Chocolate Chipotle Molten Cake with Grilled Banana Ice Cream

On Friday the theme for my plated dessert class was Mexico. My chef said he was expecting earthy flavors and alot of spice. I had no idea what I wanted to do for a dessert so like any good pastry chef I started to look all over the internet to try and get inspired. I kept looking at the list of ingredients we had to work with and kept hopping from one site to another. And thinking of what my chef has wanted something earthy and smoky. I know that chocolate and chipotle are an amazing combination because I made ice cream in one of my other classes and I wanted to try and work that idea into my dessert. That is where the cake idea developed from. Now I had to think of the ice for our dish. One group was doing smoked ice cream and i really wanted to do something smoked so my brain started turing when I looked at the list of fruit we would be able to work with and poof! Grilled Banana Ice cream was created. I am very proud of this dish because I put alot of thought into it and like out chef said am trying to challenge myself. I have never smoked anything so I figured this was the best opportunity to try it out. We ended up grilling the bananas over the stove but it still added a nice smoky flavor to the ice cream. Along with those components we made a fresh fruit salsa which we incorperated dehydrated strawberries, this makes the person eating the salsa have to chew it longer allowing the person to taste the food more. Our chef really loved our dish. I was excited and it made my day!

Roasted Pineapple Soup With Fried Coconut Pastry Cream

This week I started my new set of Labs for the P4 program that I am currently enrolled it. I am taking a plated dessert class and the first day was very intense and all of information at once. Also we began production right away. We were partnered up and we told to discuss a fruit soup that we would have to make that day for production on the following day. My partner and I decided on using pineapple to make our soup. Like all soups we had to start with a stock so we first roasted all the skin of the pineapple, the core and some of the meat with brown sugar in the oven. After the pineapple was nice and golden brown we placed it in a pot and deglazed the pan with some banana liquor. We then add water and placed the pot on the stove until the fruit was tender. To help increase the flavor we let the stock base sit overnight in the fridge. The next day we reduced the pineapple liquid. And placed all the liquid and meat of the pineapple in a vitaprep to get out as much flavor as possible. And we served out soup hot because the flavor was more intense. Also we made fried coconut pasrty cream. The pastry cream has a higher cornstarch content so that it will be able to be fried. Also with frying the pastry cream the cornstarch flavor goes away.

A Bunch of New Stuff

Sorry I have not updated my blog in a while I have been very busy with work and school but here is a bunch of pictures from various things I have been working on. Hope you like them : )

Angel Food & Pear Napoleon

I was asked to make dessert special for Wednesday this week. So I started brainstorming on various items I could try to make and something thing that is in the season. So I looked through one of our pastry books for ideas of fall flavors. The first thing I came upon was pears. And that is where my idea began. And I had made angel food cake a few days before but never was able to use it, so I was going to incorperate it into my dessert. I reduced some pear puree and steeped some star anise in it to give off a little different taste. Then I proceeded to create a pear filling. After doing to I cut the angel food cake into thin layer so I could stack the the cake to make in a way a Napoleon. I also incorperated some salted caramel. Everyone seemed to like it.

Roasted Peaches

We had a dessert pre-fixe a week ago that I had to make up so I decided to do something simple but full of flavor. So we have been getting in some amazing peaches from Califonia and I decided to use them in my dessert. I roasted them in the oven with brown sugar. And then coated them with the juice that formed on the bottom of the sheet tray. When I platted them they were warmed to the order and were served with vanilla ice cream, which was a nice contract the the warm peaches. It is always the simplest desserts that sell that most.

Earl Grey Creme Brulee ....

For the special on Saturday I decided to change things up and do something I knew the club members would probably love because they love the simple things, so I made a creme brulee. Instead of making just a plain old vanilla creme brulee I wanted to try something different thus the earl grey infusion. Also to go with the creme brulee I wanted to make macaroons. I love the cookies, they are so simple but can be made into incredibly different flavors. I decided a almond macaroon would compliment the dessert nicely. And we had some orange buttercream from a previous party so i included that into the cookies. The orange would be able to bring out the orange in the tea. Nicole, the woman I work for said she does not really like earl grey tea but in this application it tasted very good and I did a good job with the dessert. It is an awesome feeling having your boss and the person you look up to for guidence in your career say you did an awesome job on something. That is why I am in this field and love it so much. Because such a small thing like a creme brulee can have an impact on someones life. : )

Special Special... Read all about it

At my work we have to make a new special everyday... I work at a club where all the members are the same and they like to have something different to pick from besides the menu which changes occasionally. So this week the woman I work with was on vacation which meant I had to decide and choose all the specials for the week. This task while it might sound easy is not when you have work and school to think about, which would be my situation.It is nice to have something that challenges you such as thinking up a new dessert each day. It makes work more interesting. If i did not have to focus on school and work at the same time I think my dessert specials would be more intricate.

So on Saturday the week before I came up with a list of various desserts to execute. Some went over well with the members while others were not even tempted. Today I made a fresh fruit tart with vanilla pastry cream & plum-blackberry sauce. In the morning shift 6 were sold however during the night shift there was only 1 sold. So it went over well. For somw reason people love thier fruit tarts