Dessert First

Apricot, Orange, and Almond Mini Cakes

Remember the chocolate salon I mentioned attending a couple of months ago? Not only was it a great place to meet chocolatiers both celebrated and up-and-coming, but also of course to meet fellow chocoholics.

One person I was extremely excited to meet was esteemed pastry chef and cookbook author Carole Bloom. The "Carole Bloom section" on my bookshelf has grown steadily over the years: The International Dictionary of Desserts, Pastries, and Confections is indispensable for deciphering the complexities of pastry terminology, while The Essential Baker is a fantastic resource for ingredient-specific baking inspirations.

Carole was a speaker at the salon; when she learned I was also speaking, she very sweetly contacted me and suggested we meet up beforehand. How exciting to get the opportunity to meet someone whose work I'd admired!

In person, Carole is warm and personable, generous with sharing stories and tips. It's easy to tell that she's experienced in baking and in explaining it to the curious beginner. I'd love to take a class from her sometime, or just watch her in action!

Carole mentioned her new book which was about to come out, Bite-Size Desserts: Creating Mini Sweet Treats, from Cupcakes and Cobblers to Custards and Cookies, and very kindly offered to send me a review copy. A few weeks after the salon, I found a shiny new copy of her book in my mailbox - thanks so much, Carole!

Bite-Size Desserts is an adorably named, very attractively produced book with some seriously scrumptious recipes. Any reader who goes through my site will quickly realize I have a predilection of miniature desserts; individual portions can be fun to put together, easier to photograph, and of course people love them! In her cookbook Carole has created mini versions of all the classics, from cakes to cobblers to custards, and shows how to plate and present them beautifully. From tiny cupcakes with rose-like swirls of chocolate frosting to espresso cups of mousse, it's a spread of dollhouse-sized delights. As a side note, all the measurements are in both volume and weight -  LOVE!

I finally got the chance to try out one of the recipes in the book last week: Apricot-Orange Loaf Cakes. Made with brown sugar and vanilla, studded with Grand Marnier-soaked apricots, these little lovelies fall somewhere between pound cake and coffee cake - moist, fluffy, and rich. The recipe also calls for adding in chopped walnuts, but I decided for a lighter touch and sprinkled the top of the cakes with sliced almonds and some sugar. The gave the baked cakes a crackly, crunchy top that went very well with the velvety texture of the cake beneath. The combination of flavors is subtly sophisticated - while apricots make it summery, I could see substituting different ingredients for the changing seasons and the cake would retain its satisfying appeal.

The recipe calls for baking them in mini 4" x 2 1/4 " loaf pans. However, I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to use some paper bakers I picked up in Japan last winter. Talk about tiny, Japan has been associating small with "kawaii" (cute) for ages and somehow, everything there does seem twice as adorable with their petite proportions.

These wax-lined bakers seem to be a common item in Japanese houseware stores - I wish them sold more of these items here, as they are perfect for gift-giving - you simply give your cake to the lucky recipient in the same pan it was baked in. They also come in a multitide of designs and colors, making a pretty presentation a snap. I really liked the scalloped edges on these papers. I found similar bake-and-serve papers on King Arthur Flour, for those not making a trip to Asia in the near future.

Back to the topic of tiny, these bakers were a scant - did my little loaf cakes ever look precious when they came out of the oven, but practically speaking, they really are single-serving size. No sharing here -and you probably won't want to, given how delicious the cake is! I baked some of the batter in the recommended pan size and it does a produce a more slice-friendly loaf - see last photo. It keeps very well and the flavors seem to deepen over time.

I'm now eager to try out some of the other recipes in Carole's book - it's fanned the flames of my miniature mania for sure! Thanks for writing such a lovely book, Carole!

Apricot, Orange, and Almond Loaf Cakes

adapted from Carole Bloom's Bite-Size Desserts

makes 12 4"x 2 1/4" loaves

2/3 cup (4 ounces) dried apricots, finely chopped

2 tablespoons Grand Marnier

2 cups (9 ounces) flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

6 ounces (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup (5 ounces) sugar plus extra for sprinkling

3/4 cup (4 1/2 ounces) light brown sugar

2 extra-large eggs, room temperature (I used large and it turned out fine)

1 extra-large egg yolk, room temperature (same as above)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon orange extract

zest of 1 orange

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/3 cup sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Spray twelve mini loaf pans with cooking spray and place on a baking sheet.

Combine apricots and Grand Marnier in a small bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let marinate for 15 minutes.

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl and set aside.

Beat butter in a stand mixer until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the sugars and beat until well combined.

Combine eggs, egg yolk, extracts, and orange peel in a small bowl. Add to mixture and beat until well combined.

Add the flour mixture and buttermilk in three alternating additions, starting and ending with the flour mixture. Mix just until combined.

Add in the apricots and mix until combined.

Divide mixture among prepared pans, filling about 3/4 full. Sprinkle almonds and sugar over the tops.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let cool on wire racks before serving.

A Sip of Summer

 

 Whenever I'm in the mood for summer holiday, my mind always drifts to soft sandy islands afloat in glass-clear seas, bare feet dangling over hammocks, and tropical fruits hanging lush and ripe from the trees. 

Alas, no island getaway for me this summer, but fortuitously, I received a sample of The Perfect Puree of Napa Valley in my mail - in mango!  Although it's certainly great to be able to take advantage of seasonal produce, it's nice to have a quality alternative. When I was working at the bakery and we were making raspberry and passionfruit pates de fruits year round, fruit purees like these were a lifesaver: the consistent quality of good fruit purees takes one less variable out the complicated calculus of pastry.

I had also just gotten these adorable little dessert glasses - perfect for making verrines, those gorgeous French desserts that look like captured rainbows. Verrines are meant to be a feast for the senses - a beguiling combination of colors, textures, and tastes. I got out one of my favorite inspirations, a book on verrines by Stéphane Glacier, and there, as if pulled right out of my daydreams, was a mango-and-coconut striped number, ready to quench my thirst for a tropical getaway.

The coconut cream uses pastry cream lightened with whipped cream, one of my very favorite techniques. Although pastry cream has a glorious multitude of uses, sometimes I like to mix it with whipped cream to give an airier texture and soften the flavor. With intensely rich and creamy coconut milk added, the whipped cream also prevents the final mixture from becoming too cloying or sweet.

I combined the mango puree with a little sugar and gelatin to create a jelly layer. Glacier's original recipe combines mango and passionfruit purees, if you want your tropical verrine to be a veritable orchard of fruit. One note with using purees: as with using fresh fruit, the amount of sugar to add depends on the existing sweetness. Some purees are presweetened, so be sure to taste before putting extra sugar in.

I've made mango mousses before, but I like this mango jelly because it preserves the brilliant golden-sunset hue of the fruit, and provides a nice contrast to the coconut cream. Also, since it's a jelly, you only want to have a thin layer (unless you're going for Jell-O-esque cubes), so it makes for an elegant visual.

