We had this block before my two week vacation in France, so I’m a little fuzzy about the details. I also didn’t get to take many pictures, because I didn’t always have time to run down to my locker to get my camera. Instead of putting finished products out on the dessert table near the end of class, we served our desserts during lunchtime to people at the tables, so we were a little more rushed during the time that I usually take my photos. But one thing that I really liked about this block was that we often made new desserts each day, even if we were in a different “section” that other groups had already been in, so rather than making the same desserts that other groups had already made, we usually made variations… it made it more interesting.
I worked alone for the first three days of the class, which was fun and hard; everyone else had a partner. I liked having the responsibility and learning experience of having to make everything myself and seeing how it all turned out, but since I felt so rushed, I didn’t have the chance to really consider what I was doing in detail. I just wanted to get it all done — so it was like having a practical every day. 
And working alone also meant making obvious stupid mistakes–in hindsight–without the sober input of a partner to stop me… only the concerned look of the chef instructor did that for those three days.
So, this was a challenging block for me. And frustrating… I’ve been fortunate enough to eat at so many amazing restaurants all around the world where I could analyze and enjoy so many beautiful platings, and yet, when it was my turn to put together a plated dessert, I hardly knew where to begin. I tried to formulate the aesthetics in my mind based on shape and color, but the final result was often awkward.
I’ve mentioned the “craving test” for restaurants before, but frankly, the desserts that I crave the most are those from pastry shops that I eat individually at home, on a plate or from the box — no sauces, no garnish… just one thing that is beautiful and delicious all by itself. So, the real challenge of plated desserts was to consider the whole matrix of all that can fit together on a dessert plate — it’s like a puzzle of your own creation… If you can make it work texture, taste, and aesthetic-wise, you could put virtually anything you can imagine on the same dish as whatever else you can imagine; in the abstract, it reminded me a lot of filmmaking in this way. Since I like single pastries, it was by deconstructing those pastries that how I began to see just how plated desserts should be assembled. It’s almost embarrassing, but it wasn’t until the chef instructor gave me the most obvious excellent advice about plating that something clicked somewhat: think about how you want to eat it. After having been so caught up with the geometry of plating, I’d lost track of what matters the most to me: taste. As an example, here is a rum baba that I made and plated.
This was actually one of my cleaner platings, but now when I think about this plate arriving in front of me at restaurant, I know that the first thing I would do would be to pick up my fork and scrape those three blackberries next to the rum baba, and next, I would wonder why there isn’t more blackberry sauce. BUT, since I made this dish, I know just how delicious that rum baba is all by itself (it’s made with a brioche-style pastry that is soaked in a rum, orange, cinnamon, and vanilla syrup, and they turned out just nicely sweet and rum-y, with a rich butter-y at the very finish. We baked them in little savarin molds).
So, thinking about it now, I think I’d want the whipped cream and all the berries on top of the baba, and then the sauce perhaps circled around it, so that you could put put it on your fork if you so chose, or you could just have the baba by itself, as I like it best.
Btw, when I was 19, I ordered a rum baba in a cafe in Vienna, along with a tea with rum (simply because I legally could), and it was a disgustingly overly-rummy experience that gave me a vicious headache, so I wasn’t looking forward to making this… But I’m happy that this recipe resurrected the baba for me.
Toasted Hazelnut Creme Anglaise - Creme Anglaise is a classic dessert sauce that’s generally made out of milk, cream, sugar, yolks, and vanilla; it has a ton of other applications, too, such as being a base for ice cream and bavarian cream. The first time I made anglaise was for a practical a while ago, and the memory of curdled eggs haunts me still — because it curdled both times I tried to make it… after about 15 minutes of cooking each time. So, at this point, I erred on the side of under-cooking it, so this one turned out liquidy, whereas it should hold its own on a plate.
