the week, delicious, faithful readers, plated dessert, recipe | 2 Responses
It’s funny how one idea leads to another and sometimes the most obvious idea is the best one. Looking at my Fat Spouse dessert, it was good; hell it was great even. What it lacked however was a warm element. Something to start melting that malted milk ice cream and pretzel bark. Something rich and fatty. Like pootang…BREAD pootang. All peanut butter chips and compressed devil’s food cake stratifying a rich brioche custard. There’s been some discussion of pootang technique in the kitchen as of late, and one thing again leading to another, I’m now pureeing my base. It creates an even, dense, almost cakey texture. The chunks of devils food are compressed in the vacuum sealer then diced. Finally a good use for that bomber technique. You can get cool potions this way, but a realized dessert was tricky. Now how about that fancy cruise ship garnish? I got the idea from a dish wifey had dining when we dined at Spago Beaver Creek. A simple piped lattice of tempered chocolate onto acetate, scored and bent in a PVC half pipe. The other tile of tempered chocolate underneath the ice cream is a buffer between the cold scream and the warm pootang. Cocoa nibs help it grip. I brought back the dulce dessert Watchmen blood drip plate saucing technique for good measure. This fucker gets oohed and ahhed every time it hits the table. Here’s the recipe for enjoyment of my faithful readers.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Bread Pudding
6 oz butter at room temperature
6 oz sugar
2 oz dark chocolate
4 oz peanut butter
5 eggs
3 cups heavy cream
12 -15 brioche buns
2 cups diced compressed devils food cake that has been diced
1 bag Reeses peanut butter chips
1. Cream the butter and the sugar with the paddle. While they are achieving light and fluffy in your stand mixer, melt the chocolate and peanut butter over a double boiler.
2. When the sugar and butter are light and fluffy, add the melted chocolate and peanut butter. Mix until well incorporated, scraping the bowl as necessary.
3. Add the eggs one by one, scraping and incorporating.
4. Switch to the whisk and add the heavy cream on low speed. Keep the machine going while you prep the bread.
5. Cut the bread into large chunks. Take the custard off the machine, add the bread and mix thoroughly. You need enough bread to make a messy paste. Too much and your pootang will be dry, to little and it will be a custardy mess. Cover the mix and let it soak over night. This is essential to chingon pootang.
6. Next day pull the base and puree it in the food processor. Transfer to a large bowl and mix in the chunks and chips.
7. Prepare one half sheet tray with sprayed parchment. Pour and spread the base into an even layer. It should ride the rim of the pan. Cover with plastic wrap, then cover with aluminum foil. This will create a nice even top.
8. Bake in a 300 degree convection oven for about 25 minutes, rotating once. It is normal for the pootang to souffle a bit while baking. When it is done it should be dry (baked looking.)
9. Cool completely before slicing to de-molding desired shape. Reheat portions in the microwave for 20 seconds.
Chicken & Broccoli Gratin, Bacon Fat Biscuits
9 November 2009 | bacon, eating, nomnomnomnom, recipe | 3 Responses
Just something I threw together for me and wifey on a Monday night. I’ve been cooking for her when I can, usually Mondays, and usually chicken. My lovely better half has a very refined palate; that is to say she won’t eat shit. So it’s normally chicken I cook, I’ve perfected my fabrication, brining and crispy skin. This Monday, however, I had breasts. In an attempt to church them up with limited resources, we’ve got this little dish here. I worked my way through a handful of recipes in J.O.C., and what I realized I wanted was a gratin. Saucy, cheesey crusty, etc. It’s was a rainy northwest winter day and after a haircut and a Fremer run I was drinking beers and cooking. My other big goals for the day involved blogging, flogging, and not jogging.
Bacon Fat Biscuits adapted from J.O.C recipe
1 3/4 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
5 bacon fat
1 tbslp butter
3/4 cup half & half
flour for dusting
1. Pre heat oven to 450. Sift the dry ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer.
2. Measure and freeze the bacon fat and butter. Micro plane it into the dry ingredients.
3. Mix the dough with the paddle attachment on low speed just into a loose wad begins to form.
4. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and pat into a disk with floured hands.
5. Cut desired shapes and bake 12-15 minutes, again G.B.D.
Serve with:
Chicken & Broccoli Gratin
2 brined chicken breasts
2 cups blanched Broccoli
2 oz parmesan
2 oz cheddar grated
1 oz dolloped buitter
1 slice oven dried bread of your choice
1/2 cup candied walnuts
2 tblsp flour, plus more for dredging
1 cup chicken stock
1 tsp chicken demi
2 tsp sherry vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
1. Brine the chicken breast and blanch the broccoli if you haven’t already. Drain and dry the chicken. Hold in the fridge with the blanched broccoli.
