eGulleters' Plated Desserts

[aidensnd2]

I like this thread and would like to see it continue so here are my last couple of specials from work:

Chocolate and honey mousse with honeycomb.

Redcurrant mousse wth mango/mint salsa and redcurrant coulis.

[chiantiglace]

I like those aid, and very sorry I havent had a chance to get back to this one. Summer is very very very hectic here on the OBX.

I myself do that butterfly a lot, I like it. But i dont do the three dots I usually marble different colors in for a phsychadelic look.

[aidensnd2]

I myself do that butterfly a lot, I like it.  But i dont do the three dots I usually marble different colors in for a  phsychadelic look.

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Good idea, I think I'll borrow that.

[ohmyganache]

We've been going out lately and have been taking pix of the food we get.

Got these at Cortez in SF...

Blueberry Crepe, Lemon Tart, Corn Ice Cream

Greek Yougurt Panna Cotta, Strawberry Rhubarb Compote, Honey Chamomile Sorbet

Banana Galette, Fudge Banana Swirl Ice Cream (Damn blurry pix... sorry)

[chiantiglace]

Hey guys, this is a Home Made dessert. Its not as flawless as one I'd do in the restaurant but rustic is what I was going for. This is something I'd make if I were eating with a small group. Its a White Chocolate Macadamia nut Mousse with Rainier Cherry Compote. I used the Macadamia Nut Praline paste used in Praline Demo and the flavor came out awesome.

Lets start with the puff pastry ring. I have ring molds that I use for this excercise but I know most of you dont. So I'm going to show you a little trick if done corectly can produce a pretty decent puff pastry ring. Remeber this isn't a Vol Au Vant, though looks similar. I can get more Height out of this.

Get some Alluminum foil and fold a sheet ovver about 5 times to get a 4-5 inch wide strip. Fold the Strip around an object you can use to support it like a soda can or straight sided bottle.

Next crease the ends overlapping very well. A good way to ensure this is to taper one end and push that on the inside. Fold the large end over top and fold the corners in over the inner layer. Make sure its a tight as your going to get it.

Next coat the can with grease or butter and roll in sugar.

Carefully wrap a pre cut peice of puff pastry dough around that is about 1 cm longer than the circumferance of your mold.

Crease the ends well, use water or eggwash if needed.

Next wrap a slightly longer sheet of foil around the dough, but not tight just barely touching and seal the foil as the first. To be very prepared wrap a thick sturdy strip around the entire thing and staple or tie it shut so the mold doesnt break open. Its better for the inside to break than the outside because you can always clean out the inside if necessary.

Bake your shell at 325 degrees for about 30-40 minutes in a conventional oven.

Let cool completely and unmold. SHould look similar to this:

For the comport seed half the cherries and process in a food processor with about 4 tablespoons of sugar. The cherries came in a 1lb container you can find in your supermarket similar to that of strawberries. Check these beauties out

Cook the puree down with a tsp of lemon zest, 1/4 tsp ground ginger or any ginger for that matter and a 1/4 oz lemon juice, until its thick and bubbles become heavy and slow

Theres a slanted picture to see what it will look like

Cut the remaining 8 oz of cherries in have + remove the seed and stem and add them to the reduction. Cut the heat and allow to steep/cool at room temp for about 15 minutes. PLace in a container and chill.

Next prepare the mousse: You'll need 6 oz heavy cream whipped to medium peaks.

Prepare a sabayon with 4 egg yolks, 3-1/2 oz sugar and 1 fl oz rum.

Whip the sabayon over simmering water bath until hot to the touch and thick enough the yolks will pull like a thin paste with your whisk.

Microwave 1 oz praline paste just until warm and incorporate into the sabayon with a spatula.

Melt 4 oz white chocolate over a double boiler

Fold chocolate into the sabayon. Then fold cream in sabayon in 3 increments.

Place in a sealed container and let set overnight, or 6 hours in refrigerator.

Lastely place a pastry shell in the center of your plate. Fill mold with mousse using a spoon or piping bag. Spoon out the cherry compote around the edge of the pastry shell. Top with a garnish, in which I made a red sugar web on top.

Unfortunately the mousse is a little soft because I filled it a little before it was set up just because I was so anxious to get it on here and dont know if im willing to stay up too much later to do so. The flavor came out excellent and am proud to say I reccommend anyone trying these recipes, which I made myself so theres no need to feel bad about copyright.

