Dessert First

Sweet Sushi and Other Surprises

I've mentioned Elizabeth Falkner and her cookbook a few times already, I've even got to meet her last year, but it's not until now that I finally got to try out the recipes in Demolition Desserts. Verdict? Baking with Falkner is like being told you can play with your food, literally any way you like. The results are surprising, imaginative, and - not least of all - delicious.

I made one of the first recipes that caught my eye when flipping through the book - it perfectly exemplifies the creativity and playfulness that infuses Falkner's desserts. What looks like oddly like a set of sushi rolls you'd find in a Japanese restaurant is actually a modern, deconstructed take on tiramisu. A chocolate roulade is wrapped around a sweet marsala mascarpone filling and sliced into neat litle rolls that are arranged next to a mocha-rum dipping sauce. Where are the chopsticks? Made of a sesame-flecked vanilla biscotti, natch. Falkner even suggested grated pear "ribbons" to imitate the pile of ginger that accompanies most sushi - I didn't do that part but her cleverness and attention to detail is amazing. And the name of the dessert - Tiramisushi - almost makes you wonder why someone else didn't come up with it before.

Making this felt like a cross between baking and art project - all the familiar elements were rendered new and exciting due to their unconventional uses - I'd never sliced biscotti into slender little stems or thought about adapting a traditional roulade form to a squatter sushi shape. It was all very intriguing and eye-opening, especially making the cake rolls. Having rolled up sponge cakes for jelly rolls and bûche de Noël before, I thought would be the easiest parts, but it turned out to be one of the tricker tasks. The problem I had was that Falkner has you bake the cake in a quarter sheet pan, or a brownie pan, which is smaller than a jelly roll pan and results in a thicker cake. I believe she did this so that the thicker cake would more closely resemble the solid layer of rice in a sushi roll - you don't want to cake to roll around itself several times like for a jelly roll, but only once to just enclose the filling.

It's harder to roll a thick piece of cake up than a thin one, especially if the cake is overbaked and drying out and cracking as you attempt to wrest it into a perfectly round form. So, it's important not to overbake this cake and keep it moist and soft to ensure it rolls up nicely. I also found that spreading the filling on the cake after letting it cool for a few minutes and then rolling it up also helped things. As you can see, I managed to get a few fairly shapely rolls out of this!

With all the pieces in place, this dessert is not just visually appealing but gustatorily satisfying as well. The chocolate cake is light but intensely chocolatey, marrying well with the creamy, sweet mascarpone filling; it's almost like a luxe version of one of those Hostess snack cakes. The slight bitterness of the espresso and rum laced chocolate sauce adds another layer of flavor to the combination as well as a providing an extra indulgent touch, and the biscotti chopsticks are the perfect crisp topper. All the parts of a classic tiramisu are in here, just in a jazzy new form. It's also very easy to play around with all the flavors of the different components, making this a very versatile and lovely dessert - one that's sure to inspire comments and smiles whenever you bring it to the table.

I heartily recommend Falkner's book - it's full of imagination-sparking creations like this, and it's wonderful fun to read as well. You may be inspired to come out with some sweet surprises of your own.

I'm getting ready to make a trip to the east coast for business related to my own book, so I'll be busy packing this weekend. I do have a post all ready for next though, so do stop on by - and I can't wait to share tidbits from my trip when I return!

I

Tiramisushi

adapted from Elizabeth Falkner's Demolition Desserts

Cocoa Roulade Sponge Cake
1/2 cup (2 1/2 oz) flour
1/4 cup plus 1 Tablespoon (1 oz) cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
3 large eggs
1/2 cup ( 3 1/2 oz) sugar
pinch of salt
2 Tablespoons (1 oz ) butter, melted butter
1 Tablespoon water
Confectioner's sugar for dusting

Marsala Mascarpone Filling
1 cup (8 oz) mascarpone cheese
1 Tablespoon confectioner's sugar, sifted
1 Tablespoon Marsala wine

Mocha-Rum Dipping Sauce
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 Tablespoon corn syrup
1 Tablespoon cocoa powder
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into pieces
3 Tablespoons hot brewed espresso
2 Tablespoons (1 oz) butter
2 Tablespoons rum
pinch of salt

To make the cocoa roulade, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9"x13" baking pan well and line bottom with parchment paper.

Sift flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder into a bowl and set aside.

Whisk eggs and sugar together in a metal bowl. Set over a pot of simmering water on the stove and heat for a few minutes, whisking constantly, until the mixture is thick and warm to the touch.

Pour egg mixture into bowl of a stand mixer, add the salt, and whisk with the whip attachment on high speed for a few minutes until the mixture has cooled and tripled in volume.

Remove bowl from mixture and fold in flour mixture with a rubber spatula, trying not to deflate the batter.

Combine melted butter and water and add to the batter, folding in to combine.

Pour batter into prepared pan and spread out evenly with an offset spatula.

Bake for about 8 to 10 minutes, rotating halfway through. The center of the cake should bounce back when pressed with a fingertip.

Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes on wire rack before unmolding onto a piece of parchment paper dusted with confectioner's sugar. Peel off the piece of parchment on the bottom of the cake.

Cut the cake lengthwise down the middle so you have two long skinny rectangles. Slide rectangles apart. Now, if your piece of parchment is really big, you can cut it in half so each cake rectangle is on its own piece of parchment that you will use to roll it up. If your parchment is small, prepare new sheets of parchment dusted with confectioner's sugar and place a cake rectangle on each one.

Here Falkner has you roll the cake up from the long side, using the parchment paper as a guide to help roll and keep it in place. Then you let the cakes sit overnight rolled-up before unrolling them, spreading with filling, and rolling them up again. I found that when I tried this the cake seemed to dry out and crack and not roll up very well. The easier method for me was to spread the filling onto the cake and then roll it up, and then store in the refrigerator. Make sure the cake is not still piping hot from the oven or it will melt the filling, but the sooner you fill it, the easier the cake is to roll. You can make the filling ahead of time so it's ready to go when the cake is out of the oven.

