66 replies to this topic

[gfron1]

Welcome to round 3. In the last round, Ling challenged me to create a dessert using animal (not byproduct). The result was a mincemeat tamale, burnt cinnamon bison flag, and sage ice cream sweetened with agave nectar. The stress was high, and the challenge was great. But, now its time to pass the challenge on.

Mette is the perfect challengee for what I have in store. Here is an example of Mette's recent work.

So, my challenge to Mette is this:

Create a deconstructed beer dessert! The dessert should be presented by next Sunday.

If you read Mette's profile, you'll understand why this torch has been passed to Copenhagen.

(Now we wait until she notices this thread and accepts)

P.S. If the term deconstructed is confusing, the group can help define it.

Edited by gfron1, 08 October 2006 - 07:07 PM.

[chiantiglace]

Oh this is a great one.

Just before I left school for extern I, and a very good friend of mine who was the president of the Brew Club were collaborating to put together a pastry and beer tasting. I had lists and lists of things we had put together. We hadnt even gotten half way through our research (which was getting heavy, especially on my end) before troubled stirred in the student government inableing us to go through with the event and eventually canceling Brooklynn Brewers from comming up. It was sad but hopefully we will get another shot at it.

I dont want to say much more until mette has joined the thread, but I will say this: This topic is almost, if not as hard as the animal topic. The biggest problem is you can not reduce or heat (too much) beer like you can other liquids, like wine. The more heat introduce the more bitter it gets, resulting in a very unpleasant and unusable product. But I have researched ways around the heat.

This should get interesting. And too all you wine lovers, mark my words, the truth is beer will always go better with food than wine. Give me any flavor or combination that is, and I can find a beer that will taste better with it than ANY wine.

[ludja]

Here are the links to the previous Iron Baker challenges:

Iron Baker Challenge #1: Ling and Upside Down Pineapple Cake

Iron Baker Challenge #2: gfron1 and dessert with animal (not byproduct

[Kerry Beal]

This look like an intriguing challenge. Beer and chocolate I hope. The malty flavour goes so nicely with chocolate. But what to do with deconstruction?

[gfron1]

I've had tons of ideas for this...but I'll reserve comment for now

[s_sevilla]

I have seen stout pie, but the challenge here is to deconstruct beer....so it's gotta have some barley malt, hops?, and additives common to the region (I guess for the "beer" (sorry bud, miller, coors fans) we drink in the US of A, that would include some corn....so we could salvage the last of the Masa from gfron) yeast, and for some beers, especially lambics, a woody component. Add in the spices of Belgian beers, and the fruits of fruit beers, the sakes and we have more than enough components for a dessert.

If I were doing this right now, I would do a yeasted rich dough bread, perhaps borrowing an idea from the world baking championships and doing a bread within a bread like the japanese team, served with a spiced fruit coulis, and a little demitasse of a spiced foam. Or something closer to a tart with the same accompaniments.

Whatever it is, I would find a beer to base it on first...and right now that would be Anderson Valley Hop Ottin IPA, with a lot of berry flavors in there, and of course, serve a nice pint with the pastry
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I think I'll go drink a beer now.

If Mette accepts, good luck.

[FistFullaRoux]

Guinness makes a lovely flavoring for ice cream. Most beers would work for granitas or sorbets.

Does root beer count?

And I just re-read the challenge. So you want a hops element, a wheat element, and a water element? Does it have to contain alcohol?

Edited by FistFullaRoux, 08 October 2006 - 10:47 PM.

[Mette]

Thank you for the challenge - I don't know whether to be really scared or honoured - either way, it is going to be a vey interesting week of kitchen work.

Beer - what fun!!!! Malt of various descriptions (maybe going back to the barley) and hops - aroma hops. Obviously, theres going to have to be chocolate in there as well, maybe in the form of chocolate malt.

i haven't many thoughts on the challenge right now, as I am at work (being in a different time zone), but I thought I'd just let everyone know I'm game and thank gfron for this great challenge. The bar is certainly high looking at the two previous outcomes - I can't wait to get started.

I'll get back later

Edited by Mette, 08 October 2006 - 11:52 PM.

[chiantiglace]

Not to be difficult, but I would be dissapointed if this dessert was with chocolate. Chocolate with beer is a little too easy in my opinion. But please dont let me hold it against you, if thats what you want to do, do it.

I think a Kolsch would do very well with a mellow nut, or fall fruit dessert.