The very lovely photo in the cookbook showed the verrines decorated with chocolate curls, but since it was nearly 90 degrees in the city (yes, in SF, no joke!) I decided against the pain of tempering chocolate in high heat and opted for some chocolate wafers instead. I think it makes them look like little ice cream sundaes - sipping up summer, indeed!

Although San Francisco is not exactly the ideal place for outdoor unheated swimming pools, all the bodies of water I passed by this shimmeringly hot weekend looked mighty tempting. I hope you all get to enjoy a splash in the pool this summer!

Tropical Verrines

adapted from Verrines et Petits-Gateaux

makes 12 verrines

Coconut Cream

2 cups milk

10 tablespoons sugar

6 large egg yolks

4 tablespoons cornstarch

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

8 1/2 ounces coconut milk

8 1/2 ounces whipped cream

Mango Jelly

10 1/2 ounces mango puree

2 ounces sugar

6 grams (1 packet) powdered gelatin

For the coconut cream: heat 1 1/2 cups of the milk and 4 tablespoons of sugar in a medium saucepan on medium heat until it comes to a simmer.

Meanwhile, whisk the remaining 6 tablespoons of sugar and the egg yolks together in a medium bowl.

Whisk the remaining 1/2 cup milk and cornstarch together in a small bowl, then add to the eggs and whisk to combine.

When the milk on the stove has come to a simmer, pour in a slow stream into the egg mixture, whisking constantly to prevent the eggs from cooking.

Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture thickens into pastry cream, about 3-4 minutes. Stir in the vanilla.

If you see any lumps or cooked bits in your pastry cream, press it through a strainer. Place a piece of plastic wrap against the surface of the pastry cream to prevent a skin from forming and let cool.

Whisk the coconut milk into the pastry cream until combined and smooth.

Gently fold in the whipped cream into the mixture into combined.

Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a round tip for ease of filling the glasses.

Combine the mango puree and sugar in a small bowl.

Bloom the gelatin with about 1/4 cup of water, then microwave for about 10 seconds until it is liquid.

Add liquid gelatin to the mango puree and stir to combine. Let sit for about 5 minutes to cool.

Pipe some of the coconut cream into the glasses, about 1/3 of the way up.

Pour some of the mango puree on top in a thin layer. Refrigerate for about 10 minutes to let the mango set slightly.

Pipe some coconut cream on top of the mango layer.

Pour some more of the mango puree on top, stopping short of the top of the glass.

Refrigerate verrines until set.

Cherry Ice Cream Profiteroles with Almond Granita

Is everyone swooning over cherry season like I am? Of all the myriad sybaritic pleasures of summer, a bowl of ripe cherries ranks near the very top. At the waning of a lazy, sun-drenched afternoon, bare legs turned a few shades darker, book propped open and half-finished in your lap, a pile of cherry pits and ruby-stained fingers - perfection.

So, what to do when you get carried away at the market and come home with more cherries than even you can possibly eat? Solution: Ice cream, another summertime icon.

When I make fruit ice creams, I like to try and preserve as much of the fresh fruit as possible. So instead of pureeing the cherries to a perfectly smooth coulis, I roughly chopped them up, then cooked them in a saucepan with a little sugar on a low simmer until the cherries had softened up, and their juices had thickened slightly. Then I swirled the cooled, jammy mixture into ice cream base, poured it all into my ice cream maker and let the machine do its magic. The result? A gorgeous cherry-blossom-pink ice cream studded with pieces of cherries, tasting vividly of the fruit. There's no eggs in this ice cream, so it's closer to a sherbet; especially when trying to showcase fruit, I find the fewer ingredients, the more your star flavor will shine.

 

Now, I could also just sit on the porch and eat my way through a tub of this ice cream (are you sensing a theme here?), but to take this ice cream to the next level, I decided to make some pâte à choux and create some cherry ice cream profiteroles. To finish it off, I remembered an almond granita that I'd had at a local restaurant - I'd been wanting to try to reproduce it and now it seemed like the perfect accompaniment. If you're wondering how this simple summer treat turned into a major dessert project, umm, it seems to happen to me quite often. Inspiration may be a capricious muse, but I'm never one to turn down her visits!

Granita is the Italian version of snow cones, made from water mixed with fruit puree or other flavorings, which is then frozen and broken up into sparkling crystals. Icy-cold fruit granitas are a natural refresher for a hot day in Rome; however, I'd encountered an almond granita served with espresso cream at an osteria in SF that had me swooning. 

While most granitas are made with water, this one is also made with almond milk and almond paste, which gives extra depth of flavor. It's also why it's less icy-looking. I spent an interesting morning trying to make almond milk from almonds - while the result is tasty and certainly a tasty alternative to dairy milk, you're perfectly fine picking up some almond milk from the store.

Making granita is a fascinating exercise as well: to get the crystals to form, you should break up the granita with a fork about every half hour so it doesn't freeze into a solid block. If you're the multitasking type, you can work this into the pate a choux making process, so that when you're finished baking the puffs and filled them, you'll also have a beautiful granita ready!

 

Does it seem like an awful lot of work to get up from the poolside lounge for? Well, I think it's worth it - I'll certainly be making another batch before cherry season is over!

Oh, and by the way, if you haven't noticed to the right of the Dessert First page, I've put some some of the videos I made for Chow to promote my Field Guide to Cookies. I demonstrate a few cookie-making tips in the kitchen. I also hope to have some news to share about the candy book very soon!

Cherry Ice Cream

makes about 1 1/2 quarts

3/4 pound cherries, pitted and roughly chopped

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

2 cups heavy cream

1 cup milk

Combine cherries, 1/3 cup sugar, salt, and lemon juice in a medium saucepan. Cook on medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the cherries turn soft and jammy and the mixture is  bubbling. Remove from heat and let the mixture cool to room temperature.

In another medium saucepan combine the cream, milk, and remaining 1/3 cup of sugar. Heat over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is almost simmering.

Remove from heat, pour mixture into a bowl, and chill over an ice bath until it is room temperature.

Stir in the cherries. Cover and chill the mixture in the refrigerator for 4 hours or overnight.

Freeze in an ice cream maker per manufacturer's instructions.

Pâte à choux Dough

makes 20-24 puffs

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup water
4 ounces unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3/4 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 + 1 large eggs, room temperature

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.

Combine milk, water, butter, sugar and salt In a heavy bottomed medium saucepan and heat on medium high.

Once the mixture is at a rolling boil, add all of the flour at once, reduce the heat to medium
and start to stir the mixture vigorously with a wooden spoon. The dough should come together into a ball. Continue stirring for another 3-4 minutes until it is completely smooth and soft.

Transfer the dough into a bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat to cool it down slightly. Add in four eggs one at a time, beating after each egg has been added to incorporate it into the dough. The dough should be very thick and shiny but not liquidy.

Transfer the dough to a pastry bag fitted with a 1 inch plain tip. Pipe out mounds of dough on the prepared baking sheet, spacing about 2 inches apart.

Beat the last egg with a little water to form an egg wash, then brush lightly over the puffs.

Bake in oven for about 15-18 minutes, rotating halfway through. The puffs should turn golden brown and be dry to the touch. It's easier to underbake than to overbake; make sure they are dry before taking out.

