Molten choc cakes (yeah, i know...)

[tan319]

Just wondering, and would appreciate any tips, advice,greatly.

I'm trying to make it so that there's the least possible time before plate up, if i decide to go with it. If I did, i need to finish off in around 2 minutes, in a micro.

Possible?

Thanks, in advance!

[turtle]

I know that you can make the mixture ahead of time and put it in the molds and place in the refrigerator. Bring them to room temp and then pop them in the oven for 10 minutes.

[tan319]

I know that you can make the mixture ahead of time and put it in the molds and place in the refrigerator.  Bring them to room temp and then pop them in the oven for 10 minutes.

Thanks for the post.

I know I could do the mix ahead and all that.

I think Steve Klc once wrote about a choc cake he does that he keeps a buch of on hand to finish off, very quickly, for service.

Steve, if you read this , maybe you could advise.

And thanks again, turtle

[pastrymama]

I make a chocolate truffle cake that I bake a bunch off and keep some frozen and some in the reach in. I bake them in ceramic dishes, when we get an order we just microwave them for 45 seconds unmold and garnish. ready in 1 minute. They don't need to come to room temperature, just the frozen ones need to be thawed then refrigerated until needed. I suppose if you make them in metal you could bake them and unmold when cool then store in reach in or freezer.

[Steve Klc]

I know I've discussed this before but can't find it--yes, Tan, you can easily do a Conticini-style liquid center cake ahead--bake at very high heat for a short time--I do it in aluminum timbale molds from JB Prince--pop them out freeze or refrigerate--and then simply zap in the microwave for a few seconds and drop it on the plate. We do that at Zaytinya for the "Turkish Coffee Chocolate" dessert--with high volume you can easily hold 20 or 30 of these in hotel pans or warming trays at any given time--you can even microwave say 10 at a time in plastic takeout containers--what you do will depend on your kitchen and circumstances. In a banquet situation you can have hundreds of these baked ahead, held warm and dropped on the plates quickly.

I don't really like chocolate soufflees--in fact I loathe them--so have not ever experimented with that style of molten chocolate cake.

[Suzanne F]

I used to make 8 liters of batter at a time (enough for 64 individual cakes), bake off as many as we estimated would be needed that day for service. The rest of the batter would stay in the pastry kitchen lowboy. Then the gm would unmold them as needed and pop them in the kitchen oven on a sizzler to reheat for a couple of minutes. I suppose if we'd been able to nuke them it would have been even faster. But NO NUKES.

[tan319]

I know I've discussed this before but can't find it--yes, Tan, you can easily do a Conticini-style liquid center cake ahead--bake at very high heat for a short time--I do it in aluminum timbale molds from JB Prince--pop them out freeze or refrigerate--and then simply zap in the microwave for a few seconds and drop it on the plate.

Thank you ,Steve.

That's exactly what I'm thinking of, and the Conticini style cake. I want to fool around with the Blumenthal approach, which I think is pretty close to what you're talking about.

Thanks again, everyone, I'll let you know how it goes.

[Wendy DeBord]

Oh god....more of my ignorance is leaking out. But I'm here to learn so I must ask to understand.

So I'm sorry to ask but what is the Conticini style?

And, what's Blumenthals approach?

P.S. I understand the different approaches you can take with molten cakes (I've made MANY and used many recipes)....I just don't know what name matches what type. thank-you.

[tan319]

Hi, Sinclair.

Here's a link to Heston Blumenthal's molten cake recipe.

http://www.ukgourmet.com/chocfondant.html

Heston is the chef/owner of a restaurant in the UK called 'the Fat Duck' which is doing the new type of stuff that places like El Bulli, etc. are doing. Experimenting with molecular gastronomics, brain/palate teasing, etc.

Philippe Conticini is another pastry chef who heads up Petrossian restaurant and Peltier Patisserie in Paris and opened the (now closed) Petrossian pastry boutique in NYC. He is another forward thinking PC whom I'm trying to research more on also. He doe's a lot of mingling savoury and sweet, plating concept's and liquid center type stuff centers. PA&D did a cover story on him a few years back, it had a lot of recipe's, and I'm bummed my copy went missing.!