To make the filling, combine all the ingredients together in a bowl until evenly blended. Do not overmix.

Spread half the filling down the center of each cake rectangle. Using the parchment paper as a guide, roll up the cake from the long side into a cylinder. Store the parchment-wrapped rolls in the refrigerator
for at least an hour to chill and set. Be sure to set them against something so they don't unroll.

I haven't included the recipe for the biscotti chopsticks because it would make this entry too long, but you can simply use your favorite biscotti recipe. Form the dough into more of a rectangle than a long log. When you take the biscotti dough out of the oven the first time, let cool for about 10 minutes, and then cut into chopstick-size sticks instead of the regular biscotti shape.  Return to the oven and bake again for the indicated time until they are firm and golden.

To make the dipping sauce, combine the cream, corn syrup, and cocoa powder in a saucepan. Heat on stove over medium heat until mixture starts to simmer.

Place the chocolate in a metal bowl and pour hot espresso over it. Pour the hot cream mixture over it and stir until chocolate is melted and everything is combined.

Add in the butter, rum, and salt, and stir until butter is melted.

When you are ready to serve the dessert, take the rolls out of the refrigerator and cut into rounds about 2 inches long. Arrange on a plate with the dipping sauce and biscotti chopsticks.

Tagged with: Elizabeth Falkner + Citizen Cake+ Demolition Desserts + tiramisushi + chocolate

Bite This!

Cookie Craft

I never really thought of myself as artistic - my sisters can draw and paint, but not me. Baking is where most of my creative energies find their outlet. And when people ask if I can make one of those elaborate wedding cakes, I get nervous and tell them that's not really my specialty.

But when a copy of Cookie Craft, a book on cookie decorating, arrived on my doorstep for me to review, my curiosity was piqued by beautiful cookie flowers on the cover. I started reading and found myself, yes, awed and intimidated by the flawless creations inside, but also eager to try some decorating of my own - for once!

Cookie Craft, by Valerie Peterson and Janice Fryer, is an engaging, and inspiring guide to the boundless possibilities of cookie decorating. Reading it is like taking a complete course on the art cookies - the authors cover everything from baking cookies to all the various decorating techniques, to suggested themes and ideas to fire your imagination, to templates for elaborate oversized cookie creations.

Whether you're a neophyte or experienced decorator, this book provides plenty of useful material and tips. What I really liked was how the authors have developed an efficient system for baking and decorating cookies, and shared it in a very straightforward and accessible way. Cookie decorating, just like the rest of baking, depends a great deal on planning and organization for success, and the authors show how simple creating a batch of gorgeously decorated cookies can be with just a little forethought.

Some of the useful tips I picked up from this book:

- Pick a theme and draw out your designs before you make your cookies. Having a guide to refer to makes it much easier to plan what shapes and colors you'll need, and makes it less likely that you'll make a mistake when decorating.

- Set up your decorating area before you start, as well - they have a helpful little diagram showing a table set up with piping bags neatly lined up, squeeze bottles full of flood icing, a tool tray with decorating implements, and racks for drying cookies. When I made my cookies, it really did make a difference to have everything on hand - I was able to focus on decorating and not on wondering where everything is.

- Toothpicks are extremely useful decorating tools - they smooth out any piping flaws, spread flood icing, clean off cookie edges, and a multitude of other useful tasks.

- #2 decorating tips are definitely the most versatile tip for piping - and it's best to have several of them so you can have multiple colors going at once. The tips are fairly inexpensive as well - in all, I was surprised how easily you can set up your decorating supply kit.

-It does take practice to get your decorating down - but that's what extra cookies are for! Imperfect cookies are perfect for decorating practice - and just as delicious.

The book is packed with lots more useful information - there are base recipes for cookies to decorate (I tried the sugar and they were quite tasty), royal icing recipes, and complete discussions on all the options in the decorator's arsenal, from imprinting to cutouts, flooding to fondant, sugaring to luster dust. To help the reader visualize how to use all these techniques, the authors provide dozens of gorgeously photographed examples with instructions, from holiday themes to special occasions. There are also sections on baking tips and tricks that are useful for any baker, not just for cookie making. Finally, to really challenge and inspire the reader, the last chapter includes what the authors call "showstoppers" - three-dimensional cookie houses, edible cookie containers, whimsical centerpieces made from cookies with some icing to hold them together.

This charming, comprehensive tome is a wonderful reference for any baking library - I highly recommend it. To test out some of the techniques in the book, I chose one of their themes, Winter into Spring. Using the same flower cookie cutter, I was able to practice some basic piping, floodwork, and decoration with drageés and sanding sugars. It's quite gratifying, really, how many variations you can come up with using just four colors of icing and a handful of sugars.

It's been a busy couple of weeks with me working on my own book; I'm missing the simpler days of just baking and blogging. It was nice to just bake a batch of cookies and spend a day with them and some icing, tracing out hopeful premonitions of the spring to come. Sometimes cookies fresh from the kitchen are all you need.

Tagged with: cookie craft + valerie peterson+ janice fryer + cookie decorating

Bite This!

A Sneak Peek at Desserts by the Yard

If you recall my cookbook wishlist from a few weeks ago, you'll know that my bookcase is being threatened with imminent collapse in the next couple of months. How fortunate then that I recently received an advance copy of Sherry Yard's upcoming Desserts by the Yard: since it was softcover and weighed less, I was still able to squeeze it into my pile of books. Better yet, it's more comfortable to read in bed!

I'm only half joking when I say cookbooks are my bedtime reading of choice, but Sherry Yard's new tome really is one you can sit down and read from cover to cover. It's half memoir, half cookbook, and entirely entertaining and fascinating. Yard recounts her life as one long love affair with desserts, from her childhood in Brooklyn to her storied partnership with Wolfgang Puck at his dazzling collection of restaurants. The book is divided into sections by her various experiences around the world instead of the usual chapters on cakes, cookies, and tarts; while this may seem confusing at first, it ultimately works with Yard's narratives to paint a complete picture of how her tastes developed and how she draws inspiration from all parts of her life.