Place sheet on a wire rack and let puffs cool before slicing in half and filling with ice cream to make profiteroles.

Almond Granita

1 cup almond milk

1 cup water

3 ounces almond paste

3 tablespoons sugar

1/4 teaspoon lemon juice

Combine all the ingredients in a blender and process until very smooth.

Strain into an 8 inch square baking pan (stainless steel is best).

Place in freezer and let freeze for about an hour. Using a fork, break and crush the mixture into small pieces. Freeze for another 30 minutes and repeat the process, turning the pieces into even small crystals. The mixture should be firm and ready to serve after about 2 hours of this process.

Macaron Mania in 805 Living

 

It's been a busy week for me, and unfortunately not in the kitchen. I don't have a new recipe to share this week (although the near-bushelful of cherries I got at the market today might provide a hint as to what's in store), but I'd like to share something else!

A couple months ago, I was contacted by 805 Living Magazine and asked if I'd like to share some tips on macaron-making. I love that the macaron craze continues unabated in the food blogging community, especially in the US (yes, Veron, I'm looking at you!!). It gives me hope that M. Hermé might finally get an outpost opened here someday! And, a chance to differentiate between macarons and macaroons - in print! I know there are ardent devotees of both kinds of these two cookies that have caused so much gastro-linguistic confusion, so I was glad to be able to discuss both!

I hope you enjoy these scans of the article from the May issue. Continue on with the macaron/macaroon merriment!!

 

 

 

Article posted with kind permission from 805 Living Magazine.

Valrhona Demo - A Surfeit of Chocolate

My take on the Valrhona Damas

Hi dear readers! Sorry this post has been a long time in the making, but I had a lot I wanted to share with you all!

A few weeks ago, I got an invitation to attend a dessert demonstration by Valrhona. Valrhona is, of course, considered among the creme de la creme of fine chocolate; appending "Valrhona" to the ingredient list of any chocolate dessert is like shorthand for the most luxe and elegant of indulgences.

Valrhona chocolate can be pricey, but in their case you truly get what you pay for: beautiful, full-flavored chocolate that tastes dreamy and performs wonderfully. Whenever I get to use Valrhona in my baking, I'm a happy girl.

I was especially excited to attend this demonstration because not only was Valrhona unveiling some new products, but they were bringing in some of their in-house pastry chefs to demonstrate how to use them. Another thing that impresses me about Valrhona is their dedication to the industry and art of chocolate: they are involved in both the production and harvest of cacao beans around the world, as well as the creative and thoughtful use of the created chocolate in pastry. Valrhona has a chocolate school, l'École du Grand Chocolat at their headquarters in France, that provides classes in patisserie and confectionery to professionals and enthusiasts.

One of the chefs from the school, Philippe Givre, was flown all the way to the Bay Area to lead this demonstration, along with Derek Poirier and Alex Espiritu, pastry chefs for Valrhona's USA division. Needless to say, what an exciting opportunity!

Chef Philippe Givre. Looks like the quintessential French pastry chef, no?

Really, the demonstration was more like an intense four-hour pastry class taught by a master - I got a lot more technical information and baking tips than I thought I would from a demo, which was great. Chef Givre went into very detailed explanations of the importance of ingredient temperatures, especially when making ganaches, custards, and mousses; how to whip cream properly to maximize its volume, and even a mini-digression into the the importance of dry to liquid ratios in making ice creams and sorbets. Hey, after this I am fully convinced that going to l'École du Grand Chocolat would be an awesome experience(not that it would take me a lot of convincing to go to chocolate school).

In four hours, Chef Givre and his two assisting chefs blitzed through three plated desserts, demonstrating numerous techniques and also explaining how each one utilized different Valrhona products. And yes, we got to sample everything! I think everyone was on a sugar high by the end of the demonstration!

Here's the first dessert: Diagonale of Candied Pineapple with Whipped Lime Ganache, Almond Shortbread, and Fromage Blanc and Lime Sorbet. The idea is really cute: A U-shaped base of shortbread (you can see Chef Poirier making it in the next pic) with piped lines of milk chocolate and lime ganache, topped with candied pineapple and a scoop of sorbet. The ganache is made of cream infused with lime zest, then combined with Valrhona Tainori 64% and Jivara 40%. The mixture is then refrigerated before being whipped to a light, pipable texture - something I haven't done often, but which I'm now obsessed with! Chef Givre indicated that this recipe was specifically created to utilize the Valrhona Tainori, a dark chocolate with notes of almond and yellow fruits, meant to work best with citrus fruits. Of course it's a great way for Valrhona to illustrate their long line of chocolates, but I like the point that not all chocolates are the same and it would be a educational experience to taste different chocolates you use and consider which ones might work with different ingredients.

Here's Chef Derek Poirier showing the U-shaped metal molds used to form the shortbread bases. By the way, he was really concerned that I was going to take a photo of him with his eyes closed. So I hope this one is satisfactory to him!

Chef Givre plating the dessert.

This is the second dessert, called "Damas", consisting of an emmanuel curry sponge base topped with almond mousseux, a milk chocolate namelaka, and orange jelly. This was probably the most adventurous of the desserts and also the one I liked best, so I spent last week reproducing it! Compare the one I made in the first photo to this one; what do you think?

The last dessert was what Chef Givre dubbed "New Opera", a reimagined version of opera cake. The traditional version of opera cake is layers of almond genoise layered with coffee buttercream and chocolate ganache. In this deconstructed version, a layer of chocolate cake is topped with a square of tempered chocolate. The piece on top is whipped coffee ganache sandwiched between pieces of coffee nougatine. Finally, the cake is served alongside a coffee granité topped with more whipped coffee ganache. I think I counted about four different kinds of chocolate being used in this dessert. Chef Givre said he wanted to play around with textures while preserving the original flavors of the opera cake. It was a really playful, modern take on an old pastry warhorse; I especially liked the granité with the whipped ganache.

Here's Chef Givre putting those little millefeuiles of nougatine and ganache together.

In addition to these three desserts, the chefs also presented a taste testing of chocolate cake and chocolate ice cream made with Valrhona's newest chocolate, Coeur de Guanaja 80%. Without getting overly technical, this is a dark chocolate specially formulated with lower cocoa butter content, which can allow for a stronger chocolate taste in desserts. Basically, since cocoa butter is a fat and is solid at room temperature, it increases the firmness of pastry items like cakes and ice creams. Since fats can also dilute the purity and intensity of flavors, more cocoa butter can also decrease the strength of chocolate flavor in a dessert. That's why some recipes using chocolate sometimes call for cocoa powder, since it provides chocolate flavor without adding any fat.

Coeur de Guanaja was developed especially to address this issue - it has a lower cocoa butter content, so you can use it and get a strong chocolate flavor in your pastries without compromising the texture of the final result. The taste tests really helped illustrate the difference: a chocolate cake made with Coeur de Guanaja had distinct, chocolately flavor, and was also moister and softer than a cake made with cocoa powder, which was slightly tougher. Chocolate ice cream made with Coeur de Guanaja had a pure, almost bitter chocolate flavor (80% cacao content is pretty dark) and a long, smooth finish, while ice cream made with a regular chocolate had a lighter, sweeter flavor.

