Mette

Welcome to Round 4. In Round 3, gfron challenged me to make a deconstructed beer dessert, and the result was a sampler plate of smoked malt creme brulee, a cascade hops not-quite-beer and a brewpub chocolate bar (the full thread is here). It has been a great cooking experience and now I pass the challenge on. I was in awe when I read Shalmanese thread '21 for 21 in 21 for my 21st, dished, people, hours, birthday'. It is a brilliant story of a crazy adventure in cooking. It shows great skill, imagination, and ability to go long periods of time with very little sleep. So, Shalmanese, my challenge to you is: Create a dessert tapas plate consisting of 7 items in 7 days, using local and seasonal flavours (I know purist will oppose to the term tapas in the context, but so be it) I hope you have as much fun with it as I did - there's always lots of support and ideas right at the tip of your fingers ENJOY - now we just wait for Shamanese to accept and get working

So - I just got up from eating a lovely, multi item decounstructed beer dessert!!! Cheers! Oh - is that a beer she is drinking ? You may ask. No it part of the deconstructed beer dessert. When I first got the challenge, I thought 'Holy Cow' - deconstructed beer, but thanks to my lovely husband and some very talented people here at eGullet, it all came together in the end. Here's the result: The items are: a smoked malt creme brulee, a cascade 'not-quite-beer', which is a cold citrus soup flavoured with cascade hops topped with a grapefruit/lime/hop sorbet, and finally 'the Brewpub bar', a chocolate bar with malted shortbread, chocolate malt ganache and beer marshmallow in milk chocolate. After many a sleepless night (throw a few extra in for drama) I decided to go for a few, key ingredients and try to bring them out as much as possble. I went sniffing malts and hops to look for dessert like references: The not-quite-beer: When you open a bag of dried cascade hops theres is a very clear smell of citrus, primarily grapefruit and lime which is where the sorbet ides came from - someone on the thead suggested doing someting that looks like a beer, and the sorbet looks like the top half of a beer, so I thought - a fruit soup and went for more citrus, this time with grapefruit, lemon, lime, orange and mandarine orange. It is a very nice, refreshing drink/dessert, and the citrus and hops supplement each other very well. The creme brulee: Rauchmalt is smoked malt and smells quite smoked. I thought it would be complemented nicely by the brulee burnt sugar and be a nice contrats to all the freshnedd and sharpness of the not-quite-beer. The brulee is flavoured with rauchmalt syrup, and is nice and malty but as smoked as I had hoped. If I were to male it again, I would probably add a bit of very smoky whisky to bring the flavour out more. Chocolate bar: In spite of the fact that beer and chocolate is a very obvious combination, I had to make some chocolate item, especially considering that chocolate malt smells of chocolate:huh: I'd already made the shortbread which is great, but a bit plain. With a chocolate malt syrup banache and a beer marshmallow on top, it makes for a nice chocolate bar, event though the balance between the components is a bit off - there ought to have been more ganache and marshmallow and less shortbread and chcolate covering - alas! So, that was the result - thank ypu, gfron, for challenging me - it has been a really fun week, and thaks to Kerry Beal for starting this dessert madness. I will post the recipes, probably tomorrow, and have a few more pics, especially re. ingredients, if anyone are interested. I will now go and make public the next challenge

Bad news are: I seem to live in a pearl barley desert - so the popped barley will not happen. Good news are: the concept has come together and I am looking very much forward to the home strech tomorrow to see if it works in real life Edited to add: the next challengee has accepted and will be unveiled tomorrow

When there are recipes to post in recipeGullet they will go in there, but they still need a bit of work The malt fluor is made of finely ground crystal malt (which has a nice malty, caramelly flavour), milled in the next door neighbour's flour mill and sifted. I have tried googling malt flour but didn't come up with much - it seems most of the references are to powdered malt, which, as I understand it, is a sweetner (I may be wrong - any Koreans out there? some of the references are to korean malt flour...?????) I can see lots of interesting applications for it - I think it would be tasty as an additive in bread. I've been knocked out by a cold today so not much has happened on the beer/dessert front - I have been toying with the suggestion of making a shot/glass of beer of some sort - someting that looks like a beer but isn't. I'm going to be very busy for the next couple of days but will check in and be back for the home strech on sunday....hopefully the concept will be fully formed by then Keep the suggestions coming - as pointed out, the concet can still use some work

The marshmallows came out well - like a very sweet, chewy beer - flavoured with malt syrup and hops. I have now got some basic elements together (i think); beer marshmallows, malted shortbread, dark malt syrup, rauchmalt syrup and a selection of hops so now it is just trying to come up with some overall concept for the dessert - arrghhhhhh Maybe I'll have to do a sampler plate.... Pearl barley is harder to come by than I thought, but I'll keep looking so this road can be explored!

You've basically got it right! In beer there's some form of malted grain, most often barley but sometimes wheat (for weissbier), sometimes some rice/corn is added to give a lighter flavour (mostly in american beer). Malt extract is used for home brewing, so you don't have to go though the mashing of the grain, but not used an awful lot in commercial brewing. Wart is the liquid you get from mashing the malt and filtering this. The malt extracts can be used as a shortcut to achieve wart without mashing the grain. The hops are added for aroma and bitterness and the various types of yeast help develop a certain flavour profile for the beer. Barley is bought dry - basically just grains of barley that have been malted. I've come to the conclusion that the primary flavout elements of beer are the various malts and hops (mostly, there is very little yeast left in the beer when it is drunk), som I'm heading towards various elements flavoured with malts and hops.

