Ling

It is a little more acidic than most bittersweet chocolates, due to the red fruit flavours. I would pair it with an almond...something with richness and a bit of bitterness to compliment the flavours of the chocolate. And some Amaretto. (Also, when I taste raspberry in Manjari, so my first thought is raspberry-almond-chocolate.)

^I thought the bit of cherry with the pineapple was fine. Perhaps not a combination I would first turn to when I'm inspired to make another pineapple dessert, but not bad for what it is!

I actually won a small contest in naming this restaurant (I suggested "Ume"), but the owner's cousin wanted to name it something else. So I think this restaurant is going to be called Ebisu, from what I hear.

And now you can! Recipe here: The modern Pineapple Upside-down Cake

Thank-you! I should have plated another one though...the ice-cream is off-center on this cake. Ah well.

Beautiful creations, Lumas and gfron! gfron, your chocolate mango dessert reminds me of mooncake! (The mango looks like the salted egg yolk found inside some of them.) I had the "modern" pineapple upside down cake I made for the Iron Baker challenge, and a few extra slices of caramel roulade that I didn't plate as prettily.

^Yes, those books seem to be very brief in their directions. It's pretty obvious that the person who wrote the directions is assuming that the baker is more advanced and can put together cakes without the writer specifying how long to beat the egg whites, for example. The torte recipes usually only have 4 brief paragraphs of explanation as opposed to something most cookbooks would spend several pages explaining! So I finished the pineapple upside down cake challenge. I stuck with the idea of putting the pineapple on the bottom of the cake so it is "upside down" when compared to the traditional version. I went with the brittle instead of the tuile because I figured some sort of hard candy would be better with cake, and because the brittle is a form of caramel...I thought it fit better. The brown sugar cherry ice-cream was very nice with the spice cake roulade. (There is more caramel rolled up inside the cake.) As I said earlier, I stuck with the roulade idea to mimic the "ring" shape of the pineapple in the traditional cake. The pineapple slices in the corner were inspired by Shalmanese's link to watticetti's pineapple. I coated the pineapple in sugar and browned them in butter in the pan, then added a tiny bit of Grand Marnier towards the end. All in all, it is a very simple dessert to execute. I don't think any baker should have any trouble putting this together at home, so I hope my recipe is accessible. Thanks for playing along with me...now it's time for the next challenge! I am waiting to hear back from the person I PMed...I think he has until tonight (~24 hrs.) to respond. If not, I have another talented (pro) baker I want to tag. I'll post the recipe in Recipe Gullet soon.

Iron Baker challenge: The "modern" Pineapple Upside-down Cake Kerry Beal tagged me as the first Iron Baker. For those unfamiliar with the thread in the Pastry forum, she issued me a challenge to complete in one week. She wanted me to update that retro classic, the Pineapple Upside Down cake. I made a caramel spice roulade (to mimic the look of a pineapple ring), brown sugar cherry ice-cream (instead of maraschino), some brittle, and some sauteed pineapple wedges as a garnish. 1 c cake flour 2 tsp Vietnamese cinnamon 1-1/2 tsp ground ginger 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg 1/4 tsp cloves 3/4 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp sea salt 5 T oil (neutral flavour) 5 eggs, separated 1 tsp molasses 1/2 c granulated sugar ** Preheat oven to 375 degrees. 1. Sift flour, spices, baking powder, and salt together into a medium bowl. 2. In a mixing bowl, beat the egg yolks until pale and add the molasses and oil. Add sugar gradually. Beat until volumne triples. 3. In another mixing bowl (and with a clean set of whisk attachments), beat the egg whites until stiff peaks. 4. Fold the egg yolk mixture into the egg whites in two batches, taking care not to deflate the whites. 5. Fold the flour mixture in two batches, taking care not to deflate the batter. 6. Spread the batter evenly in a standard jelly roll pan lined with parchment. Bake for 15 minutes or until done. 7. As soon as the cake is out of the oven, flip it onto a tea towel and roll it up to set the shape. Leave it to cool. Caramel filling, caramel pineapples, and sauteed pineapple -Prepare your favourite caramel sauce recipe according to directions. I use about 1 cup of sugar with a little water, then when it becomes medium-dark brown, I add 2 cups of cream off the heat. Reduce until thick, and add 1/2 cup of diced butter. Continue to reduce on medium heat until the sauce is quite thick, and add 1/2 tsp of salt and 1 tbsp of brandy. Let the caramel cool in the fridge until spreadable consistency. (If it gets too hard, just zap it in the microwave for a few seconds.) -Spread the caramel on the cake, leaving a 1" edge at the end so the caramel doesn't squish out when you roll it. Put the cake in the fridge for about 15 minutes for the caramel to set up. -Dice some fresh golden pineapple into 1/4" inch pieces. Saute in a pan with some butter, and add a few spoons of caramel to make the sauce that goes underneath the roulade. -For the sauteed pineapple wedges, slice some pineapple into whatever shape you please. Dredge all sides in sugar, then brown in butter until golden brown. Flavour with a tiny bit of Grand Marnier. Brown Sugar and cherry ice-cream I only used 4 yolks in this recipe, though I would use more yolks (probably 6-8) if I were to make this recipe again. It works with 4 yolks (the original recipe actually calls for NO yolks), but I like the consistency when more yolks are added to the base. Ingredients: -2 cups heavy cream -3/4 cup whole milk -1/2 cup packed brown sugar -4-8 egg yolks (depending on your preference) -1 vanilla bean -1 tbsp brandy -1 cup of reduced sugar cherry preserves 1. Heat the cream, milk, brown sugar, scraped vanilla bean and pod, and brandy over medium-high heat. 2. Temper hot cream mixture into yolks, then add yolk/cream mixture back to saucepan. Heat on medium heat until mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. 3. Cool the mixture down until cold. Freeze according to your ice-cream maker's directions. 4. When the ice-cream is almost finished churning, add the cherry preserves during the last minute and stop the machine. Brittle -a few tablespoons of sugar -2 tbsp of water Heat the sugar and water until it browns. Working quickly, spoon onto a Silpat and drag your spoon over the hot caramel in random directions to create a rough pattern. The brittle will harden in a few minutes. Crack pieces of the brittle off, and use to place ice-cream on top of the cake, and stick a fan into the ice-cream if you wish. Keywords: Dessert, Cake, Intermediate ( RG1813 )