I found this all very educational. Even if you don't have the luxury of choosing between ten different chocolates when baking, it's always good to increase your knowledge of how ingredients, especially one as complex as chocolate, works. Then when you want to tinker with your recipes to get different results, it's easier to figure out what you want to change.

 

The chefs were kind enough to pose for photos at the end of the demo. From left to right, Chef Alex Espiritu, Chef Philippe Givre, yours truly, and Chef Derek Poirier. Yes, I know I look really short compared to all of them. The tall chef's hats probably don't help.

Deborah, the public relations contact, was also kind enough to send me a box of samples from Valrhona's current line after the demonstration. Talk about unexpected Christmas, a big box of Valrhona is enough to turn any day into a celebration! What I love is that Valrhona used to provide chocolate exclusively for professionals, but they've really reached out to the consumer market, producing both bars for eating and bars for baking - you don't need to have a contact in the food industry to procure Valrhona or be forced to buy giant five lb bars (fun, but hard to store at home). They have 70g Grand Crus bars in eight of their signature blends, including their famous Manjari, Caraïbe, and Jivara Lait, 250g baking bars in dark, milk, and white chocolate, and Gourmet Grand Crus bars, their very sophisticated version of candy bars. I've been enjoying the Manjari Orange, with pieces of orange inside, and Jivara Pecan, embedded with pecans, for the last week.

Ok, so I mentioned that my favorite dessert at the demo was the "Damas" - I really loved the texture contrasts of the sponge cake and the mousseux, and the curry was an inspired touch. Unfortunately, I didn't have the right spices in my cupboard (Chef Givre suggested using madras curry powder), but I had my own idea on how to spin this recipe.

Since the main flavors in the dessert were almond, milk chocolate, curry, and orange, I chose to eliminate the curry from the sponge and add in candied orange peel and cocoa nibs. Emmanuel sponge is a type of sponge cake made very similar to madeleines. You make the batter and let it rest overnight, which helps the flavors intensify and lets it bake up better the next day. Chef Givre indicated that this is a nice alternative to genoise, since genoise batter cannot be stored and can be finicky, requiring closer supervision while baking. Emmanuel sponge batter can be made ahead of time and bakes up quickly without much fuss. I'll admit the orange-and-cocoa-nib version was amazingly addicitive; I kept snacking on it without the rest of the dessert components!

The almond mousseux is a mousse made of almond paste, milk, and cream, mixed with a bit of gelatin and allowed to set. The cut cubes look a bit like tofu, don't they? And they should have the same perfectly silken texture - it's important to make sure there are no hard bits of almond paste floating around in the mix. I'd never made a mousse with almond paste, but this was light and airy, and delicious topped with some orange jelly.

Finally, you might be wondering what "namelaka" is - I know I hadn't heard of the word. Namelaka is the Japanese word for "creamy", and this little daub of chocolate is meant to embody "creamy". When I saw that it was made of milk chocolate, milk, glucose, cream, and some gelatin, I didn't see how it was different from a mousse. But the proportions of the ingredients means that the result should be very, very melt-in-your mouth, with no cloying taste. It requires some attention and precision - the mixture needs to absolutely, 100% smooth - Chef Givre used a stick blender to finish the mix off, and you can't add too much gelatin or it will be stiff and gummy. But I knew it was something good when I gave the boyfriend a spoonful and he remarked on how light and -yes!- creamy it was, before I had described what it was supposed to be.

This is definitely a small project of a dessert, but it's actually not that difficult to make, and it's become one of my favorites because of its elegance and flavor combinations. I'm really glad to have gotten a master lesson in chocolate and recharged my creative juices- and I hope it's inspired you to experiment with your favorite brands!

Damas - Emmanuel Sponge with Candied Orange Peel and Cocoa Nibs, Almond Mousseux, Valrhona Orizaba Lacteé Namelaka, and Orange Jelly

(note: All recipes adapted from the official Valrhona versions. Original measurements were in metric so if you want to be more accurate, use those!)

Emmanuel Sponge

makes one half sheet (13"x17") of cake, about (24) 2 1/2" square pieces

1 cup (238 g) cake flour

1/2 cup (116 g) powdered sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons (10 g) baking powder

3/4 teaspoon (3 g) salt

238 g eggs (about 5 eggs)

1/2 cup (126 g) trimoline (invert sugar - you can buy this online)

1/3 cup (74 g) whole milk

13 1/2 tablespoons (193 g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

3 tablespoons candied orange peel, finely chopped (I estimated)

1/4 cup cocoa nibs, finely chopped (I estimated)

1 1/2 cups streusel, see recipe below

Sift the cake flour, powdered sugar, baking powder, and salt into a bowl.

Combine the eggs and trimoline in a stand mixer and beat with paddle attachment until combined.

Add in the flour mixture and mix until combined.

Add in the milk and mix until combined.

Add in the melted butter and mix until combined.

Pour batter into a container and refrigerate for at least 2-3 hours or overnight before baking. (Note: This really does make it bake better!)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a half sheet pan with a silicone baking mat.

Pour the batter into the pan and spread it out evenly. Sprinkle the orange peel and cocoa nibs over the batter (I'm afraid I didn't keep accurate measure of how much I used - just enough so that the cake is pretty evenly covered, but you don't need to blanket the batter, or else there'll be too much add-ins and not enough cake! Just think of adding nuts to a cake batter - similar idea).

Sprinkle the baked streusel over the top of the cake.

Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes, rotating halfway. The top should be firm and lightly golden brown.

Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack before cutting. This is a fairly sturdy cake and should not fall apart or stick, but if you're going to store it, it might be easier to cut into smaller pieces and store them in an airtight container layered between parchment paper.

Streusel

makes about 1 1/2 cups

1/3 cup (75 g) light brown sugar

1/3 cup (75 g) almond meal

1/4 cup (68 g) cake flour

1/4 teaspoon (0.5 g) salt

1/3 cup (75 g) unsalted butter, cold, cut into small cubes

 Combine all ingredients except butter in a food processor until finely ground and combined.

Add butter and process just until the streusel starts to come together into lumps.

If the mixture seems very soft, refrigerate for about an hour to firm up.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat.

Spread streusel evenly over the sheet. Bake for about 6-8 minutes, until it is golden brown and baked all the way through.

Crumble into smaller pieces as necessary for sprinkling.

Almond Mousseux

makes one 8x8 square, about 25 pieces

This is basically a frozen mousse. It helps if you have a cake pan with a removable bottom - then it's easy to push the mousseux out from the bottom and cut into pieces. Otherwise, the mousseux will be frozen into the pan and you'll have to cut it out piece by piece.

1/2 cup (125 g) almond paste (Valrhona recommends their 70% paste, you may have to add sugar or use less paste depending on strength of flavor)

1 1/3 cups (300 g) whole milk

1/2 tablespoon (6.5 g) gelatin

1 cup (250 g) whipping cream

Process almond paste in a food processor until it is soft and pliable.