2. Pulverize the parm, bread, and walnuts in a food processor, reserve.
3. Dust the chicken with flour and sear it in a hot pan, finish in a 400 degree oven.
4. Remove the chicken from the pan and hold at room temp. Add the flour to the pan and it’s drippings, cook for two minutes. Add the stock stock and demi whisk smooth.
5. Cook the gravy for 5 minutes.
6. Slice the chicken and arrange it and the broccoli in the desired pan. Spoon on the gravy. Cover it with the crumbs, grated cheddar and dolloped butter
7. Bake for 10 minutes, then turn on the broiler. Broil until crust is G.B.D.
Fat Spouse.
23 August 2009 | chocolate, delicious, faithful readers, plated dessert, recipe | 7 Responses
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.
Simple Bacon Cornbread.
28 July 2009 | bacon, delicious, faithful readers, recipe | 6 Responses
This is based on a polenta cake recipe I found on the web somewhere. The oil from the original recipe is substituted with rendered bacon fat, then the bits are mixed into the batter and it’s baked. I like to buy the bacon scraps from the meat counter at New Seasons for this; it’s already cut up. I’ve been tweaking and working this recipe for a bit, it’s almost ready. Ready enough to share with my faithful readers. It still evolves, however. My friends ask me to make this for picnics and such, this one here was for an Independence Day party at my neighbor Damien’s house. I’m glad I made it that day; it caught the attention of someone who wanted the recipe for something awesome. As i started to put the recipe together; rendering the bacon and sifting the dry ingredients, I realized I wasn’t going to have enough fat. Fortunately, I had some pork belly scraps in the freezer, also a deli cup of the rendered fat. Hooray for melted pig flesh!
- Cut most the bacon into small dice. Leave some bigger chunks for chewy treats throughout.
- Render the bacon in your 10 inch cast iron skillet. I recently learned to put some water in the bottom of the pan and cover it, steaming the bacon some to get at that delicious fat. Remove the lid after about 8 minutes, and brown the bacon. If you use a 10 inch cast iron skillet like I do, bake the cornbread right in that pan without washing it.
- Weigh the dry ingredients into a bowl and whisk to combine.
- In a separate bowl, weigh the liquid ingredients and whisk to combine.
- Whisk the wet into the dry and mix to a smooth batter. Stir in the canned corn. Stir in the bacon.
- Bake in desired form at 325 until golden brown and springy, about 12-15 minutes
Your Mom’s White Chocolate Mousse.
17 May 2009 | chocolate, dessert, recipe | 3 Responses
Like most people on Planet Earth do nowadays, I Google a lot of shit. In fact as of late, I annoyingly bark searches into my hand-held device, and somehow Google finds that shit. Mostly I get lost on random pics and silly articles. YouTube and Hulu of course; Twitter, sure. Oh yeah and porn, can’t forget about porn. Often however, I search recipes. Now there are recipes and there are recipes; but like your mom, this one is HUGE. This simple ratio can be divided or multiplied to any yield, a supple and smooth mousse for piping or filling. I’ve tried infusing the cream, I’ve substituted brown butter for half the weight in chocolate. This versatile recipe is the basic formula for my dulce de leche mousse. I’ve filled cakes and tarts or just scooped it onto a plate. This particular batch was for rather large off site event a few months ago. When I was searching for a vessel large enough in which to melt twenty one pounds of chocolate, I didn’t deem it necessary to make certain said vessel had no cracks or holes, which it did. I poured over a gallon of hot scalding cream into the large square container, then watched white chocolate ganache come oozing out the bottom an onto the floor. Very unpleasant. Be sure to double check your equipment always, but especially when working with a recipe of this size.
White Chocolate Mousse
1 gallon 1 qt heavy cream
21 lbs white chocolate
100 grams sheet gelatin
1 1/2 gallons heavy cream
1. Weigh the gelatin into a bowl and bloom it with cold water. Drain. Weigh the chocolate into a large vessel.
2. Heat the first amount of cream to a scald, and pour it over the white chocolate. Add the gelatin. Whisk until smooth. Cool to room temp.
3. Whip the second amount of cream to soft peaks. Fold into the chocolate mixture. Chill the mousse thoroughly before use.