From the early chapters recounting her days growing up in Brooklyn, we get recipes based on her mother's homemade chocolate mousse, her favorite birthday cake from the local bakery, and her grandmother's strawberry sodas. Moving on to her beginnings as a pastry chef in the exciting culinary scene of New York City in the 1980s, Yard shares the chocolate souffle she made at the Rainbow Room and the caramelized banana tart that was a favorite at the Tribeca Grill. We follow Yard as she travels west, first to San Francisco and Napa, and then down to Los Angeles, developing, as she says, from a pastry chef to a dessert chef. The recipes grow more sophisticated and complex, and reflect her new found love of seasonal produce and farmers' markets: mango upside-down cake with blueberries, chocolate "purses", ginger creme brulee tart with figs and mulberries.

Yard ends with some of the showstopper desserts she's created for the Governors Ball that Wolfgang Puck caters after every Academy Awards: chocolate boxes, twelve-layer Dobos torte, miniature Oscars made out of chocolate. By now one is completely blown away by all the Yard has experienced and done so far in her amazing career: she has worked in some of the best-known restaurants around the world, served dessert to thousands of celebrities, and yet remains sweetly down-to-earth and wonderfully enthusiastic about sharing her love of pastry with the world.

Yard's charming, intimitable style makes this book a real standout among baking books. Not only are the recipes creative and clearly written (those who have her first book, The Secrets of Baking, will not be disappointed), but they are grounded by her storytelling, giving them a history and personality that makes them that much more appealing. It's the difference between the recipe for chocolate chip cookies on a bag of flour and finding Grandmother's own version of apple pie in her recipe box. All of Yard's recipes have the most fascinating headnotes recounting how she was inspired to create this dessert, whether it was a childhood memory or newly discovered fruit at the market or a trip to Vienna. It makes, as I said, for absorbing reading outside of the kitchen, and a great motivator afterwards to get in the kitchen and start baking!

As this is an advance, unfinished copy, I don't want to give away any of the recipes yet, since they might be revised in the final version. But I did try her nectarine cobbler, since I picked up some really pretty nectarines at the market, and the result is stellar. Nectarines are baked in a bath of champagne, honey, lemon juice and spices, topped with a cross between a biscuit and puff pastry. Such a simple, cozy hug of a dessert on a crisp, autumn-scented evening: sweet warm fruit under a crumbly buttery crust. I'm definitely putting many of the other recipes from the book on my to-make list.

Desserts by the Yard should show up in bookstores very soon - I'm looking forward to seeing the published version, even if it means further rearrangement of my bookcase!  P.S. Check out Veronica's early review too - the two of us are like little kids jumping up and down waiting for Santa to arrive with new books!

Tagged with: Sherry Yard + Desserts by the Yard + nectarine cobbler

Bite This!

It's Cookbook Time!

I know fall has technically not arrived yet (just a few days away!), but already thoughts of the holiday season are popping up in my head. You know where baking is concerned, one can never start thinking about the holidays soon enough.  All the pies and tarts and crumbles filled with pumpkin and apples and pecans and cranberries, gingerbread houses, Yule logs, Christmas cookie packages ...it's almost enough to make me squint into the sunny sky and wish for the end of the year to come sooner. Almost.

Of course, holiday season also heralds major book release time, another reason I'm so excited. There are quite a few noteworthy baking books coming out to cap off a pretty stellar year for pastry in publication. I was going to do up this wishlist closer to November or December, but I've found out that many of the tomes on it are coming out in the next month or two - getting an early jump on the pocketbook, perhaps? Or think of it as more time to test-drive new recipes in your kitchen and picking your favorites for parties and presents to come.

Without further ado, my guide to the best of what's coming out in the world of baking cookbooks. Salivate, dream, put on your own gift-giving list or better yet, your list for Santa. It's going to be a very sweet holiday season indeed!

Marcel Desaulniers' I'm Dreaming of a Chocolate Christmas - who doesn't remember seeing the gorgeous, oversized Death by Chocolate and Desserts to Die for on bookstore shelves? Desaulniers has returned with another decadent ode to chocolate, this time with a holiday theme - how very timely. If you are looking for a new showstopper dessert to serve at the season's parties, this book is certainly the one to consult.

Dominique and Cindy Duby's Wild Sweets Chocolate: Sweet, Savory, Bites, Drinks - Wild Sweets is still one of the most exotic and intriguing dessert books I own. In their half kitchen, half laboratory, the Dubys take pastry to the cutting edge, and their fascinating concoctions were presented like modern art in their first book. Now in their sequel, they have dedicated their efforts to exploring chocolate. It's not wholly composed of sweet recipes, as the title suggests; following their highly visionary bent, the Dubys have experimented with chocolate in savory dishes and cocktails as well. I'm very eager to see what has sprung out of their marvelously creative imaginations this time.

Claire Clark's Indulge: 100 Perfect Desserts - Pastry chef at The French Laundry. Do you need to hear anything else? While this does not appear to be a collection of dessert recipes from the French Laundry (you can find some in The French Laundry Cookbook), it is a reflection of Clark's 23+ years working in pastry around the world. I'm eager to learn from the person Thomas Keller chose to head up the pastry department in his most famous restaurant.

Gina DePalma's Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen - Mario Batali's famous NYC restaurant has brought Italian cuisine to a new level; not surprising that his pastry chef would do the same. Besides recreating traditional Italian desserts, DePalma also includes Italian-American recipes, as well as what she calls American-Italian creations, or modern desserts inspired in some way by the flavors and baking techniques of Italy. Dolce indeed!

Elizabeth Falkner's Demolition Desserts: Recipes from Citizen Cake - One from my hometown. Mention desserts in San Francisco and invariably Citizen Cake will come up. I think this book is long overdue; I've always been enchanted by Falkner's creatively composed and cleverly named desserts, and she promises to share many of her secrets in her first, and hopefully not last, book.

Sherry Yard's Desserts by the Yard - The Secrets of Baking holds a prized spot on my cooking bookshelf; the scientist in me loved her methodical, logical breakdown of basic pastry techniques and her clear explanations on how to use and combine them to make any dessert you could imagine. I'm so pleased to see she's coming out with another book, this time a collection of her favorite recipes from all the renowned restaurants she's worked at over the years. Veronica is already in love with it!