[Macarons&Mozart]

WOW! I want a taste! I'm over here still struggling with macarons, while you're making that fab. dessert. Pshh

Thanks for sharing- perhaps I'll try my hand at it if I feel up to the challenge.

[RuthWells]

That looks scrumptious, Chianti! Can you tell us your method for the red sugar web?

[chiantiglace]

Just dye the sugar red at 266 degres, bring it to 290 degrees. Shock in ice bath. Take a spoon and drizzle a stream over and over around in cirlces overlapping. When malleable cuff and twist until hard.

[RuthWells]

Just dye the sugar red at 266 degres, bring it to 290 degrees.  Shock in ice bath.  Take a spoon and drizzle a stream over and over around in cirlces overlapping.  When malleable cuff and twist  until hard.

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I've never dyed sugar before. Are you using standard gel food colorings, or are the oil-based candy colorings better?

[chiantiglace]

I used chefmaster candy color, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. It actually gives a speckled effect if you put it in at the end and swirl it around. Ive used gel color too.

[aidensnd2]

Here's last weekends special.

Bing cherry clafouti, vanilla bean ice cream, cherry Amaretto sauce and Rainiers for garnish.

Tasty if I do say so myself.

[chefjillm]

Ohhh that looks nice. Clean and tasty...

Edited July 5, 2005 by chefjillm (log)

[chiantiglace]

Hey everyone, back again. Here we have a summer treat. Raspberry Gelee stuffed Mango Mousse with blackberry sorbet. Contrasting the plate is mango/blackberry leather and mango/raspberry coulis. The mousse was painted with red cocoa butter that was lined with acetate strips to mold it.

Heres what she looks like on the inside.

in case you dont know what mango/blackberry leather is its just dehydrated puree with simple syrup added.

First i coat a silpat with blackberry speckling it or spread it with a spoon to get strips. Then i freeze it.

After frozen I add the mango pureeand carefully with as few strokes as possible coat the silpat in a thin sheet, plus even so it dries evenly.

This is after about 2 and a half hours of drying at 170dgrees

then while its warm immediately I cut and shape what I want, which in this case I made a loop around the mousse and twirled up. Unfortunately its soo humid here right now that I needed to rebake it to harden, once i got it out it broke, so I just put it down as shards, just as well.

[Sethro]

Here's my specials from this past month...

Ivory Tower

Yuzu White Chocolate Sauce

Blueberry Sherbet

Sake Peach Parfait

Wasabi Anglaise

Peach Compote

Matcha Raspberry Tart

Bittersweet Chocolate Mousse

Orange Calpico Cake

Cashew Cream

Orange Salad

Chilled Blueberry Souflee

Buttermilk Sorbet

Corn Grit Sablee

Wish we had cooler plates...

Edited July 10, 2005 by Sethro (log)

[chiantiglace]

This one is very simple, and made it for a special reason. Its for the hottest days of summer. Nice and cold, real smooth plus all fruit equals light.

Pinneapple Parfait/Granita with ginger lime sorbet and raspberry sauce, topped with a tuile cookie and green sugar shard. If I didnt make this at home like th last two I could have done a lot more to it, but I think it works. Unfortunately I needed to dye the sorbet just a little because its color came out gray this time unfortunately. I made such a small amount it was difficult not to add more than enough, so usually it doesnt look this bright.

Pinneapple Parfait

-6 oz sugar

-1/2 cup puree

-2 oz trimoline

-5 eggs seperated

-1 cup cream

bring the trimoline to a boil, while sugar heats beat the yolks on medium speed. Add the trimoline to the yolks and beat until light and fluffy. Beat in purree just until blended

Place egg whites and 6 oz sugar in a boil over a pot of simmering water. Whip egg whites of heat until it reaches 140 degrees F. Remove from heat and beat egg whites to stiff peaks.

Whip cream to firm peaks. For yolks into whites, and the cream into the eggs

[RuthWells]

I'm really enjoying this thread -- thanks for sharing. I love the pierced tuile -- I'm adding that idea to my databank!

Edited July 19, 2005 by RuthWells (log)

[Ninjai Fanatic]

This thread's really inspiring, thanks for posting the pictures. :)

[jdogginla]

Bumping this thread up.......let's see some new work!

[designerobsessed]

Wendy, would you mind posting the recipe for the mousse that you used? Your dessert looks amazing. Every mousse recipe that I've tried just doesn't have enough body to hold up between layers-it just squishes out.

[ChefDanBrown]

Sometimes I'm really big on simple, this blueberry cheesecake is from the summer menu, I'll post some fall menu desserts after I take some pics...

