The Supreme eG Pastry and Baking Challenge (Round 6)

[Kouign Aman]

I dont know about Southern Sweet Tea, but rum or brandy are fairly common companions in a cuppa hot tea, and play well off both tea flavor and sweetness, and compliment lemon.

I see your point about the british cuppa, but may have to get a tea creampuff from somewhere now that you've planted the idea! (Dang, i may have to start baking again.) I can see them... not the creampuff swans, but little creampuff tea cups - tiny handles on the side.

[emilyr]

I think if you're doing Southern Sweet Tea, you should have some lemon or mint flavor added in somewhere. There's not a glass of sweettea ('s all one word, ya know) around here that doesn't have a slice of lemon or a sprig of mint hanging out in it.

But if you're going for the cream puff, maybe jasmine. I love jasmine and sweet tea.

[reenicake]

maybe some orange flower water? That might go well with the angel food cake thing. or a tea-infused white chocolate ganache. In the Charlie Trotter book I think, they put the white chocolate in a sealed container with coffee beans so the chocolate absorbed the flavor and aroma.

Or another good thing to do with tea is use it as a cooking medium -- to poach the floating islands maybe?

[chiantiglace]

Things eaten with sweet tea:

Crumbcake

BBQ

biscuits and jam

cobbler and pie

Breakfast

lunch

dinner

and everything else.

though I do really see biscuits and jam right alongside of sweet tea.

And yes, Jasmine is affensive

[K8memphis]

Tracey, Tearamisu! too awesome--what an idea. I've totally been toying with tea gelatin ideas. If I can't pull off my one big idea I'm definitely falling back on gelatin.

Ludja, yeah I'm totally grieving the death of cream & milk possibilities. sniff. But it's opposite of iced tea while still being one of the best counter points to it. Pate choux is still on the table though.

Thank you, Nina, yes that fried coke or fried tea sounds intriguing. I'm gonna check out that website, thanks again.

Jasie, pearl tapioca never thougth of using that, cool. As far as loosing flavor while baking, I've got powdered unsweetened tea to charge it up a bit. That's why I liked the pate a choux because it has so much nice liquid. Angel food cake has under a quarter cup. I'm looking into tea jelly for a linzer type sandwich cookie. If there weren't already jasmine tea, jasmine would be a great addition--it's like cream or orange flavor. Tea has some very close relatives, it's easy to get this wrong. the more I think about it. Tea-filled red velvet is appealing though.

Kouign, " little creampuff tea cups - tiny handles on the side." Brilliant! I can so see that in a heartbeat. Southern Comfort is a bourbon I think I'll go with that since it fits major criteria and will blend so well with tea.

emilyr, yes I'm gonna do lemon somethings--either candied peel and/or lemon candy.

reenicake, would love to add some orange but that's real close to Constant Comment tea and not ususally found in iced tea. But perfect complement to tea flavored anything. Yes, great idea about the floating islands. That's a back up idea too.

Chiantiglace, I think I'm gonna balance the diner's blood chemistry out with some pecans and other nuts in the linzer cookies and bakalva. Hopefully I'll have some time tomorrow to do some experimenting.

Edited November 2, 2006 by K8memphis (log)

[Shalmanese]

Oh wow, teacup cream puffs with a tea marshmallow and a tiny drizzle of intense lemon syrup (you would have to use lemon extract). I could so see that. It's more of an single bite amuse than a full plated dessert though so I don't know how you could extend that.

[Mette]

It's looking very promising - tea flavours are quite underrated.

The idea of making choux with flavoured water (not just tea) opens up a world of possibilities

[shaloop]

Being a Southern girl myself (lived in Alabama and Mississippi all my life) I feel I have no choice but to comment on this one. I agree with complimentary flavors being lemon or mint. They are born and bred to go with sweet tea. You rarely see sweet tea without one of these accompaniments. I agree that the tea flavor can easily get lost and it needs to be something to let the clear tea flavor shine through. I think a gelatin or a granita or sorbet would be great. I even think the tea cream puff with a tea filling would be good. Also a tea syrup to flavor something would be nice, like the baklava. And a touch of Southern comfort.... I also love the marshmallow idea. I also think sweet potatoes go well with sweet tea. Sweet potato biscuits with tea glaze or pecan pie but subbing the corn syrup for tea syrup. (I use maple syrup and brown sugar in mine, I don't think tea syrup would be a far stretch.) Anyway, I can't wait to see what you come up with.

[miladyinsanity]

You could do jelly cubes of tea. Starbucks has been doing this coffee jelly in coffee drink.

Hmm... You could decorate with the cubes, especially if you're doing a sorbet/granita. They'd look like jewels, I bet.