Add in milk and process until combined and smooth (You may have to do this in batches if your food processor is small). Alternatively, combine in a large bowl with a hand blender.

Combine gelatin with just enough water in a cup to let it bloom.

Heat about 1 cup of the almond milk in a saucepan over medium heat. Add in the gelatin and swirl pan until it is fully melted and incorporated.

Pour heated milk back into main milk mixture and mix to combine. Let mixture cool to about room temperature.

While you are waiting, whip the whipping cream in a mixer to soft peaks.

Fold the whipped cream into the almond milk.

Pour the mixture into an 8"x8" pan with removable bottom and freeze overnight. Note: After it sets, you can store it in the freezer.

Valrhona Orizaba Lacteé Namelaka

makes about 3/4 cup

This recipe uses Valrhona Orizaba Lacteé 40%, but you can use another milk chocolate if you like. Also, one important tip is that in order for the whole mixture to set up properly, you should pour out in a thin even layer, so a wide shallow pan works better than a tall narrow container (if it's too deep the center won't set). I used a 9 x 13 pan and it worked well.

3/4 cup (200 g) whole milk

3/4 tablespoon (10 g) corn syrup

1 teaspoon (4.5 g) gelatin

13 ounces (375 g) milk chocolate

1 3/4 cups (400 g) whipping cream

Melt chocolate in a double boiler or in a metal bowl placed over a pan of simmering water.

Add corn syrup to melted chocolate and stir to combine.

Combine gelatin with just enough water in a cup to let it bloom.

Heat milk in a saucepan to boiling. Add in the gelatin and swirl pan until it is fully melted and incorporated.

Pour the milk mixture over the melted chocolate in increments, stirring to combine and emulsify each time. It's important to combine the two mixtures slowly and make sure they are fully incorporated or the texture won't be right.

Process the mixture with a hand blender to ensure smoothness.

Pour mixture into a shallow pan and refrigerate overnight to let set.

To assemble the dessert:

Take out the mousseux and namelaka. If they have been sitting in the refrigerator a while, they may need a little time to warm up and soften. However, don't leave them out too long or they'll melt.

Cut the sponge into 2 1/2" square pieces.

Cut the mousseux into roughly 1 1/2" square pieces. Place one cube of mousseux on top of each sponge.

Scoop the namelaka into a piping bag fitted with a round tip. If it seems firm, or chunky in the texture, place in a food processor and process to soften up. Pipe a big drop of namelaka on top of the mousseux.

In Which A Busy Week Is Capped With An Unexpected Surprise

First, thank you to all of you for your very sweet birthday wishes - I'm consistently amazed and touched by the well-wishes I receive from fellow pastry lovers from around the world. Thank you for making my birthday that much more special!

It actually did rain on my birthday, but it seems like the birthday fairies decided to make up for it by sending a stretch of luxuriously balmy weather afterwards, capping off with a positively scorching weekend. Mmm, I can almost feel summer around the corner!

Sadly, I've been quite busy this last week, so haven't had much time to enjoy the weather except to keep drinking water to try and stay hydrated. I also haven't had the chance to properly document my latest kitchen brainstorm, so here, finally, are a few pictures.

Since it's full-on strawberry season (overflowing their baskets at the farmers' markets, beckoning from roadside stands in the suburbs), I am constantly being tempted into buying way too strawberries and then trying to figure out what to do with them. I remembered this cake I had seen in a Hong Kong bakery, layers of delicate sponge cake sandwiching fluffy strawberry cream and frosted with whipped cream, and decided to have a go at recreating it.

The result ended up resembling a cross between an opera cake and the layered fruit-and-whipped cream cakes found in many a Chinese bakery. The cake, an almond genoise, is the same as the one used in a traditional opera cake. Spread thinly with pureed strawberries, and then a layer of strawberry buttercream, the light cake provides the perfect base for intense strawberry flavor. The topping is made from whipped cream and just a little confectioners' sugar, since I didn't want a heavy frosting to weigh down the cake.

I think this cake really captures a lot of strawberry flavor, without being too rich or heavy - just right for summer. I'm still tweaking the recipe, so I'll try to get posted here sometime tomorrow.

And, as a capper to the week, I discovered that the fantabulous Jen of Use real butter, one of my favorite blogs, was in town! After some furious planning, we arranged a blogger meetup with me, Jen, and Lisa of I Must Have a Lot of Time on My Hands, another amazingly talented cook/baker/blogger that I adore!

Lisa was kind enough to play hostess, so Jen and I got to visit Lisa's place, meet her beyond adorable doggie Lucca (honestly, go to her page and once you lay eyes on Lucca you will be smitten), and sample Lisa's excellent coffee cake and macarons. This girl can seriously bake! Thanks so much Lisa, and I'm hoping to return the favor soon!

Jen is just as funny and real as she is on her blog - I feel super lucky that I found her blog, and got to become friends with such a great person! Hope you had a great flight back home, sweetie!

Lisa has already put up an account of the meetup on her blog, so go read if you want to see what three foodies were up to one Saturday morning! It was definitely the panacea to cure a long week of work, and now I'm ready to bake up some more sweets again!

Birthday and Cake

One always hopes for nice weather on one's birthday - that's natural, don't you think? I imagine for those born in the months of winter, perhaps a picturesque fall of snow might be more appropriate, but since my birthday is in May, I always thought that sunny skies on my birthday wasn't too unreasonable a wish.

However, I'm not sure since my birthday falls right at the beginning of May, that sunshine always seem to be a 50/50 proposition. Perhaps it's all those April showers still carrying over - I recall a equal number of beautifully blue-skied birthdays as well as overcast, drizzly ones.

Mother Nature has decided to make it suspenseful for me this year by sending a spate of rainy, windy weather through the weekend. By the time most of you read this, I'm sure it will be Monday morning and I'll be peeking outside the window to see whether I'll be wearing birthday galoshes or not.

Regardless of weather, I've already been treated to a very nice pre-birthday dinner - I might review this place in a later post because I enjoyed it so much, and I got to enjoy the company of dear friends, which is always the most precious of birthday presents to me.

And, I have to admit that gloomy weather has made it easier to stay indoors and work on kitchen projects - my own little birthday cake to myself has been an experiment I've been working on since my last trip to Hong Kong. It's not quite perfect but it's in a pretty tasty stage right now - a little more tweaking and hopefully I'll reach what I'm envisioning in my dreams.

This cake is inspired by one of my favorite teas, jasmine, infusing a base of milk and whipped cream. It's meant to be airy, delicate, floral, and sweet - just like spring. For taste and texture contrast I made a layer of chocolate cake - almost genoise like in texture, and spread with a layer of melted chocolate and feuilletine.

For those of you who haven't used feuilletine, it's made of thin cookie-like sheets of butter, sugar, and flour, crushed into tiny flakes that resemble corn flakes. Feuilletine adds an intriguing, delightful crunchiness to desserts - it's usually mixed with ganache or sprinkled as a layer in cakes, to provide a surprising contrast. It's especially effective in mousse cakes like this jasmine cake, because the cream is so smooth and creamy, that the crunch of the feuilletine provides a fabulous extra dimension to an otherwise homegenously-textured dessert.