Devil’s Food Cake with Dulce de Leche Mousse.
27 April 2009 | Ten 01, chocolate, creative presentation of the week, delicious, faithful readers, pastries, plated dessert, recipe | 8 Responses
in possibly my best effort in plated dessert design to date, I give my faithful readers this fucking thing. Hopefully, the plate exudes a clean elegance, peppered with a touch of how’ did he do that? Well, I’ll tell you. The sponge cake base is a classic Devil’s Food cake recipe that I found in one of my new favorite cookbooks, Dessert Fourplay by Johnny Iuzzini. The recipe calls for mayonnaise, which tickles me, and keeps the cake super-moist. The science of that is kind of obvious: cake batters have eggs and oil, mayo is eggs and oil emulsified. On top of the sponge cake I pipe a chocolate icing that I found the recipe for on the best food site ever, IDEAS IN FOOD. The icing calls for sweetened condensed milk (like the dulche,) and balsamic vinegar to blend with dark chocolate. The sticky icing has a nice subtle acid note, a quiet personality. On top of the icing is a thin piece of tempered chocolate, a nice thin snappy-crunch. I’ve seen garnish this used a lot; especially in Parisian pastry shops. With the help of my ChocoBot, some marble slabs, and some precise cuts, this process proved to be quite easy. Just like Salted Caramel Sauce, easy peasy-smack-a-jeezy. Really, the only semi-difficult element to this dish is the dulce de leche mousse. The recipe it self is no brain-tease; just a spin on a white chocolate mousse. In fact, I was originally going to use caramelized white chocolate, but decided the laborious process wasn’t worth the taste. It tastes like dulce, so why not just use dulce? Making dulce de leche is not hard, just kinda weird. Take a few cans of sweetened condensed milk, place them in a large pot (yes in the can.) Fill the pot with water, be sure to cover the cans by a few inches. Bring the water to a boil, and keep boiling for 3 to 4 hours. Keep a bucket of water nearby to refill the water as it evaporates. After 4 hours, kill the heat and dump out the water. Cover the cans with ice to cool them off. When cooled, open the cans and enjoy the dulceness. I know this sounds strange, but it’s way easier than the traditional method. So here’s the hard part, molding the cylinders. Not really hard I guess, just time consuming. I’ve seen Michael Laiskonis of Le Bernardin make cool cylnders on his blog, and always wanted to try it. After a month of experimenting, I have a process. There’s got to be a better way, but here’s how I do it. Take your cannoli forms and line one side of each mold with tin foil. Stand them upright in a six pan or secured with a rubber band on a sheet tray. Line each mold with acetate, the thin clear plastic stuff. When the mousse is ready, pipe it into the molds. Freeze them shits rock hard, at least 3 hours, better to do it overnight. \Demold the mousse and plate while frozen, and thaw in the fridge on the plates. Serve with desired components. Or wrap them shits.
Dulce De Leche Mousse
4 1/2 sheets of gelatin.
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
1 lb 5 oz Dulce de Leche
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1. Bloom the gelatin in cold water.
2. Weigh the dulce de leche into a bowl. Bring the first measurement of cream to a boil, and then pour it over the ducle. Drain and add the gelatin. Whisk to combine. Or use an immersion blender.
3. Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature. Meanwhile, whip the second measurement of cream to soft peaks.
4. Fold in the cream gently. Pipe into desired molds, or just into a martini glass. Chill until set and enjoy.
Milk Chocolate Cheesecake: BAM!!
30 March 2009 | Ten 01, cake, chocolate, delicious, dessert, faithful readers, plated dessert, recipe | 3 Responses
As my faithful readers may guess, I hesitate to utter or type the word “bam,” let alone “BAM!” I find it appropriate here however because of two things. Firstly, I stole this recipe from none other than the “bam-man” himself, Emeril Lagasse. Second this cheesecake hits you like so many extra handfulls of whatever it may be, BAM! Leaving the audience (you,) asking for more. At first glance, any pastry minded person would wonder at the food processor method and the addition of flour for this cheesecake. Also, no water bath while baking? My employer Adam mused that it was no doubt some kind of shortcut or compensation for poor technique. The likelihood of him being correct doesn’t change the silky texture and pure indulgence of this tangy chocolately treat. The only thing did I differently was to increase the milk chocolate by 2 ounces. I use a water bath, too. I just have to. I also use a milk-chocolate feuillitine crust after baking and chilling and an oreo cookie round when it hits the plate. I make the milk chocolate crust by melting the chocolate over a double-bloier, then mixing in enough feuillitine to have a fluid but crunchy texture. I bet you could use chopped cereal flakes and have similiar results, if you’re having trouble finding the feuillitine. I hate soggy graham cracker crust. At first I baked it in a square and cut rectangles, but soon switched to the demisphere, which due to gravity actually bakes things into truncated domes. I glaze them in dark chocolate and pipe the cute little milk chocolate lines. For sauce I use a blood orange caramel, which balances with he milk chocolate nicely. When I sauce the plate, I envision the mask of Rorschach from Watchmen, because I’m a silly dreamer.