Be assured that reviews of these books will go up on Dessert First as soon as I can get my hands on them. In the meantime, if you need even more books to hanker after, here is a partial list of some other 2007 releases.

Have a wonderful weekend - when I post next, it will be fall, and perhaps I'll have something figgy for you all to enjoy:)

Tagged with: baking books + Marcel DeSaulniers + Dominique and Cindy Duby + Claire Clark + Gina DePalma+ Elizabeth Falkner + Sherry Yard

Bite This!

Pure Dessert, Pure Inspiration

When I met up with Veronica of Veronica’s Test Kitchen a few weeks ago, not only did I get the pleasure of a fun night out with a fellow baker, but I was also clued in to an early release of Alice Medrich’s newest book, Pure Dessert – one I’d been eagerly awaiting. Veronica had just taken a class earlier in the day from Medrich at my alma mater, and what surprise did Medrich have in store for her students but several copies of her latest tome, fresh from the printer! Of course my immediate question was, “Are there any copies left?” Veronica, who shares my ardor (and impatience) for new cookbooks, very sweetly had a copy set aside for me when she returned to class the following day, for which I’m happily indebted to her. Thanks so much, sweetie!

In a sea of lookalike cookbook releases, many of them tired riffs on dusty old themes, Medrich’s book is an elegant, assertive breath of fresh air. Moving far beyond her familiar domain of chocolate, she re-examines the very concept of dessert from ingredient up, espousing her new philosophy of simplicity and purity. There are no elaborate, multi-component desserts or fancy, cutting-edge techniques in this book; instead, Medrich returns to the basics and turns them inside out, reinventing them into something new and exciting.

Medrich does what I would love to do all day long (alas, until I find someone to pay me for it, I must fit kitchen time in with the rest of real life): experiment in her kitchen. She takes apart recipes, examines methods and ingredients, and hones everything down to reach the most perfect, purest expression of flavor. Her boundless curiosity and rigorous methods are illuminating and inspiring; like the very best standard-bearers of any field, she makes possibilities seem endless and exploration an exhilaration. I’ve had people ask me, “well, how many desserts could there be? After you’re done a chocolate cake and a vanilla cake and a strawberry tart and a blueberry pie, haven’t you pretty much made everything?” Medrich’s book is a resounding no to that sentiment and an exuberant yes to experimentation, creativity, and imagination.

In her book, Medrich plays with the variety of ingredients, new and old, available to bakers: buckwheat and kamut flours in her scones, kafir cheese in her tarts, sesame oil and muscovado sugar in her cakes. She reconsiders baking techniques and recipes with the mind of a scientist: cakes are made with both cold and room temperature butter; spices are incorporated into batter or sprinkled directly over just-baked cookies; tea infusions are made with both hot and cold cream. Her thoughtful reasoning, and her dissection of her experiments, leads to some fascinating discoveries and a greater understanding of how baking works and how to best use various ingredients in this process.

The result is a wonderfully eclectic, marvelously original, and deeply personal collection of recipes. Like some of my other favorite recent cookbooks (Kate Zuckerman’s The Sweet Life, Pichet Ong’s The Sweet Spot, and of course Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours), Medrich’s book moves beyond a mere compilation of desserts to a glimpse inside the author’s mind and her thoughts and feelings – you share in her ideas writ tantalizingly in sugar, chocolate, fruit, and honey. I found what Medrich had to say enormously captivating. She wants one to see baking the same way cooking is being viewed today, as the search to best express the qualities and flavor of an ingredient. Baking doesn’t have to mean tons of white sugar and whipped cream everywhere; it also doesn’t have to mean following the same rigid rules to get the exact same result every time. It can mean using unrefined sugar or honey to give new nuances of sweetness to custards, or using whole grains to add nutty dimension to shortbread, or cooking fruit to enhance its flavor before turning it into ice cream.

Inspired is the perfect word for how you will feel after reading this book. You will be inspired to run to the grocery store and pick up ingredients you had never used before in baking. You will be inspired to look at the ingredients you have in your pantry with a new eye. You will be inspired to look at a basket of berries, or a jar of honey, and think about how to best capture and showcase it in a cake, or ice cream, or cookie. You will be inspired to know that you don’t need to make a multi-layer cake or an elaborate composed dessert or use ten different pastry techniques to make something sweet and satisfying.

One of the many desserts that caught my eye as I was leafing through the book was Medrich’s Bittersweet Citrus Tart with Jasmine Cream. You may remember that she had a similar recipe in her Bittersweet cookbook, the tempting Bittersweet Chocolate Tartlets. Here, they are reimagined in a more elegant incarnation, with a deliciously grown-up combination of flavors. One thing I like about Medrich is that she is unafraid to reexamine and redo her own recipes. There is no resting on her laurels, only a constant drive to update and improve. The new version of her tart has a ganache-like layer of citrus-hinted chocolate in a crisp buttery tart shell. Infused with the zest of pink grapefruit and blood oranges, enriched with butter and egg, the chocolate is as luxuriously smooth as a truffle center and pleasantly tangy to the taste. Medrich places a dollop of jasmine scented cream on top, but I took it a step further and turned it into a delicate ice cream. A scoop of this ethereal, floral ice cream makes refreshing and intriguing foil to the robust richness of the tart.

Pure Dessert should be available in most bookstores by now, so you can see for yourself what Veronica and I have been raving about. As an inveterate bedtime reader of cookbooks, I can vouch that this book has not left my nightstand since I've gotten it!

   

Bittersweet Citrus Tart

adapted from Alice Medrich's Pure Dessert

makes one 9 1/2 in tart or (6) 3 1/2 in tarts

Crust

8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1/4 cup sugar

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup (4 1/2 oz) flour

Filling

8 oz semisweet chocolate (62% preferred, I used Guittard 61%)

5 tablespoons butter

1/2 teaspoon grated blood (or regular) orange zest

1/2 teaspoon grated pink grapefruit zest

1 large egg yolk, room temperature

1/4 cup boiling water

For the crust: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Combine the melted butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt in a bowl and mix together with a wooden spoon.