If anyone has that issue and would copy it for me, I would gladly pay shipping whatever.

PM me

Thanks,

Ted

PS: hope that helps, Sinclair

[fresh_a]

This article might interest you:

Here

[Steve Klc]

Get ready for this news flash: Classic pastries are being redefined!

What interests me is this is the same clueless Kristen Hinman who wrote that crappy article on Paris patissiers for Ed Behr and the Art of Eating newsletter a few months back, which took cheap shots at these very same patisseries.

That discussion here:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...=kristen+hinman

Since then she has clearly read a few press releases--"architects of emotion"--and now seems only a few years behind the times.

Maybe in a few months she'll write something about Ferran Adria.

[fresh_a]

Sorry, missed that thread...

[Steve Klc]

Ted--the Blumenthal fondant is good but fussy and not what Philippe does. It's a different animal.

Track down the Food Arts July/August 2000 issue for a charming, well-written piece on Philippe with a few recipes. Then there was that NY Times six part series which you probably saw. But by far the best source of info and current recipes by Philippe is the Thuries magazine issue #132 from September 2001--14 big full color pages, incredible photographs, with his real recipes. By real recipes I mean if his typical dessert has 11 components--in Thuries he gives you all 11 recipes and methods. His chocolate moelleux is in there:

125 g 70% chocolate

120 g butter

1 yolk

2 eggs

90 g sugar

120 g flour

You have to vary the amounts depending on which specific ingredients you use. He used this little moelleux in a NYC demo at the IHM&RS in 2000 pairing it with salt, passionfruit seeds, mango jus, milk froth and a praline emulsion done in a PacoJet, serving it up in a glass--he was still working out that dessert but that season I think he called it "Amadeus."

This Thuries piece is much, much, much better than the PA&D piece on Philippe, which was incomplete. Compare the recipes in PA&D with the recipes in Thuries and you will see what I mean. His reworked version of a millefeuille with a vanilla espuma is there, which Philippe demoed and served in a wineglass at the NY Chocolate Show two years ago, so is his blinchik, aracaju, and pain perdu banane, which we were lucky to have when we visited Paris. Every pastry chef should contact Thuries and buy this back issue.

fresh_a--my question for you is this: what was your reaction when you read this Hinman article? You're based in Paris--did it surprise you to read something like this, even given the fact that it seems written for non-natives?

[fresh_a]

I wasn't surprised, but she does seem to always be a few months behind the times... I haven't read the Art of Eating article where she dumps on all these guys, do you have a copy?

Edited September 12, 2003 by fresh_a (log)

[Steve Klc]

Do you mean the Art of Eating? Food Arts is always ahead of curve.

[fresh_a]

Yes, the Art of Eating article. The other one I pointed out, is just a typical Paris Notes article written to make armchair tourists think they have the scoop on "happening" Paris, although they evidently do not have the corner on this profitable market (I'm in the wrong business!)

Edited September 12, 2003 by fresh_a (log)

[Wendy DeBord]

Jeez-so much to learn. Thanks for the explaination.

[Overlordofpastry]

Since everyone is talking about molten cakes, I have a problem with one I am testing now that I need some advice on. I am making a warm chocolate cake with a liquid caramel banana filling inside . I have figured out a way to make it to order but I am having trouble freezing it. For some reason the caramel is absorbed into the cake and leaves behind a large hole. Is there anyway I can make this cake ahead of time and simply heat it up in the microwave and still have the liquid caramel and banana mix pour out. Any help would greatly be appreciated.

mike

[Wendy DeBord]

Some people inject ganache to their molten cakes for insurance and extra ooze. I don't see why you couldn't do the same thing. So long as you turn that site down on the plate, who's to know.

[tan319]

Track down the Food Arts July/August 2000 issue for a charming, well-written piece on Philippe with a few recipes.  Then there was that NY Times six part series which you probably saw. But by far the best source of info and current recipes by Philippe is the Thuries magazine issue #132 from September 2001

Of course it figures that I have Sept 2000 but not July/August 2000 Food Arts issues,crap!