IPA is too strong in my opinion. The hopps are a little much for dessert.

Smoked porter, or a smoked Bock would be awesome. I love the taste of chocolate with these. But of course, back to chocolate so easily.

A brewery I use to work for had, hands down, the best beer I have ever tasted and I think anyone will ever taste. The beer was a Lemongrass Wheat. Utterly amazing beer that I could honestly drink all day every day, and I only drink beer once a week if I am lucky. I have always wanted to put this beer with ginger or asian pear.

Red Lager could prove well for dark nuts and stone fruits.

Pale Ale is a definate citrus goer to me.

[Nina C.]

Gfron - when you say a deconstruced beer dessert, do you mean taking beer down into its pieces, a la Jose Andres Deconstructed White Wine?

or do you mean a deconstructed dessert that includes beer as a main ingredient, as in something modern, perhaps a duet on the plate?

Edited by Nina C., 09 October 2006 - 02:27 AM.

[jackal10]

I think the key is deconstructed: malt, hops, alcohol as seperate components...
and it has to look like beer, glass (or bottle), amber liquid, foam
or have those components

[gfron1]

One of the fun parts of these challenges has been the eG's interaction with the challenge, so wherever the group takes Mette is fine with me. My original thought (knowing she would know beer well) was to have her break down the ingredients and re-create them into something new. And while I won't turn her away from chocolate, I agree with Anthony that it might be a bit too obvious if is a main component. I purposefully have left North America for this challenge to see what Europe might be able to do. Europe...a traditional continent. Much history. Much diversity. Often on the cutting edge of culinary taste.

I remember the first days of my challenge like they were just last week - oh yeah, they were ...these first days tell us nothing of 7 days from now!

[s_sevilla]

So when I read it, I thought of decomposing it three ways: by ingredients, by tasting notes of a certain beer, and by the form of beer.

[lexy]

… by tasting notes of a certain beer…

That strikes as the more interesting option, flavour-wise.

What about the flavour profile of a beer like Hoegaarden?

Or what about (alcoholic) cider - I guess that's not really beer per se, but it could be interesting …

[chiantiglace]

blood orange hefeweizen

[RodneyCk]

blood orange hefeweizen

Oh my, that is music to my ears.

[Mette]

So when I read it, I thought of decomposing it three ways:  by ingredients, by tasting notes of a certain beer, and by the form of beer.

Now, work is over for the day, the lizzards are in bed and there's a bit of time to get stuck into the challenge (although my mind did stray a bit at work).

Once I got past the scaredness and got thinking about the various scenarios, my conclusions hav been the same as s_sevilla's, namely that there are 3 approaches: ingredients, a certain beer or a certain form of beer.

My first thoughts were to work with a certain beer, my first thoughts were towards weissbier, with the light fruitiness, the banana and clove notes.Thinking more about this (or working with other beer styles) I feel I may move so far into the various flavours that no one will know it has anything to do with beer. And my feelings about this challenge is that the beer associations should be clear without actually being a beer. Actually, my very first thoughts went towards using one of Brewpub's beers as inspiration, but every time I've gone down the road of a specific beer, I end up in something so fragmented that it has no longer any real beer association. Other ingredients may also overpower the subtle notes of the hops and malts in a given beer, so that the profile is lost.

I have been considering mead and ginger ale but that would be straying off the challenge path (although mead would be a choice to expose the scandinavian angle - and be relatively easy - honey and herbs)

As the dessert has to be a deconstruction, it would be cheating to use actual, existing beer as a base, even though this would be an interesting challenge as well.

At the moment I tend towards choosing ingredients and the tasting notes of these ingredients to create two or three desserts components that together dispays some of the characteristics of beer and of these choice ingredients - fe.x. a specific hop or malt

that's where I'm at at the moment. I'm looking forward to this adventure and to all the discussions and suggestions

edit: Oh, I'm not quite off the chocolate idea, but has moved towards starting with chocolate malt and seeing where it goes

Keep'em coming

/Mette

Edited by Mette, 09 October 2006 - 12:42 PM.

[Mette]

… by tasting notes of a certain beer…

That strikes as the more interesting option, flavour-wise.

What about the flavour profile of a beer like Hoegaarden?

Or what about (alcoholic) cider - I guess that's not really beer per se, but it could be interesting …

Cider would be brilliant but probably belongs in a different challenge

[Mette]

Not to be difficult, but I would be dissapointed if this dessert was with chocolate.  Chocolate with beer is a little too easy in my opinion.  But please dont let me hold it against you, if thats what you want to do, do it.