Add in the flour and mix until combined. You can let the dough sit for a few minutes to firm up if it seems too soft to manipulate.

Grease the bottom and sides of your tart pan(s)  - I suggest ones with removable bottoms to make it easier to remove the tarts after baking. Press the tart dough into the bottom and sides of the tart pans, taking care to spread the dough as evenly and thinly as possible (this is not difficult but may take some time and patience.)

Bake the tart shells in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the shells appear golden brown and firm. Remove and let cool completely on a wire rack.

For the filling: Combine the chocolate, butter, and citrus zest in a bowl and set over a saucepan of simmering water to create a bain-marie. Stir frequently to ensure the chocolate and butter melt together evenly. When the mixture is completely melted, take off the heat and set aside.

Place the egg yolk in a small bowl and slowly whisk in the boiling water, taking care not to cook the egg. Place the bowl over the simmering water and whisk the egg mixture continually until it reaches a temperature of 160 degrees F.

Pour the egg through a strainer into the chocolate mixture and stir gently to combine - try to avoid creating air bubbles in the mixture.

Pour the filling into the tart shells and spread evenly. Place the tarts in a covered container and chill in the refrigerator for at least 3 to 4 hours to set the filling.

When you ready to serve the tarts, take them out of the refrigerator about half an hour beforehand to let it soften and regain the shine on its surface.

Jasmine Ice Cream

makes about 1 quart

2 cups heavy cream

2 cups milk

4 tablespoons loose jasmine tea (leaves or pearls will work)

1/2 cup sugar

pinch of salt

Combine all ingredients in a heavy saucepan and place on stove over medium heat. Stirring occasionally, heat until the mixture just comes to a boil.

Take mixture off heat and let cool to room temperature. Pour into a container, cover, and chill for at least 6 hours or overnight. You may want to check the mixture while it is chilling to make sure it has not become too strongly flavored from the tea.

Strain the mixture to remove all the loose tea. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions.

Tagged with: Alice Medrich + Pure Dessert + Bittersweet Citrus Tart + jasmine ice cream

Bite This!

Dreaming of the Mediterranean

edited to add recipe!

Do these look like boats on the clear blue sea?

Summer is slowly drawing to a violet-and-rose sunset of a close, but is it too late to dream of one more vacation? I didn't get to travel to Europe this summer, but I did the next best thing: I read David Shalleck's Mediterranean Summer.

Shalleck's book combines the best aspects of cooking memoir and travelogue, along with an utterly irresistible premise: sail the Mediterranean on a luxurious sailing yacht, stopping at the most beautiful villages and ports along the French and Italian coastlines, while eating classic Italian food prepared by the talented ship's chef. As I am not planning on buying my own yacht complete with private chef any time soon, this was pleasurable daydream-fulfillment of the highest order.

Shalleck stumbles upon the job of ship's cook at the end of a series of culinary internships he undertook in Italy, while he was seeking the experiences that would inspire and elevate his cooking skills. When he finds out that a wealthy Italian couple is looking for a chef to cook aboard their newly purchased yacht Serenity for the summer, he accepts - one of those impulsive decisions that leads to a seminal life experience - and an absorbing, fascinating story for the reader.

Cooking aboard a yacht presents challenges undreamed of by the cook on land. The galley is tiny and underequipped; there is barely any counter space, and the storage space for food is minimal. There are no gimbals installed beneath the stove to keep it horizontal against the motion of the yacht, meaning Shalleck has to watch out for sliding pans and sloshing water. Oftentimes the Serenity will be at sea for days, so food shopping must be planned carefully - there's no where to go if an ingredient is forgotten! Finally, Shalleck must serve as one of the crew members when he's not cooking, so he has to be able to perform all the same backbreaking tasks like lowering and raising the sails as everyone else, along with feeding the owners and crew.

Add in that the owners of Serenity are extremely sophisticated and demanding gourmands, and it sounds like the most daunting of challenges. Shalleck chronicles his fears at the beginning of the season, as he struggles to adapt to life at sea and refined palates of his bosses. He especially worries about coming up with dishes that will please the wife, or la Signora, as she is called. Shalleck portrays her as the kind of elegant, assured woman for whom only the best would ever do, and he comes to fear her standard greeting to him, "Cosa c'e di buono a mangiare?" - What good things are there to eat? as a sort of constant warning to stay on his toes.

However, as the yacht travels across the Mediterranean, stopping at ports famous and sigh-inducing, like Saint-Tropez, Monte Carlo, Portofino, Capri, Corsica, and Sardinia, Shalleck finds his footing and draws on his training and determination to become a inspired and confident chef. You see him seeking out the best of local delicacies at every stop, and turning them into elegant meals that have the owners applauding in admiration. He becomes a competent member of the crew, making friends with the charming, rakish steward. And when he is not cooking furiously away in the steaming hot galley, he manages to capture the romance of sailing on one of the most beautiful bodies of water in the world.

One of my favorite chapters juxtaposes the luxurious life enjoyed by the very wealthy owners with the rather torturous experiences of the crew belowdeck. The Serenity has docked in Monte Carlo for the Grand Prix races, a favorite event of Europe's jet-set and also considered the official start of the yachting season in the Mediterranean. It is utterly exciting and glamorous, the town filled with the beautiful and chic, the thrill of the races filling the air, but for Shalleck the weekend turns into one huge nightmare when he is told by la Signora that he will be cooking for a party of a hundred of her friends - out of the tiny galley. The logistics of creating a multi-course meal by oneself in a kitchen barely equipped to cook for ten was enough to make me break out into a cold sweat. Yet, Shalleck acquits himself admirably with the help of the stalwart crew, in an amazing, I'm-glad-it's-not-me recounting of pasta, sauce, and dirty dishes everywhere.