But I’ve had more experience with it since then, and feel more comfortable with it. Basic guidelines:
- To flavor it, you generally infuse the cream and milk and let it steep before possibly reheating it and tempering in your yolks. So, I chopped and toasted the hazelnuts and poured them into the cream and milk (and some sugar and a vanilla bean) before bringing them to a boil and then letting it sit for about 1/2 hour. Then I strained the liquid into a clean pot, and got on with the sauce.
- You have to cook it at a low temperature until the sauce is thickened just right… This happens at 180F, and is called nappe. This is when it is supposed to “coat the back of a spoon,” which is so weirdly specific, yet vague, that it never really helped me out before until the chef instructor explained it. What this really means is that if you dip a wooden spoon into the sauce and hold the handle parallel to the ground and run your finger across also parallel to the ground, then the sauce is ready when it holds the line formed by your finger without running down. Of course, once you are used to seeing what the sauce is supposed to look like at this point, then you don’t have to test it. And thermometers never helped me out… All my failed anglaises apparently curdled by 170.
Warm Chocolate Pudding with Nuss Sauce - This was a steamed pudding cake that involved a batter stabilized with breadcrumbs instead of flour (similar to the custard for the Queen of Puddings). It would have been easy except that taking bread from frozen-solid loaf state to bread crumb state as fast as possible was a little bewildering and time-consuming. I used the anglaise above to make the sauce, which had finely chopped hazelnuts and chocolate in it. I thought it would look messy, but it looks rather nice, almost confetti-like… but I need to figure out how to find the center of plates. Also, I wish this pudding tasted more chocolate-y, rather than nutty and bread-y.
Baked Apple Fruit Coulis - A coulis is a strained sauce. A chinois, which is a very fine, conical strainer, is perfect for this… it annoys me that they’re not more widely available (and cheaper) because they strain so well. The apple should have been baked with the skin on to retain moisture, but I peeled them after a confusing instruction about them. Despite covering them with aluminum foil, they still dried out in the oven. We did a quick fix by microwaving some new apples with the skin on until soft and then finishing them off in the oven. Then the skins were taken off and they were pureed in a blender and mixed with simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water, boiled) to make the sauce.
Cherry Sauce - This was made with dried cherries that were simmered in sugared, spiced wine until soft and then pureed until smooth and strained before added kirsch. The key to coulis seems to be cooking time and blender time because by the time I strained it, virtually nothing was supposed to strain except foam. The skins should have been softened and pulverized fine enough to pass through the chinois.
Red Wine Poached Peaches - These turned out to not be poached enough, even though they seemed to be soft enough when I poked them with my paring knife. It’s also best to let the fruit cool in the poaching liquid, even overnight, for them to soften properly.
And given my plated dessert naivete, it was a kind of a revelation when the chef chopped my peach half in half again to help me plate it — you could never do that with, say, an individual tart to sell.
But, when I look at it now and know that the peach was under-poached, I think it would have made the best sense to serve the peach in the poaching liquid so that as much liquid as possible is eaten with the peach. It may not look exciting, but it would taste better. Serving the poaching liquid as a drink separately in this case just accentuates the under-poached peach, I think.. although it was eye-catching.
Little Fried Pies with Whipped Cream - I’d never deep-fried myself before, and it was a lot less scary than I’d visualized (they just bubbled a little… rather than erupting hot oil all over the place, as I’d feared… but that would really only happen if you put a very water-y thing into oil anyway). Depending on the dessert, the oil should be at about 325F-375F to deep fry; in a pinch, if it gets much hotter, you can add more oil to bring the temp down fast. These were filled an apple fruit mixture, and were like fancied up McDonald’s Apple Pies. They were formed, frozen, and cut into round, crimped edge shapes with a cookie cutter before deep-frying and rolling them in sugar. They tasted great.
Coconut Crusted Banana Tempura - Finer coconut flakes are better then large coconut gratings for this.
We also made fantastic coconut chips to garnish this by dipping thin slices of fresh coconut into simple syrup and baking them until dried out. I forgot to put them on most of the dishes when I was plating them up, though, because they were at the wrong edge of my table. Stupid mistake. I was just so not in the habit of garnishing desserts at that point that I didn’t remember, but for plated, it’s very important to have everything laid out in the order of assembly so that everything gets on and this was a good lesson… I felt bad that the guests missed out on a delicious element because of my simple mistake.