Edited November 4, 2005 by ChefDanBrown (log)

[Wendy DeBord]

I've never made a blueberry cheesecake before..........any chance you'd share your recipe ChefDanBrown?

[ksaw29]

Yes, it's the Wooley recipe for the cake. I still don't own a levelor so I baked them that height instead of cutting layers. The mousse recipe I used for this came from recipes from The World Pastry Forum, published in Pastry Art & Design. The mousse begins as a bomb (whole eggs, egg yolks into which hot syrup is poured), then you add chocolate, gelatin and whipped cream. Theres just enough gelatin to hold it, yet you really can't detect it. It's a very rich mousse.

I made many sheet pans of cake and mousse, then when frozen cut them out with a cookie cutter, then stacked them.......

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I am pretty impress with all the desserts posted here. I think I would like to start with your Chocolate Mousse cake Wendy. It looks divine.

As I am pretty new to this board and don't know the references for your chocolate cake and mousse, I was wondering if you could share the recipes? I would really appreciate it. Thanks.

[ksaw29]

Sorry Wendy. I never made it to the end of this page before replying to your earlier post. Can't wait for the recipes

[Wendy DeBord]

Wendy, would you mind posting the recipe for the mousse that you used?  Your dessert looks amazing.  Every mousse recipe that I've tried just doesn't have enough body to hold up between layers-it just squishes out.

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Here's the recipe for the mousse I used. It's really terrific. It comes from Pastry Art & Design Magazine........(I've lost track of which year and which team offered this recipe. I'll post that info. if I come across it in the future.) It was from one of their issues on the World Pastry Forum.

The recipe is titled: Coffee Mousse (but I don't use the coffee), this may look complicated but it's really not hard to do.

4.2 oz/120 g egg yolks

1.7 oz/50 g whole egg

5.2 oz/350 g simple syrup (a 1/1 ratio)

You make a pate a bomb with these ingredients. Put your eggs in your mixing bowl while you heat your simple syrup up to 248F. When your syrup starts to get close to 248F begin whipping your eggs. As soon as it reaches 248F slowly pour the syrup into your whipping eggs. This will essentially cook your eggs. You continue whipping this mixture until they cool off (check by touching the bottom of your bowl).

To your pate a bomb your going to add:

12.3 oz/350 g melted semi sweet chocolate (this is where the recipe calls for a coffee flavored chocolate which I don't use, I just use reg. chocolate)

.14 oz/4 g gelatin sheets, bloomed and melted

I pour my chocolate into my pate a bomb right in the mixing bowl. Let it turn a couple times to incorporate, then stop it, scrape down my bowl and continue. Then I add my melted gelatin to the mixer, again giving it a couple turns in the bowl, then scraping down my bowl.

Last you add:

14.1 oz/400 g whipped heavy cream

Fold your whipped cream into your chocolate base or add it into your mixer and give it a couple turns letting the mixer fold in your whipped cream like I let it fold in my chocolate and gelatin.

That's it. It's a wonderful recipe in that it's very light, yet very durable. It will set up fairly quickly since it has gelatin and cold whipped cream. You can pre-mold some in cake pans, freeze them, unmold from your pans and store them in your freezer so you have layers of chocolate mousse always on hand. You can use a cookie cutter or knive to cut layers out of this mousse if you freeze it in sheet pans.

The cake I used was the Scott Clark Wooley recipe in our Best of Chocolate Cakes thread.

[chiantiglace]

AH, another one at home. This may be my last one for a while due to school starting. I hope I get an oppurtunity to put something together in a few months, but who knows.

Chianti Souffle Glace with Poached Pear Tart.

even though that is a nicer picture I beleive, you cant really see the spiced wine reduction on the clear plate, so heres a brighter veiw:

It has a caramel cage "arc" over the cylinder of souffle glaze holding the tart above made from puff pastry, pear puree and slices of pears on top.

Down below is a spiced wine reduction and vanilla creme anglaise. I had some red grapes to put on as garnish but come time to shoot I forgot about them, err. I always do something like this at home. Not only is there not enough room to work, not enough room to think, ha.

Souffle Glaze:

3 yolks

4whites

7 oz sugar, divided

5 oz Chianti/Sangiovese

6 oz heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks

Make sort of a red sabayon with the yolks, 3 oz of sugar and wine

Mix the remaining sugar with the whites over a double boiler until reaches 160degreesF. Allow both too cool, mix yolks into the whites. Mix the cream in 3 sets. Fill molds and freeze.