Percy, that photo is particularly beautiful! I've been making a lot of brioche french toast lately. This was last weekend's version, with cinnamon raisin brioche from Macrina, baby bananas, and rum caramel. This weekend's version was about the same, but no bananas.

I'm moving to Seattle at the end of October.

Thanks Chufi for the link. Such a clever idea I had to try it. I made this pastry for apple pie. After grating the frozen butter, only a fork was needed to fluff the butter/flour mixture, 30 seconds flat. Had to use about four times the amount of water though. The pie looks great. Sorry no photos. I used up my allotment. Grub , the only difference between this recipe and yours is the freezing part. ← Sorry, no, this is not the same thing that Grub is doing. The Delia recipe is a very basic pastry recipe most typically used for pies. Grub is folding and refolding the pastry in attempts to create something flaky and (presumably) tender and puff pastry-like. There's nothing wrong with the Delia recipe, but I would add a tablespoon of sugar to aid in the browning, and 2 tbsp of water, as chefcrash found out, is probably not enough.

Yes, that's true. You can make rough puff, but that's not what you're doing either. Also, the way you're working the dough will make a very tough pastry, if you keep folding it without leaving it time to rest. Once you add liquid to flour and start working it, you start developing gluten. To be honest, I can't imagine the pastry tasting very good, no matter how many times you fold it. And the pastry will just get tougher the more you work it. Just curious--any reason why you want to do the pastry this way?

^I just got a copy of the book and the lemon sour cherry coffee cake recipe is in there. Do you have a copy of the book? I can PM the recipe if you'd like.

There's a oyster shucking competition at Joe Fortes on November 10th.

^Yes, I definitely think I'll be adding spices to the jelly roll. (And maybe I should start calling it a roulade since it won't have any jelly!) I hope there are no hard feelings from anyone in this thread. I do appreciate everyone's suggestions, and I do know that I can make the final decision on the dessert. Speaking of which, I think ludja's idea of splitting up each challenge thread into its own thread is great. That would make the challenges much more organized. I think I'll finish the challenge by tomorrow or Tuesday afternoon. I'm leaning towards a cooked mixture of caramel pineapples on the bottom of the plate, with a slice of spiced caramel jelly roll on top. Then I'll have a scoop of brown sugar cherry ice-cream on top of the cake, with maybe a brandy-flavoured tuile in the ice-cream, since I also used some brandy in the ice-cream and in the caramel. There will also be some caramel sauce on the plate. I plan to have the cake off-center in the top right hand corner, and maybe one chunk of fresh pineapple dipped in hot (creamless, butterless) caramel for the caramel spike in the adjacent corner. (And if I don't like that presentation, I'm going to slice the roulade on a diagonal and stand it up, then anchor the ice-cream with brittle on the plate.) *** So with that out of the way, I'll PM the next person with the challenge. Everyone who's posted in this thread is fair game, though it's all right, of course, to turn it down.

We just got a box of the red bean paste and salted egg yolk from Keefer Bakery. You can buy it at Yaohan. (And if you want to make your own mooncakes, you can find a recipe in the September 30th issue of Sing Tao. You need a mooncake mold though. My mom is making them this week.)

I appreciate all the good ideas. They definitely help. But still waiting for Kerry for her decision on the challenge/contest.