Mediterranean Summer satisfies on many levels: you see Shalleck gain confidence in his skills as a chef, you taste the beauty of the French and Italian Riviera and the seasonal local cuisine that Shalleck learns to make, and you get the thrill of vicariously experiencing the privileged life the owners of the Serenity lead. Thoroughly enjoyable, the book is an instant vacation, a taste of la bella vita - and who couldn't use a little more of that?

Shalleck thoughtfully includes several recipes in the back of the book for dishes he described in his narrative, all classic Italian and all mouthwatering. One of them was for a torta di ciccolato caprese, or Chocolate Capri Cake - a dense, nearly flourless chocolate cake that is slightly nutty with ground almonds and intensely, sublimely chocolatey. Shalleck notes it was a favorite of la Signora - and I can see why.

Chocolate Capri Cake

adapted from Mediterranean Summer

serves about 12

12 Tbsp (172 g) unsalted butter, room temperature

8 oz (226 g) unsweetened or semisweet chocolate

3 oz (88 g) whole almonds, toasted

2 Tbsp(16 g) all purpose flour

6 large eggs, separated, room temperature

7 1/2 oz (200 g) sugar

confectioners' sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch cake pan and line with a circle of parchment pan. Be sure the pan has sides at least a couple of inches high as the batter will fill the pan almost completely!

Melt the butter and chocolate together in a bowl over a bain-marie. Set aside and let cool.

Grind the almonds together with the flour in a food processor until fine - do not let it turn into a paste.

Beat the egg yolks and sugar together in a stand mixer until light colored and fluffy, about 3 to 4 minutes.

Scrape yolk and sugar mixture into a large mixture. Fold in the melted chocolate mixture carefully.

Add in the almond flour and fold in carefully just until combined.

In a clean stand mixer bowl, whip the egg whites to soft peaks. Carefully scrape them over the batter and fold in gently.

Pour the batter into prepared pan and bake in oven for about 35 to 40 minutes, until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

Let cake cool on rack, then invert onto a plate and remove parchment. Invert cake back onto a serving plate. Dust with confectioners' sugar before serving.

This cake will keep for a couple of days at room temperature. I suggest keeping it in a covered cake dome as plastic wrap tends to stick to the top.

Tagged with: David Shalleck + Mediterranean Summer + chocolate capri cake + mediterranean

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The Slow Drip of Coffee on a Languorous Summer's Day

Where I grew up in the Bay Area, there was an abundance of Vietnamese noodle shops to be found amidst the Asian supermarkets and Chinese dim sum houses. One of my family's favorite weekend lunches was to go to one of these noodle shops, where each family member would get a steaming hot bowl of pho - delicate clear noodles and paper-thin slices of beef in the most seductively aromatic broth. To this day, pho remains a steadfast comfort food to me, one of those tonics that has no adequate substitute when you've got a longing to it.

I would always get a soda chanh, or Vietnamese lemonade, to go with my pho, but sometimes my parents would get ca phe sua da, or Vietnamese coffee, which would provide an extra jolt of excitement to the meal as we would try to time our pho consumption to end right at the time the coffee finished dripping down from the cute little hat-shaped filter into the tall glass, down and around the ice cubes, and onto the condensed milk at the bottom. There was something wonderfully simple and self-contained about the entire setup: it was like a little magical delicious drink-producing UFO landing on top of your glass and creating, in front of your eyes, a mysteriously tasty elixir. Intense, bitter coffee melding with gooey sweet milk - of course, also a recipe for hyperactive children, so it's a mystery our parents ever let us try some at all.

Small wonder that this drink would find its way into Pichet Ong's Asian-inspired desserts, and in fact become the basis for one of his signature creations: the Chocolate and Vietnamese Coffee Tart, featured in his book The Sweet Spot. In looks and ingredients it would appear to resemble many of those mocha custard tarts out there that have a barely-baked chocolate filling in a tart shell, but Ong's tart has about as much resemblance to those as a latte does to ca phe sua da.

The tart is composed of a thin, chocolatey, barely-sweet shell cradling a velvety smooth, impossibly unctuous ganache. The cream and condensed milk combine with bittersweet chocolate and Vietnamese coffee to make a rich and creamy filling that unfurls luxuriously over the tongue. The coffee (if you cannot find Vietnamese coffee, Ong suggests a good French Roast or chicory) adds a subtle smokiness to the deep chocolate taste that really comes out if you serve the tart at room temperature. This dessert is a match for any "death by chocolate" contender out there in its own sophisticated, intimitable way - the richness and intensity of the dessert doesn't bludgeon you with excess, but envelops you in a sensual cocoon.

Topped with a spoonful of sweetened condensed milk chantilly, this little piece of bliss can be enjoyed much as a Vietnamese coffee should be: slowly, languidly, in a rattan armchair on a shady porch, underneath a lazily turning ceiling fan, with palm trees waving gently through the shuttered windows, and birdsong far off in the dreamy summer distance.

Chocolate and Vietnamese Coffee Tart

Makes about (8) 4" tarts or (1) 8" tart

from Pichet Ong's The Sweet Spot

Cocoa Tart Shell

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup (113 grams) confectioners' sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup (23 grams) cocoa powder

1/4 cup (23 grams) almond meal

1 1 /3 cups (203 grams) all-purpose flour

1 large egg

Chocolate-Coffee Ganache

12 ounces (340 grams) bittersweet chocolate, chopped into pieces

1 3/4 cups (392 grams) heavy cream

1/2 cup (113 grams) evaporated milk

1/3 cup (28 grams) Vietnamese or French roast coffee powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

1/3 cup (65 grams) sweetened condensed milk

Sweetened Condensed Milk Chantilly

1/2 cup (114 grams) heavy cream

1 tablespoon sweetened condensed milk

1/8 teaspoon salt

For the tart shells: Place the butter, confectioners' sugar, salt, cocoa powder, almond meal, and flour into the bowl of a food processor. Process until the mixture resembles cornmeal.

Add the egg and process just until the dough comes together.

Form the dough into a disk and wrap in plastic. Chill in refrigerator until firm, about 4 hours.