You can find feuilletine online, or you can also substitute Rice Krispies - that was what Pierre Herme used in his home recipe for his famous Plaisir Sucre in his Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme book, and it works beautifully.

The chocolate cake is rich, earthy, and grounds the ethereally-light jasmine cream without overpowering it. The feuilletine adds a nice crisp touch. The first few times I made the jasmine cream, the flavor came out too light, so be sure to taste the infused milk before you use it - if it seems too subtle, let it steep a little longer. When I can taste the jasmine against the chocolate, it's tastebud-tingling happiness.

Well, whether it's sunny, rainy, or cloudy, I'm looking forward to another sweet year. Thanks to all of you for keeping me company on this journey - you're the best!

Jasmine Chocolate Cake

makes (6) 2 1/2 cakes

Chocolate Cake

1/4 cup cocoa powder

6 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup sugar

2 large eggs

3 tablespoons buttermilk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8x8 baking pan with parchment paper.

Sift cocoa powder, flour, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl.

In a stand mixer with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.

Add in eggs, one at a time, mixing to combine thoroughly.

Add in vanilla and mix to combine.

Combine buttermilk and vanilla together in a small cup.

Add in flour mixture and buttermilk to batter in 5 alternating additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Mix after each addition just to combine. The batter should be very liquidy.

Pour batter into prepared pan and spread out evenly.

Bake in oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let cool on wire rack.

Feuilletine Layer

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 cup feuilletine or Rice Krispies

Combine chocolate and butter in a metal bowl and place over a pot of simmering water to melt. Let chocolate butter and melt together, stirring to combine.

Remove bowl from heat and stir in feuilletine until combined.

Spread the mixture in a thin layer over the top of the cooled chocolate cake layer. Let set for about 30 minutes.

Place six 2 1/2 diameter cake rings on a baking sheet. Line the rings with acetate strips on the inside for easier removal of the cakes.

Cut out circles from the chocolate cake layer and place into the cake rings, fitting them snugly into the bottom. (Prepare the rings with the cake layers before you make the jasmine cream).

Jasmine Cream

3/4 cup milk

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup jasmine tea

1 tablespoon powdered gelatin

1 1/2 cup whipping cream

Combine milk and sugar in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat.

Remove from heat and add in vanilla and jasmine tea. Cover saucepan and let steep for 15 to 20 minutes.

Combine gelatin with 2 1/2 tablespoons of water in another small bowl.

Strain out jasmine tea from milk. Bring milk back to a boil.

Add in gelatin and stir until it is fully melted and combined.

Remove from stove and let mixture cool to room temperature (do not let it completely cool and start setting up).

In a stand mixer with whisk attachment, whip cream until it holds soft peaks.

Add in jasmine milk mixture a little at a time, folding it into the whipped cream carefully until it becomes a liquidy mixture.

Divide the jasmine cream among the prepared cake rings, filling them to the top. Smooth out the tops and chill cakes in refrigerator overnight to let the cream set. Remove cakes from rings before serving.

Tweaking an Old Favorite: Meyer Lemon and Chocolate Tart

Whenever Meyer lemons come into season, I always get an irrepressible desire to make lemon tarts. They've always been one of my favorite things to make, and their sunny yellow hue is perfect reflection of the increasingly light-filled days. (We even had a mini-heat wave in San Francisco this weekend, with everyone scrambling to pull sundresses and shorts out from the depths of the closet. Seeing as San Francisco has approximately 2 weeks a year where it's actually hot enough to wear shorts, no one wants to waste those precious days!)

My favorite version of lemon tart is based on the first one I ever made out of Pierre Herme's Desserts by Pierre Herme . It's hard to improve on Pierre Herme's genius: a crisp, buttery pâte sucrée tart shell, filled with the most unctuous of lemon curds. Amazing how two such basic pastry fundamentals could combine into something so elementally good; proof that you don't need complicated techniques or multitudes of elements to make something really delicious.

So I felt the same compulsion this year to break out the tart rings when I saw the little nuggets of sunshine popping up at market; this time, though, I also got the urge to change things up a little bit. Gild the lily just a little and dress up the tart for after dinner.

The perfect accoutrement turned out to be a layer of bittersweet chocolate ganache, spread in a thin layer on the bottom of the shell, before the lemon curd is spooned in. At first I tried just a layer of melted chocolate, but when it hardened it was a little difficult to cut through and compromised the wonderful delicate crispness of the tart shell. A velvety, supple ganache provided just the right dark undertones to the cheery bite of the lemon. And since Meyer lemons are a bit sweeter than regular lemons, the chocolate helps ground and highlight the curd - the sunset in wait at the end of every sunny day, perhaps.

If you don't have Meyer lemons, regular ones will work just as well. While the tart should be chilled, I find it tastes best when you take it out about 20-30 minutes before serving - it lets the curd soften up slightly and regain and its wonderful addictive, creamy texture. It may be hard to wait that long, but believe me, it's worth it.

Hope your days are turning sunnier and warmer!

Pâte Sucrée

makes about 8 tartlets

1 1/4 sticks (5 oz) unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup confectioner's sugar, sifted

1/4 cup almond meal or ground almonds

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg, room temperature

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

Lemon Cream

adapted from Pierre Hermé's Desserts

makes about 1 1/2 to 2 cups

1/2 cup sugar

zest from 2 lemons

2 eggs

1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

5 ounces unsalted butter, cut into 1 inch pieces, softened but not melting

Chocolate Ganache

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate

1/2 cup heavy cream

For the pâte sucrée tart shells: Place the butter in a food processor and process until soft and creamy.

Add the confectioners' sugar and process until well blended and smooth.

Add in the almond meal, salt, and vanilla extract and process until well blended.

Add in the egg and egg yolk and process until just blended; scrape the bowl down as necessary.

Add the flour and pulse just until the dough starts to come together into a ball; don't overprocess. The dough will be very soft like cookie dough.

Scrape the dough out of the food processor and make into a ball. Flatten out into a disk, wrap in plastic, and chill in refrigerator for at least 4 hours until it is firm enough to handle.

When you are ready to bake off the tart shells, take the dough out of the refrigerator - let it warm up a bit if necessary but not too much because it will start melting fast.

Roll out the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap to 1/8" thickness. If the dough gets too soft, place back in the refrigerator to firm up.

Place the tart rings you will use on a baking sheet lined with a Silpat or parchment paper.

Cut out circles of dough to fit into desired tart rings. Press the dough carefully into the tart rings and up the sides, being careful not to stretch the dough or it will shrink when baked. Place the rings into the refrigerator to chill for at least 30 minutes. Trim off the excess dough from the top of the rings.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F while chilling the tart shells. When you are ready, line the shells with parchment and fill with beans or rice to keep the shells weighed down.