French Toast with Pineapple Flambe - The french toast was so good — so creamy and delicious while still holding its shape. I used brioche pullman loaves, and soaked the pieces for 20 mins. The plating turned out to be a rather horrific, though, with a piled up combination of pineapple triangles and french toast sticks that will forever remind me to really visualize these things in gritty detail before I start going at them with a knife. Taste-wise, I didn’t like pineapple with french toast, and I don’t think I ever like pineapple warm.
Cremes Normandy - The crepe batter needed to be strained.
Peach Crisp with Vanilla Bean Creme Fraiche - Our under-ripe peaches didn’t really soften up, and the tops were burned in half the amount of time that they were supposed to bake in. We didn’t have enough peaches, so we put in some cherries, which was a good combo.
Lemon Souffle with Lemon Sabayon - This was a fun day. The groups making variously flavored souffles and practiced them in the morning… so whenever they were ready, the class was called over for a tasting. Unfortunately, the idea of souffles excites me, but whenever I get them, anywhere, they just taste like flavored, warmed eggs to me; ultimately, I don’t like them.
Edit: To test doneness for a souffle, the side should feel similar to when you press your finger against your eyelid with your eye closed. And if I remember correctly, I believe that pasta dough should feel like your earlobe and ripe camembert should feel like pinching the end of your nose.
Rosemary-Vanilla Bavarian Cream with Sugar Cookie Base - I wanted the rosemary flavor to be almost like an aromatic accent on the tongue, and it tasted very nice, esp with the strawberry glaze and sugar cookie. We did this in a flan ring, and I think that that the thinner layer of bavarian cream helped make this a very good workhorse sort of a dessert.
Apricot Yogurt Mousse - Basically, an entremet. The cherry gel center never set up, though, even though it seemed to be made correctly and put in the freezer.
Peanut Flour Panna Cotta - Dairy-free, with a base of peanut flour and water. Tasted like raw peanut butter, with an admirable panna cotta consistency. The banana puree went well with it flavor-wise, but the color was too similar for me; honey would have gone well with it, too, but the color would have also been very brown. Oh, and if you put a thin meringue cookie btw the panna cotta and the puree, it’ll melt. Oops. In my defense, I made the puree so that it would hold its shape in a dome on the cookie, and not run everywhere, until right before service, when I was told to thin it. Also, the meringue cookie needs to be separated from the silpat as soon as its done baking.
Bread and Butter Pudding - So good and so easy… I have wonderful memories of having this when I lived in London. Just mix together a custard base, pour it on bread, let it soak, and bake. Eggs shouldn’t be cooked twice for custards, so you wouldn’t want to, say make an anglaise instead and then bake it in a bread pudding, too. And, frankly, I’d much rather bake than anglaise.
Butterscotch Pudding Trifle with Dried Fruit Compote - This was fantastic, and it’s too bad I didn’t get a picture of it. It was layered with orange marmalade, thin discs of sponge cake, whipped cream, and pecans. I made sure to press fruits from the compote against the side of the glass so that they could be seen.
Hazelnut Parfait with Roasted Hazelnuts and Chocolate - This was a parfait in the sense of a frozen dessert that’s made by beating yolks, sugar, and brandy over a double boiler until they form a ribbon, whipping til cool, folding in whipped cream and flavor, and then freezing it.
Apple Sorbet with Apple Cider Granite - We used a refractometer to determine the correct percentage of sugar for the sorbet; it should be 26-28 Brix. Granite is so easy… you just freeze and scrape, and they have a marvelous crystal texture.
Oreo Cookie Ice Cream - Just by folding oreo crumbs into a vanilla ice cream base, you get a seriously good dessert. We made this with a chocolate sauce and a quenelle of whipped cream with a brandied cherry in the center tucked into a curled chocolate tuile. It was adorable and delicious.