Emeril Lagasse’s Milk Chocolate Cheesecake
3 pounds cream cheese, softened
2 cups sugar
6 large eggs
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup bleached all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
10 ounces milk chocolate, melted
Beat the cream cheese in a food processor until smooth. Add the sugar and process. Add the eggs 1 at a time, running the processor in between each addition. Add the heavy cream, flour, salt, and vanilla and process until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. With the motor running, add the chocolate in a steady stream. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan. Bake (in a water bath) until the center of the cake sets, about 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Oreo Cookie
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
8 oz soft butter
1 tsp salt
1 tblsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups A.P. Flour
Cream the butter, salt and sugar well, but not to light and fluffy
Sift in the flour and cocoa powder, then mix to form a dough
Cover with plastic and chill at least one hour before rolling on a floured surface and cutting out cookies
Bake at 350 for 12 minutes
Molten Chocolate Doughnut.
18 February 2009 | Ten 01, delicious, eating, recipe | 11 Responses
Everyone who has ever eaten in a restaurant, from Jean Georges to Chili’s, has heard of the Molten Chocolate Cake. It has been called many names: lava cake, volcano cake, molten lava cake, melting chocolate cake, and warm melting chocolate cake, but are all basically the same. An almost flour-less cake with usually equal parts butter and chocolate, with eggs and sugar. Baked in a mold until almost set, served warm and oozing, it is the bane of pastry chefs everywhere. Leastways, it’s baned the shit out of me, ranking second only behind Creme Brulee as most annoyingly de rigueur dessert for non-adventurous diners. Chances are, if you worked in pastry, you’ve served some version of this cake. Anyway, in recent days I’ve had my head buried in Johnny Iuzzini’s book Dessert Four Play. One of the most eye catching recipes for me was his Crispy Creamy Chocolate Doughnuts. His method, seemingly daunting, involves many advanced techniques and obscure ingredients. I wanted to make this dessert pretty badly, even going so far as contacting Terra Spice Company and pricing some of these odd chemicals. My brain then farted loudly and reminded me of a similar dessert I saw in another of my favorite cookbooks; Desserts by the Yard by Sherry Yard. She uses her truffle cake batter to make what she calls Deep, Dark, Decadent Doughnuts. Reviewing the Truffle Cake recipe, I did a double take. Fucking Lava Cake. Deep fried Molten Chocolate Cake. I had to give it a try. Was is going to be like Johnny’s? Doubtful. Would it be deliciously decadent? More than likely. I made the recipe and proceeded with the normal method. The doughnuts oozed way to thinly, essentially chocolate sauce encased in panko. After doubling, then tripling, and again and again; I ended up at eight times the flour in the original recipe to get the right consistency. These things are a bit of a pain in the ass, I won’t lie. Most excruciatingly scrumptious things are. I made eighty of them for a recent event at Ten-01. Thanks to Johnny for the inspiration, and to Sherry for a more down to Earth approach.
Molten Chocolate Doughnuts
8 oz dark chocolate (64%)
8 oz butter
6 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
panko, egg wash, and more flour as needed to bread
1. Bring the butter to a boil and pour it over the chocolate. Whisk smooth and keep warm.
2. Whip the sugar and the eggs about three minutes; until lemon-colored and almost double in volume.
3. Whisk the chocolate into the eggs all at once, whisking smooth.
4. Add the flour, again whisking smooth.
5. Transfer the batter to a flexible silicon mold and freeze rock hard, at least 4 hours.
6. Turn the cake out onto a lightly floured surface. Using a 2 1/2 inch doughnut cutter, cut out 9 doughnuts.
7. Bread the doughnuts twice, according to the standard breading procedure, and refreeze until ready to fry.
8. Deep fry at 350 until golden brown, and hold at room temp for service. Heat through in a 300 degree oven until warmed through, about 10-12 minutes. Sprinkle with salt. Serve with Pistachio Creme Anglaise if you like.