Thank you for the kind words. I haven't completely given up on having a chocolate element in there somewhere - especially not as the dark malt syrup I made practically screams chocolate

Must get pearl barley, must get pearl barley - and a pressure cooker. I'm going to try it out! The malt shortbread is vey nice, malty, buttery, crumbly - may work well with marshmallows as suggested - I'll try out the marshmallows.

Here's todays mini-blog: I've been trying (again - this time without ending up with burnt gunk) to male malt syrup: Münchener malt, crystal malt and chcolate malt - cracked, mashed, sparged and then the liquid boiled to death to mak a nice, thick syrup with definate maltiness and bitterness - now I need a good way of using it. it would be good with something creamy - I've been toying with rice pudding, bruleé and bread-and-butter pudding. The latter being the first time the yeast enters the equasion. I've also taken advantage of my nice neighbour and his flour mill and made some malt flour, which I am going to try and use in shortbread to da a malty shortbread and maby as a flavouring agent in something else. The hops.....steep, grind, or .......Looking for something fun to do with hops without getting the bitterness or just a bit of bitterness.... We had a conversation in this house about whisky in this context - the ingredients in whisky are the same as in beer (except the hops, obviously) - is whisky cheating? Just noticed the marshmallow thread has been revitalised - maybe a hop and malt syrup marshmallow. This is turning into quite an adventure, and i do se a pattern emerging where focus is on the components of beer. This is a lot of fun - hopefully no more nightmares! Must make shortbred!

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. ← Flakes = babyfood. I'm with you on the yuck. I was thinking more of pearl barley or a more substantial cousin. Varmint's idea of a barley cake has some appeal. However this one goes, its a fun process so far. hmmmm - can one pop barley the way one pops corn? That could give a foamy appearance to the final dessert. ← Maybe pearl barley will puff if deep fried - I feel an experiment coming on (where does one get pearl barley at 9:30 at night in the suburbs) - this would add a nice crispy someting

We seem to have them kicking around the cellar, but when beer was first brewed in this house, we bought online. On homebrewing sites, you can often buy smaller quantities. Malt syrup can often be bought in health food stores, but of course this will have a generic flavour profile. Tonight, i've managed to make my own dark malt syrup, with a sweet and butter intense flavour - I still need an application for it though...

Actually, I've been sniffing hops to find a type suitably aromatic - I was (again) overwhelmed by the citrusness of the cascade hops - so I'm thinking about going this way in a possible hop based element - the acidity is otherwise hard to come by in beer; there's is sweetness and bitterness, which does get countered in the fruity beers by the acidity/sharpness.

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!

Well done for pulling it off - the melting pineapple had me a bit sceptical but it looks gorgeous - I've never had tamale/masa but love mincemeat - Brilliant!! And i bow down to anyone being able to carve cheese.

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!

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

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

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

As Kerry suggests, mix chocolate and nut butter. Nougat is most often made with hazelnuts and certainly the most common variety in Germany is hazelnut. Depending on the application, you can make a pretty passable product by mixing ½ milk chocolate/½ smooth, unsalted and unsweetened hazelnut butter (often available in health food shops). Unaware what I was doing, I made this paste for something else, and was quite surprised with the resemblance to the store bought stuff.

How about something caramel/pork crackling-like - sweet, salty, smooth, crunchy (and of course chocolate in some form) Good luck

My lovely husband has given me a surprise trip to London for my birthday, leaving tomorrow There will be lots of eating and drinking, but I also need chocolate recommendations! Please! What is good, what is overrated, what is best to avoid? Leaving tomorrow morning and having to work doesn't leave me much time to research, and besides, I prefer recommendations from the people in the know Thank you P.S. Will post pics if anything good comes my way in the UK

Thank you alanamoana, kerry, john for the kind words. Yes, the decorations are from PCB. They look a bit tacky when you see them in the package from PCB (filled blisters and stencilled sheets) but very cool in real life. Someone at the wedding has now asked me to make similar chocs for a function, and now I'm agonising over the price, as the wedding chocs were a present. i know there are threads out there about pricing - just needed to get the worry out there What a grat thread this is for inspiration - hopefully there will be more time soon...

As mentioned in another thread, I've been making wedding chocolates, petit four style, for a friend. Here's how the kitchen looked at 2 am on the morning of the wedding and here's what I made from the left and clockwise they are Café Cognag, Lime, Hazelnut and Lavender/honey. (Thanks to Kerry Beal, SummerSun and Trishad for suggestions on the lime filling - went with a bit of citric acid to give it more sharpness as I ended up being very busy at work and not having much time to test)

Maybe too late but here it is: Madeleines madteater. Has been getting rave reviews. Giving away an evening there as a wedding present this weekend.

I made a gold cake a couple of years ago. It was covered in marzipan, then brushed with melted cocoabutter and finally brushed with gold dust (from PCB). The marcipan could happily be replaced with fondant and gold with copper Here's a pic - bear with me, I'm not a pro, so the covereing is a bit bumpy, but you get the idea /Mette