Perhaps I'll call them about back issues...

Thank you very much, Steve, for the info and recipe, really cool.

Now, could you give us info on where to get the Thuries subscriptions? I'm going to do an online search and see what I can find, if I get something, I'll post it.

BTW, while I was looking for the Food Arts issue, I came across your caramel article for them and the awesome caramel sushi dessert you and Jose developed. I remember when that came out and how blown away I was!

Fresh-A : thanks for posting the link, I enjoyed it

Ted Niceley

[tan319]

Thuries mag link

http://www.thuries.fr/magazine/anciensnume...ffdcb144a926465

P.S. maybe Loufood can answer this question.

The whole year volume lists for 91.50C? Is this in Euro's?

The French got rid of the franc, correct?

Thanks for the info in advance.

Ted

Edited September 13, 2003 by tan319 (log)

[BettyK]

Thuries mag link

http://www.thuries.fr/magazine/anciensnume...ffdcb144a926465

P.S. maybe Loufood can answer this question.

The whole year volume lists for 91.50C? Is this in Euro's?

The French got rid of the franc, correct?

Thanks for the info in advance.

Ted

Yes on both counts.

[Steve Klc]

"while I was looking for the Food Arts issue, I came across your caramel article for them and the awesome caramel sushi dessert you and Jose developed. I remember when that came out and how blown away I was!"

Thank you for remembering, Ted. Thanks to the freedom Michael Batterberry and Food Arts gave me, we got the word out about agar-agar a little ahead of the curve.

[wannabechef]

I've been reading all the past threads on molten chocolate deserts and finally decided to try one as an experiment for a possible thanksgiving desert. I went with this recipe posted by Steve Klc back in Sept:

50g 72% couverture

50g butter (40% fat like Plugra)

1 egg

35g sugar

40g AP flour

One thing I was surprised about was the quantity that this recipe made. I thought that it seems suspciously small and once I put it together it ended up being enough for one serving of the size molds that I have. Is this recipe meant to be for one serving only and you just multiply by the amount you want to make? If that's the case, it seems to be a bit expensive - esp if you use the highest quality chocolate (which I did).

I also suspect that maybe my molds were slightly big because instead of the 5 minutes which was suggested, mine required 8-9 minutes - and probably could've even used a minute or two more.

Anyway, it actually turned out pretty well. I had a nice molten center. The only thing I wasn't too happy about was the texture of the cooked/outside part of the cake. I don't really know how to describe it other than it was maybe a big eggy. I was expecing more of a richer, cake or brownie-like texture. It was still good though.

Thanks to all the people who reported back their experiences with these recipes. I don't think I'm going to use this recipe for Thanksgiving though, partly because of price (we're having 30 people) and partly because of the hassle of reheating them all before serving, etc. I also think this desert would have to go with some sort of rasberry or fruit sauce.

I'm definately going to try this again one day - perhaps for a dinner party.

[Steve Klc]

WBC--you can change the texture by changing the amounts and percentages of the ingredients--which you have to, anyway, because each chocolate performs differently, each chocolate has a different cacao butter percentage. You didn't say which specific chocolate you used?

This "recipe" is meant to be scaled--i.e.multiplied--I do it times 10, 20 or 40 in a restaurant setting.

My "big" molds take longer--6-7 minutes--but baking time is relative. How many ounces of water do your molds hold? Are your molds aluminum? Are they taller than they are wide--timbale-shaped rather than ramekin-shaped?

Good ingredients and good products are expensive but expense is relative. The question is do you get the payoff--can you taste the difference?

And as far as the hassle of re-heating--well that is more of a hassle than, say, pulling 30 parfaits out of the fridge and serving. For a dinner party that is a planning issue you're smart to take into consideration. However, you could "hold" all the cakes in a low, warm oven until you are ready to serve and then drop them onto the plate. I often do this little cake in a glass or cup as well--which for a lot of people would take up less counter space.

You could also slice this cake in half and present a dessert with only a warm half cake on top of the cream and sauce. Cuts your expense in half.