I think a Kolsch would do very well with a mellow nut, or fall fruit dessert.

IPA is too strong in my opinion.  The hopps are a little much for dessert. 

Smoked porter, or a smoked Bock would be awesome.  I love the taste of chocolate with these.  But of course, back to chocolate so easily.

A brewery I use to work for had, hands down, the best beer I have ever tasted and I think anyone will ever taste.  The beer was a Lemongrass Wheat.  Utterly amazing beer that I could honestly drink all day every day, and I only drink beer once a week if I am lucky.  I have always wanted to put this beer with ginger or asian pear.

Red Lager could prove well for dark nuts and stone fruits.

Pale Ale is a definate citrus goer to me.

It would be cheating to use an actual beer Rauchmalt is definately on my list of options as I really enjoy the smoky flavours

BTW IPA is one of my favourite styles but quite powerful. Great observations on the pairings, though - too bad the brewery never happened!

[Kouign Aman]

I keep thinking of something inelegant like a malty barley pudding (similar to rice pud but with more texture), decorated with a thin ribbon of hop syrup - a sweet & bitter note.

Its the hop syrup that really keeps coming to mind.
This will be a fun challenge to follow.

[s_sevilla]

this seems a little out there but I would love to see if someone pulls it off: Create a loaf of bread that when halved, looks like a pint of beer, with a nice amber interior, a white edge for the glass, and a creamy "head"

[gfron1]

Go for it and send us the pic

[s_sevilla]

Go for it and send us the pic 

Thinking about it right now....I might have to sit on this until next weekend because of class, but I might be able to squeeze it into my schedule earlier......right now I'm trying to work out whether or not I can integrate three essentially different breads into one loaf, but looking at the temperatures and times I think I should be ok, the problem is finding or making an appropriate cooking vessal....if all else fails I'll empty out a can from the pantry and bake it in that.


Another idea for the immediate challengee:

Souffle's; that way the foamy component gets in there.

[Mette]

I keep thinking of something inelegant like a malty barley pudding (similar to rice pud but with more texture), decorated with a thin ribbon of hop syrup - a sweet & bitter note.

Its the hop syrup that really keeps coming to mind.
This will be a fun challenge to follow.

I have actually been considering a barley pudding - when the kids were very young we used to make porridge out of barley flakes - it doesn't taste like much, and I really abhorr the texture, so I've left this track.

Speaking of syrup, I experiemented last night with making malt syup based on black malt, chocolate malt, crystal malt and münchener malt - it was looking very promising and had a good flavour, but then I had to go see to a crying child, and when I got back there was only a horrible, burnt mess at bottom af the pan. I'll keep on working on the syrups.

BTW, this challenge is already getting to me - last night I had a dreadful nightmare that I got expelled from eGullet for lack of replying - shudder......

Now I must work!

[jackal10]

Upside down beer: foamy component at the bottom, amber or black liquid over, and some scratchings floating on top...

[s_sevilla]

upside down beer......for some reason I keep thinking of those "lifting" bubbles in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, But I digress.

It would be neat to see if the malt syrup coud be foamed in an ISI whipper....unfortuneatly I don't have one right now, so all my foams will have to wait for another day.

I'm wondering how hops will/can be worked into the mix, if you are looking here are you going to infuse something with them?

I've heard of places like Alinea using vaporizers to create essences and smells that they load into little pillows, and the guests are supposed to press the pillow, wafting the smells into their faces. A tad gimmicky for me, but a neat way to incorporate herbs and the like.

[Pam R]

BTW, this challenge is already getting to me - last night I had a dreadful nightmare that I got expelled from eGullet for lack of replying - shudder......

I promise you won't be expelled because of this challenge!


I'm not much of a beer drinker, but what about honey as a flavour component. Good luck with the challenge - I can't wait to see what you come up with!

[Varmint]

Of course, a sweet barley cake could be a start.

[gfron1]

Mette, join the no-sleep club. I had trouble falling asleep and staying asleep last week because ideas were racing through my head. Embrace the lack of sleep

My two cents...I've been thinking about Raspberry Chimay and Lemon in Heffeweizen...I love fruit in my beer.

[ludja]

In what forms can one purchase malted barley and hops in retail?

Buying these items would necessitate a trip to a beer brewing supply store, I guess.