When Kerry first PMed me with the idea, I didn't know it was going to be a competition...I thought of it more as a challenge. It think when people see the words "Iron Baker", the automatically associate it with the show and therefore think there should be competitors, etc. I guess it doesn't matter either way, but I would prefer it if were more of a challenge rather than an all-out competition, since I don't see how a competition like this can be worked out with everyone agreeing on the rules. Also, the difference in ingredient quality and ingredient one baker can get in his/her hometown would differ greatly from a baker on the other side of the world...so I don't see how that would work out fairly. The brown sugar and cherry ice-cream turned out great. The original recipe doesn't call for any eggs or yolks, which was a bit unusual, so we did add some yolks. The original recipe calls for: -2 cups heavy cream -3/4 cup milk -1/2 cup brown sugar To this, we added: -1 vanilla bean -1 tbsp brandy -4 yolks (tempered with the hot cream mixture) We then cooled it down, and made the ice-cream. When it was almost done churning, we added: -1 cup (reduced sugar) cherry preserves I'll post a picture tomorrow when the sun is out and I can get a better photo.

Pam--I bought another pineapple today, this one is a golden pineapple from Dole and it was almost twice the price of the Del Monte pineapple I got yesterday. However, this one has more fragrance so I'm pretty sure it'll be better! I also got some cherry preserves at the store so the ice-cream will be brown sugar cherry ice-cream. I'll reply to the other posts soon...cooking dinner right now.

^I have not heard of pineapple jam, pineapple syrup, or pineapple concentrate (which I'm assuming is not concentrated pineapple juice)! Thanks for the leads...I'm going to try to find at least one of these things today. Kerry and ludja: I've just read in passing about the enzyme in pineapple and didn't know it could be remedied by cooking the pineapple. I wonder why that recipe called for 1 lb. of diced, fresh pineapple, then? Clearly that would not have worked. Ah well...thanks for teaching me something new. miladyinsanity: I made another sponge jelly roll with less baking soda, and then made caramel sauce (sugar, whipping cream, butter, pinch of salt, touch of rum). I let the sauce cool, then spread it on the plain sponge and rolled it up, then let it set. **** OK so new ideas...I was thinking of doing a ginger or spice cake roll with caramel sauce. That would be nice with the pineapple, I think. And it would add a bit more flavour to my less-than-ideal pineapple situation. Another idea I had this morning was doing a mille crepe thing like many posters did during the EG cookoff. Only, I'd do a spice mille crepe with the caramel pineapple in between the layers. I would probably slice the pineapple in long strips, rather than in chunks, so they wouldn't slip out of the layers....maybe some sort of tangy marscapone topping as well. Thoughts? I'll make the brown sugar ice-cream this afternoon and post a picture in the evening. I have some leftover caramel sauce from breakfast too (I made brioche french toast again... ) so I can spoon some over the brown sugar ice-cream. ETA: Thanks, phlawless, for the bacon idea. I have used duck fat in pastry before and think bacon fat in tart dough would behave in about the same way. I also have some leaf lard a friend on EG sent me...so perhaps if I did a tart, I could use half leaf lard and half bacon fat...straight bacon fat might be too smoky?

^Yes, I've read that as well. But this is a recipe from the Eurodelices pastry book (recipes contributed by many top international pastry chefs), so I was hoping it would work.

Hmm...I don't think this is quite fair, because the desserts all contain different ingredients. And it is definitely easier to make a tasty dessert with, say, chocolate, than it is with, I dunno...Red Delicious apples.

OK I'm finished my work now...the mousse has been in the fridge for a total of 8 hours, and it did not set up properly. It is still like cream...damn! I used 3 packages of gelatin for a mousse that included 1 2/3 cups of whipping cream and 1 cup of milk, plus some cornstarch and pineapple, sugar, egg yolk, and liqueur. The other little individual mousse thing I made went into the freezer, along with the mega huge mousse bombe. The mousse has frozen really hard (there was gelatin in the recipe) and still tastes bland and boring. Dammit! So the bombe was a bomb. Haha, I made a funny...trying to keep a sense of humour here, but I really hate failing! They're ugly things...not worth the photos. (BTW--the caramel sponge cake is still good. I'm scooping them out of my mousse and eating it.) I think I'm going to have to cook the pineapple in the recipe somehow...maybe make a pineapple caramel sauce or something. I'll buy another pineapple tomorrow and see if it ripens by Monday.

^The "thready" bread is called "Ngun See Geurn" in Cantonese or "Yuen Si Jeurn" in Mandarin. It is soft, pretty much flavourless on the inside and does pull apart in threads. I had it on my "currently in love with..." sig about two weeks ago, except I called it "fried bread with condensed milk".

Mmmm...those pictures make me want to go to Monsoon again. We haven't been back since our first date!