Bake shells for about 15-18  minutes until they are lightly colored and the shell feels dry to the touch. Remove from the oven and place on a rack. Remove the beans and parchment and brush the bottoms of the shells with a light egg wash (made from an egg white and a bit of water). Let cool before filling.

For the lemon cream: Create a water bath by placing a saucepan of water over heat to simmer and placing a metal bowl unto the pan so its bottom does not touch the water. Combine the sugar and lemon zest together with your fingers and add to the metal bowl. Whisk in the eggs and lemon juice.

Cook the mixture over the simmering water, whisking constantly, until the cream reaches 180 degrees and thickens. Keep whisking while the mixture is heating up to prevent the eggs from cooking.

Once the cream is thickened - you should be able to make tracks in the mixture with your whisk - take the cream off the heat and strain it into the bowl of a food processor or blender. Let the cream rest for a bit until it cools to about 140 degrees.

Add in the butter pieces a few at the time and combine on high speed. Once all of the butter has been added, let the mixture combine for a few minutes longer to ensure the mixture is perfectly smooth. It is the addition of butter that changes this recipe from a simple lemon curd to a rich, satiny-smooth cream.

Once the cream is finished pour it into a container and let it chill in the refrigerator for about half an hour before assembly.

To finish the tarts: Place chocolate in a bowl.

Bring cream to a boil in a saucepan over medium heat.

Pour cream over chocolate let sit for about a minute. Stir with a wooden spoon to melt and combine chocolate with cream into a smooth ganache.

Spoon some ganache into the bottom of the tart shells and spread into a thin layer. Let set for about 10 minutes to firm up.

Spoon some lemon cream into the tart shells, filling all the way to the top. Shake the tarts lightly to smooth out the cream out. Chill tarts in the refrigerator for about an hour before serving.

A Twist on the Familiar: Tonka Bean and Cocoa Nib Ice Cream

 

Do you ever wonder how just about everyone's favorite ice cream flavor seems inextricably tied to his or her childhood? After divulging their #1 choice, people will nearly always follow up with, "This was the only flavor I ate when I was a child!" or some variant thereof. I am no exception. Strawberry ice cream was my one true love (ok, there was a brief foray into orange sherbet territory, but I reconciled with strawberry pretty quickly). My sisters: chocolate and mint chip. My boyfriend: good old vanilla. I find it fascinating, and touching, that ice cream is such a cultural lodestone. It also makes me smile to think that with all the funky, jazzy, new ice cream flavors

That's not to say that I don't also embrace the flip side of ice cream: its workhorse versatility, its perfection as a canvas for endless flavor experimentation. Once I learned ice creams all start from a similar dairy base, I realized that just about any flavor was possible. Once I got an ice cream maker, there was no stopping me.

There are two main types of ice cream: French style, which is made with eggs, and Philadelphia or American style, which does not contain eggs. The French style ice cream, which uses the eggs to create a custard base, crème anglaise-style, has a richer, smoother mouthfeel owing to the emulsifying properties of the eggs; these ice creams are the ones that attract a raft of over-the-top adjectives like "indulgent", "decadent", and "sinful." Philadelphia style ice creams, which rely only on the milk and cream for richness, have a lighter, more delicate taste. Oftentimes, the recipes for Philadelphia style ice creams do not even require any cooking, making them quite simple to put together.

Both styles have their merits, however, when I am experimenting with ice cream flavors I usually like using a Philadelphia style recipe, because the simplicity of the ingredients really lets the added flavors shine through. Alice Medrich touches on this in her book Pure Dessert, where she discusses her experiments in the kitchen to really let the essence of the flavors come through; oftentimes it led to her editing out or reducing amounts of ingredients previously thought necessary.

In fact, this ice cream I made is based on Medrich's cocoa nib ice cream, one of my very favorite ice cream flavors. Now, I think this is amazing because well, 1)Medrich is an amazing pastry chef, but also 2)it's pretty difficult to displace people's ice cream preferences. If you look at at a top ten list of ice cream flavors, it always has the same perennials: strawberry, vanilla, chocolate chip, butter pecan. While I enjoy playing ice cream mad scientist in the kitchen and I think most people are now used to seeing "exotic" ice cream flavors when going out to restaurants, I'd still wager that most people are not going to list lavender honey praline or coconut lemongrass as their top flavor. Perhaps foodies in the future will prove me wrong! But I believe the power of nostalgia is hard to overcome. Also, the reason such basic flavors like chocolate and coffee have such staying power is because they are so simple and pure: they appeal to a very elemental part of us.

Which is why I found Medrich's cocoa nib ice cream such a revelation: cream infused with cocoa nib had a taste that seemed very different and yet was teasingly familiar. Cocoa nibs have a taste very remisicent of chocolate, yet also unique - they have a nutty, rustic, darker edge to them - raw, unprocessed chocolate, as it were. So when I tasted this soft, delicate ice cream, with a hue somewhere between eggshell and mocha, it tasted like a far-off memory of chocolate. I think that's why this ice cream is so appealing - it triggers just enough of a sense of familiarity, yet has a twist. Just about everyone I've urged to try this ice cream is fascinated by it.

I decided I needed my fix of this ice cream last week, and as I set about making it I thought of adding another ingredient: tonka beans. These deliciously fragrant little beans (see above) are another example of a twist on the familiar: they smell very similar to vanilla beans, mixed with cloves, cinnamon, and, some say, hay. When I tasted a tonka bean it has a taste like vanilla but also a a bit grassy, so I could see the hay comparison. Tonka beans have been used as a substitute for vanilla, so what, I wondered, would cocoa nibs and tonka beans taste like? Chocolate and vanilla or something entirely different?

As it turned out, the tonka bean added a wonderful layer of complexity to the ice cream. The chocolatey, nutty flavor of cocoa nibs is the first to fill your mouth. Then the top notes of clove and sweet vanilla round out the finish. I kept eating spoonful after spoonful, trying to discern all the different components, and then realizing that I was also really enjoying it!

A health note: tonka beans seem to be quite popular in the dessert world right now: I was turned on to them by none other than Tartelette herself. However, there have been concerns raised on the internet as to the possible dangerous side-effects of these beans. Tonka beans contain coumarin, which in large doses is considered toxic by the FDA. I'm not sure if it's actually illegal to sell tonka beans in the US, although they appear to be available in other parts of the world. My two cents is that I don't think the small amount of tonka bean used in this recipe should be dangerous for anyone who is healthy. I guess I wouldn't recommend eating tonka beans every day, but again this advice could be true for many things. If you are concerned or want to know more there is a good thread on eGullet. Also, even if you don't have tonka beans I would still highly recommend making the cocoa nib ice cream - it's that good!

To go with the ice cream I made the pizzelles from my cookie book, with a tablespoon of cocoa powder added, and dipped them in white chocolate and pistachios to create little handmade cones. Did that bring back memories of wanting my ice cream in those outrageous triple-dipped chocolate-and-sprinkled-covered sugar cones? Yep, but that's a story for next time...

And, once summer gets closer, you can be sure I'll be working on the perfect strawberry ice cream!