When you are ready to bake the tart shells, preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Take the dough out the refrigerator (if it is very firm, you might need to let it warm up a little so you can work with it) and roll out on a floured surface to 1/8" thickness.

Place your tart pan or tart rings on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a Silpat.

Trim the dough into a circular shape(s) to make it easier to fit into the tart pan(s). Place the dough into the tart pan and press to fit to the sides. Trim off any excess dough from the edges, and place baking sheet in the freezer for about 30 minutes to let the dough firm up.

Line the tart pan(s) with parchment paper and fill with pie weights. Bake the tart shells for about 15 minutes, remove pie weights and parchment paper, and bake about 5 minutes more until the tart shells are dry to the touch.

Let tart shells cool completely on a wire rack. Turn the oven down to 275 degrees F for the ganache.

For the ganache: Place the chocolate into a large bowl and set aside.

In a small saucepan, combine the cream, evaporated milk, coffee powder, and salt and bring to a simmer over low heat.

Pour the hot mixture through a sieve over the chocolate and whisk to combine.

Add the eggs one at the time to the chocolate mixture and whisk to combine.

Add in the condensed milk and whisk until the mixture is very smooth and shiny.

Pour the mixture into the cooled tart shells and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, rotating halfway through. The tarts are done when the mixture appears set and does not jiggle independently in the middle.

Let tarts cool on a rack and unmold to serve.

To make the chantilly, whisk the cream in a mixer until soft peaks form. Add in the condensed milk and salt and whisk just until medium peaks form - do not overwhip. Spoon some of the chantilly onto slices of the tart before serving.

Tagged with: Asian desserts + The Sweet Spot + Pichet Ong + chocolate Vietnamese coffee tart

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Asia: The Sweetest Spot

When it comes to Asian desserts in the Western world, most people don't think of them beyond the plastic-wrapped fortune cookies that come with your Chinese takeout or the fried bananas at the Thai restaurant. But there really is a huge world of Asian sweets beyond those familiar stereotypes. Step into any bakery in Chinatown and you are greeted by an array of custard-filled buns and fruit-covered layer cakes to rival any French patisserie. When I was young, I remember my mother giving us bowls of sweet soup made from almonds or black sesame as dessert.

Especially exciting to see is the commingling of Asian flavors and desserts with European and Western pastry tradition. Not that this is a new thing, of course – visit any East-West fusion style restaurant (does anyone use the word “fusion” anymore? Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, particularly, the moniker “California” cuisine appears to encompass, umbrella-like, everything from local and organic to vaguely Pacific Rim-influenced) and you’re certain to find a green tea-infused crème brulée or coconut-ginger-saffron pudding on the dessert menu.

But a cookbook on Asian-inspired desserts is a rare breed indeed and cause for much KitchenAid-fiddling anticipation. And when it’s written by Pichet Ong, well, it pretty much guarantees a purchase at the first moment of availability. So I am the very happy owner of Ong’s new cookbook The Sweet Spot, a veritable treatise on all things sweet and Asian.

Ong has made a career out of bridging culinary cultures – growing up in Thailand, Singapore, and Hong Kong, he put his background to good use in the pastry kitchen. His stints included Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s 66 and Spice Market, where his desserts featured Ovaltine kulfi and durian ice cream (for those of you who know what durian is, you know what a daring move that was!)

The Sweet Spot is an absorbing read, from the detailed “Asian Pantry” section at the beginning that enumerates the various unique ingredients used in Asian baking, to the illuminating headnotes preceding each recipe, filled with either fond anecdotes or helpful tips. The recipes themselves are definitely not ones to be found in your run-of-the-mill baking tome. There are recipes that are exotic twists on familiar dessert forms like banana cream pie or coffee ice cream, and there are recipes that seem imported directly from Asia, such as steamed pandan layer cake and mango sticky rice.

The focus of the book seems to skew towards China and Southeast Asia, with a sprinkling of India and Japan thrown in. Coconut features prominently, as well as matcha, almond, and tropical fruits like mango and pineapple. I was pleased to see sophisticated versions of my childhood favorites like almond tofu and egg custard tarts, as well as discussions on Asian dessert techniques such as steamed cakes or Indian cheesemaking – Ong even has a recipe for what he calls Asian puff pastry.

Overall, the Sweet Spot fills a much-needed gap in the baking bookshelf as a reference on Asian baking ingredients and a stellar collection of innovative recipes. One recipe that caught my eye while I was leafing through was a riff on those cakes in the Chinese bakeries made of layers of light sponge and whipped cream, adorned with fresh fruit. They are the Chinese equivalent of the buttercream-frosted layer cakes you find in American bakeries – I’ve had my share of them for my birthdays while growing up.

Ong's version alternates a fluffy genoise-style cake with matcha-infused whipped cream. He calls for persimmons in the cream, but I used some beautiful mangoes I found at market instead. The result is, I think, as delectable as the inspiration and strikingly original as well.

Tagged with: Asian desserts + The Sweet Spot + Pichet Ong + green tea layer cake

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Valentine's Day: Essence of Chocolate

I recently received a copy of John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg's sumptuous new cookbook celebrating fine chocolate, Essence of Chocolate. Befitting one of the best-known artisan chocolate makers, the book provides both a concise summary of the role of chocolate in food history as well as an exuberant embrace of all the culinary possibilities of chocolate.

This book reminds me a great deal of another chocolate classic, Alice Medrich's Bittersweet. In her book, Medrich recounts how her love affair with chocolate blossomed and how it led it the opening of her Berkeley store Cocolat, interspersing her recollections with a trove of delectable and unique recipes utilizing higher-percentage chocolate. Similarly in Essence of Chocolate, Scharffenberger and Steinberg reveal how a doctor and a winemaker became obsessed with creating fine chocolate from scratch, and share many of their favorite chocolate-centric recipes.

If you love chocolate at all, it's an absorbing read - not only for understanding of how chocolate is created from cacao beans, but for discovering the intricacies in cacao production around the world and speculations on what lies in the future for growers, processors, and consumers.