 

Tonka Bean and Cocoa Nib Ice Cream

adapted from Alice Medrich's Pure Dessert

1 1/2 cups (13 oz) whole milk

1 1/2 cups (13 oz) heavy cream

1/2 cup (3 1/2 oz) sugar

1/3 cup (2 oz) cocoa nibs, coarsely chopped

1 1/2 teaspoon grated tonka bean

1/8 teaspoon salt

Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat.

Remove from heat, cover, and let steep for about 20 minutes.

Strain mixture into a clean container, cover, and let chill overnight.

Freeze in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions.

Chocolate Pizzelles

2/3 cup + ½ cup (5 1/2 oz) all purpose flour

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

1 ½  teaspoon baking powder

2 pinches salt

2 large eggs, room temperature

½ cup (3 1/2 oz) sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

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

In a stand mixer with whisk attachment, whip the eggs and sugar on high speed until thickened, about 1 minute. Scrape down bowl sides as needed.

Combine vanilla extract with the melted butter and with mixer on low speed gradually add to egg mixture. Mix just until combined ,scraping down bowl sides as needed.

Remove bowl from mixer and fold in the sifted dry ingredients with a rubber spatula, making sure to mix until smooth and free of dry patches.
Cover bowl with plastic wrap and allow to rest for 15 minutes.

Preheat the electric pizzelle press as listed in the instruction booklet.

Once pizzelle press is heated, open press and place 2 teaspoonfuls of  batter on each pizzelle grid and gently close the press and bake following the pizzelle press instruction booklet. Note: the first few pizzelle are never perfect,note the positioning of the batter and finished color  so you can make adjustments for the following pizzelles.

Gently lift pizzelles from press and cool completely on a wire rack.

Marshmallow Chicks, Just in Time for Easter

For any sweets aficionado, Easter is a can't-miss holiday; more candy is sold for Easter than any other holiday besides Halloween, so if you've been caught with a bag of jellybeans in your shopping cart, know you're not alone. Easter also boasts probably the largest variety of candy specifically created for celebrating the occasion: who can think of Easter without thinking of jellybeans, or giant chocolate bunnies, or foil-wrapped malted milk eggs, or yes, those (in)famous marshmallow Peeps? 

Besides the intrinsic delight in eating something that can't be found for the rest of the year, I also love Easter candy because it's so pretty: all delicate pastel shades of daffodil yellow, cherry blossom pink, and robin's-egg blue, and in the shapes of adorable little chicks and bunnies. Easter candy makes me feel happy and springlike, exactly how one ought to feel in this season of bloom and renewal.

While working on my candy book, I had the chance to research and work with a lot of different candies, and a lot of techniques and molds. I am totally in love with molds now. They make it so easy to create professional looking confections, turning your pot of tempered chocolate or hot sugar into a endlessly versatile medium. Among other candies, I was able to make some chocolate eggs and little peep-like marshmallows with my molds.

Looking back, I'm surprised I haven't blogged about marshmallows before. These boon companions to a cup of hot cocoa are also an ethereal delight on their own, especially when homemade. After hand-cut guimauve (the French word for marshmallow) that tastes of vanilla, strawberry, or violets, how could those store-bought imitations seem like anything but a sad substitute? Although making marshmallows seemed intimidating at first, after a few tries I got the hang of combining hot sugar, whipped egg whites, and gelatin into a glorious, puffy white cloud. Seeing marshmallow take shape, just like meringue or buttercream, never fails to be pastry magic for me.

Now, I've made marshmallows in a pan before, but never ones molded into the shapes of animals; however, with a mold it was surprisingly easy to make a little flock of chicks and bunnies. What you'll need is a 3-D candy mold, that creates two mirrored halves of the same shape. Once the marshmallow candy mixture you pour in has set, you can unmold and put the two halves together to form one 3-D shape. (You can also do the same thing with chocolate to make your own 3-D chocolate bunnies. I don't know why I never thought of doing this until I started experimenting with molds and discovered how many of them there were. Some excellent online sources for molds include Sugarcraft and Candyland Crafts; both offer a great variety of molds in almost any shape you can think of.

The marshmallow chicks came out quite well, and once rolled in colored sugar (one of my favorite decorating items) they are ready to perch in a chocolate egg or perhaps an Easter basket.

If you don't want to bother with 3-D molds, you can pour the marshmallow into a prepared pan and let it set, the way marshmallows are traditionally made. Then you can take a cookie cutter and cut out shapes from the sheet of marshmallow.

The recipe below is adapted from the marshmallow recipe I developed for my book; I hope you enjoy it as a little preview of what's to come.

I hope you have a happy Easter and find lots of sweets in your Easter basket!

Marshmallow Chicks

4 tablespoons unflavored gelatin
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
2 egg whites, room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 cup potato starch

1. Prepare candy molds by making sure they are perfectly clean and dry. Spray them lightly with cooking spray, then sprinkle them with colored sugar to coat. Or, line a 9 by 13 pan with a piece of plastic wrap large enough to cover the bottom and sides and overhang the edges to act as handles. Spray the wrap with cooking spray so it can be easily removed from the finished marshmallow. Sprinkle colored sugar over the surface.

2. Combine gelatin with 3/4 cup water in a small bowl and let dissolve. Be sure the gelatin dissolves entirely and does not turn spongy. If necessary, heat in the microwave or over a stove to keep it liquid while you prepare the rest of the recipe.

3. Combine sugar, corn syrup, and 1 cup of water in a large saucepan and cook over medium heat until the sugar is completely dissolved. Continue cooking without stirring until the mixture to come to a boil.

4. Continue cooking until mixture reaches 260°F, hard-ball stage. While the mixture is cooking, prepare egg whites. Place them in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. When the sugar syrup reaches 245°F, begin whipping the egg whites on medium high speed until they form firm peaks. Do not overwhip.

5. When the sugar syrup has reached 260°F, remove from heat. Pour in the fully dissolved gelatin mixture into the saucepan and swirl to incorporate.

6. With the stand mixer running on low, pour the sugar syrup in a slow, steady stream into the egg whites; pour down the side of the bowl to avoid having hot syrup spatter out.

7. Once all the syrup is added, turn the mixer up to high speed and whip for about 3 to 5 minutes until the mixture is very thick and glossy white.

8. Add vanilla extract and mix to incorporate.

9. Spoon the mixture into prepared molds and smooth off the tops with an offset spatula. Or, use a rubber spatula to scrape the marshmallow into the prepared pan. Smooth out the top and let the pan sit for a couple hours at room temperature to let the marshmallow set.

10. After the marshmallows have set, unmold them and fit the halves together to form 3-D shapes. Roll them in more colored sugar to coat. 

11. Or, if you've made a pan of marshmallow, combine the confectioners’ sugar and potato starch into a bowl. Sprinkle some of the mixture over a clean counter. Turn out the marshmallow onto the surface, and dust the surface and sides liberally with more of the mixture to prevent sticking. Using a sharp chef’s knife, cut the marshmallow into cubes. Run the knife under hot water and wipe clean between cuts to prevent sticking and to keep the cut edges neat.

12. Roll the marshmallows in the mixture to coat all over.