The collection of recipes is first-rate, with contributions from both the authors and a veritable who's who of the culinary world, including Thomas Keller, Flo Braker, Rose Levy Beranbaum, Jacques Pepin, and Sherry Yard, among many others. There are unusual twists on the old standbys like cakes, tarts, and custards, and offbeat creations like a banana caramel cake or roasted squash with nib vinaigrette. All the recipes specify the recommended cacao percentage for the chocolate to be used, which is quite handy and not unexpected in a cookbook by chocolate makers!

Below, the first two recipes I chose to try from the cookbook, with a heart-shaped twist for Valentine's Day.

TKOs

This recipe was provided by Thomas Keller for Essence of Chocolate, and is nothing so much as a very grown-up, very addictive version of an Oreo cookie (Is this another example of Keller's penchant for reworking childhood favorites into ne plus ultra masterpieces?). Wafer-thin chocolate cookies sandwich a creamy white chocolate filling. The cookies are fantastically delicate and crisp, with an added zing from the generous helping of salt in the recipe. Paired with the subtly sweet filling, you have the perfect companion for a glass of milk on a cozy afternoon.

Chocolate Almond Cakes

Contributed by Jim Dodge, this is an elegant and versatile cake that is incredibly rich and moist from all the almond paste used in the recipe. Baked in a half sheet pan, you can cut it into any form you desire and layer with chocolate, jam, buttercream, or any other filling you like. The smooth, buttery-almond taste would work well with a number of flavors. In this recipe, the cake is layered with melted chocolate and then covered with a chocolate glaze to make a gloriously indulgent little treat.

Both recipes were surprisingly simple to execute and undeniably scrumptious. Either would be a lovely part of a sweet Valentine's Day! There are still many more recipes in the book I'm eager to try; it's certainly a fantastic addition to any baker's/foodie's/chocoholic's bookshelf!

TKOs

makes about 3 dozen cookies (or 18 sandwiches)

Filling

1/2 cup cream

8 ounces white chocolate, chopped

Cookies

3/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups plus 3 tablespoons all purpose flour

3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

7 1/2 ounces butter, room temperature, cut into small cubes

For the filling: Place the white chocolate in a bowl. Bring the cream to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat on the stove.

Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and whisk together to melt the chocolate. I find this is a pretty high chocolate-to-cream ratio, so if you are unable to get all the chocolate to melt, you can place the bowl over a bain-marie and stir until the chocolate is completely melted.

Transfer the filling to another bowl and let cool until it has thickened enough to spread - it may take a few hours. You can speed up the process by putting the bowl in the refrigerator. If the filling gets too stiff, you can heat it up again in the microwave.

For the cookies: you will make this dough and bake the cookies right away - there is no chilling time needed, so plan accordingly.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two baking sheets by lining them with parchment paper or Silpats.

Combine the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in an electric mixer. With the mixer still running on low speed, add the butter a few pieces at a time. Let the dough continue mixing until it comes together - it should go from looking like pebbles or cornmeal to a cohesive mass.

Turn the dough out onto a floured working surface and work into a solid block. Divide the block into two pieces.

Working with one piece at a time, roll out between two sheets of parchment paper until 1/8" thick. Using a 2-in cookie cutter, cut out shapes and place on the baking sheets about 1 inch apart (cookies will spread a bit in the oven).

Bake the cookies for about 12 to 15 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through baking time. Remove from oven and let cool on wire racks for a few minutes (cookies will be too soft to move at first), then transfer cookies to wire racks and let finish cooling.

To assemble the cookies: Place half of the cookies upside down on a work surface.

Whisk the filling lightly to fluff it up a bit and make it spreadable.

Using a small spoon, scoop a small dollop of filling onto the center of each cookie. Top with another cookie right side up. Press the cookies together until the filling spreads out to the edges.

The cookies with keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Chocolate Almond Cakes

makes about 24  2 1/2-in cakes

Cake

12 ounces butter, room temperature

1 pound almond paste

1 3/4 cups sugar

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons cocoa powder

8 large eggs

Filling and Glaze

4 ounces 82% dark chocolate, melted

6 ounces butter, cut into small cubes

8 ounces 70% dark chocolate, chopped

For the cake: You will need a half-sheet pan 12 in x 17 in x 1in. Line the pan with a Silpat or parchment paper. If you use parchment paper, butter and flour it after placing it in the pan.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In an electric mixer, beat the butter and almond paste together on medium speed for about 5 minutes until it is very light and fluffy, scraping down the sides as necessary.

Add the sugar and cocoa and continue blending together on low speed.

Increase the speed to medium and add the eggs one a time, letting each egg incorporate before adding the next.

Let the batter mixing for a couple more minutes until it has lightened in color.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for about 25 minutes, until the center is just set - it may feel slightly spongy but a skewer inserted into the center should come out clean. Warning: the cake will rise above the top of the pan but it should not spill over - you may want to check halfway through the baking time and once afterwards.

Remove the cake from the oven place on a cooling rack. Run a knife all around the edge of the pan. After cooling about 10 minutes, turn the cake out onto the rack and let it finish cooling.

The cake should be chilled in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes before you cut it as it will be quite soft and moist.

To fill and glaze cakes: Using a 2 1/2-in cutter of your choice, cut out shapes from the sheet of cake.

Brush or pour some of the melted 82% chocolate over half of the shapes, and top with the remaining shapes. Let the cakes sit for a few minutes for the chocolate to set. Place the cakes on a wire rack over a sheet pan, spacing them a few inches apart so you can glaze each one easily.

Place the butter and 70% chocolate in a bowl over a bain-marie and melt over low heat, whisking occasionally. When the chocolate is mostly melted, take the bowl off the heat, and whisk gently to finish combining. Transfer the glaze to a measuring cup with a spout.

Pour the glaze over the center of each cake, using an offset spatula to spread glaze over the sides. The glaze does not need to evenly cover the sides. If all the glaze is used up, scrape the fallen glaze from the sheet pan below the rack and reheat to melt.

Let the cakes sit until the glaze sets, then serve.

Tagged with: chocolate + Essence of Chocolate + Scharffen Berger + TKOs + chocolate almond cakes + Valentine's Day

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