[K8memphis]

Shalmanese, Oh geez my little cake decorator heart skips a beat on the tea cup cream puff idea... can't yah just envision the little handle on the footed cup--a few delicate flowers painted on with a gold rim????? ! A 'waft' curling up out of the cup made of poured sugar...but that's hot tea....but...

Mette, I agree that tea flavors are very underrated. Special "S" Bread is the bombshabomb. I often used weird stuff in the liquids when I baked bread.

More flavor in the pate a choux--wow we really thought of somethin' this time! Yeah, all that liquid just begs to be chicken stock or something

Oooh, Shaloop, swweeet potatoes! Ah hah ha --ding ding ding ding I think we have a winner, ladies and gentlemen!!! A wonderful foil to iced tea, Southern-ish uber welcoming and thankfully there's no sweet potato tea to compete with. What's funny is that my killer sweet potato mini-muffin formula uses ... are you ready for this?? Coffee!!! But I promise I had women stalking me for the recipe when I had my tea-room. And yes the cleanness and clarity of iced Southern tea is key. Pecan pie is sooo much more Southern welcome than baklava too. Hmmm great point. I mean baklava is great because of the liquid and how good tea would be in there with those crispy nutty sweet buttery layers but it's not exactly Southern. Ooh, you've really turned me in a much more Southern direction. I was so concentrating on the tea and keeping it clean that I was neglecting the Southern part. 'Course nobody said I couldn't do a pecan pie with phyllo dough.

High five!

[K8memphis]

You could do jelly cubes of tea. Starbucks has been doing this coffee jelly in coffee drink.

Hmm... You could decorate with the cubes, especially if you're doing a sorbet/granita. They'd look like jewels, I bet.

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This is so where I'm going, trying to go ...if all goes well. I have a huge learning curve on my one big deal that I wanna do. Then the other items will be compliments to one big deconstructed glass of glistening clean clear "iced tea"...

[K8memphis]

Alrighty then. A little update. Wow. Umm. Oh, my son, has a terrible expression if something is really great he says it is "the shit!". Really unfortunate expression. Well, I made some tea jelly with Southern Comfort today and it is the shit! I humbly report, bowing low.

And umm, I made tea caviar! I don't believe it myself. I totally scewed the grams to ounces thing on one thing because I was so keyed up about attempting this for some reason. Yeah it's that whole decimal point thing. Well I was freaked because it is so cutting edge. Because I have no idea what I'm doing Because I just was. Because I don't even like caviar. It was like a force field was around the chemicals sitting there on the counter for days. I mean shoot I had 'em overnighted, I guess I got 'em Wednesday . Then I just dance around it all week just making myself more & more freaked out.

And due to other people's excellent work in this field, guys, it was easy! I got enough to fake y'all out in a photograph at the least But the presentation is still a surprise.

Oh my soul, I made some lavender pound cake and some mint angel food cake (mint?? Yes and not peppermint either : ).

I was gonna do a gelatin thing but I don't think I need it exactly. The gelatin was back up for the caviar if it didn't work. But it did (Freaking EZ I tell you!)

And as much as sweet potato is perfect for this, I just couldn't work it in anywhere. The pecan pie is still in the works though.

Just thought I'd give you an "aerial view of Kitchen Stadium".

[Shalmanese]

Awesome. So looking forward to how this one turns out. This has so much potential!

[Tweety69bird]

I'm so totally late chiming in on this thread, but K8, after reading through all the posts, the one idea that keeps coming to me is a baba au rum cake soaked in a tea syrup served with just a little rosette of cream on top.... and maybe a bit of candied lemon as garnish, as you wrote above. The texture of the cake woud allow the syrup to soak in without making the cake gross and soggy. I can just taste it.

You've probably just finalized your plans of what you're going to make too eh?

[Kouign Aman]

I love your entire post (#37) - the glee, the discovery, the happiness and excitement shining thru. The vivid imagery of the cordoned chemicals after their hurry-up-&-wait.

[K8memphis]

I get this error,

"You are not allowed to use that image extension on this board. A valid format is: http://www.domain.com/picture.gif, an invalid format is: http://www.domain.com/picture.one.gif"

when I try to post my pictures.

I just open up the picture in imagegullet and copy the address--what am I doing wrong?? Thanks

Am I supposed to copy a link as opposed to an IMG ???

Edited November 7, 2006 by K8memphis (log)

[K8memphis]

I got it I got it!!! brb...

[K8memphis]

Well week 5 is up and it is time for the 6th challenge.

This week I have challenged K8Memphis to incorporate classic Southern Sweet Tea into a dessert.  I had been contimplating who to challenge and what to challenge them for a while now. 

To my knowledge she doesn't get her hands very wet when it comes to plated dessert...

...It is not so much that the flavor is used for the dessert, is the idea and the feeling.  Southern style sweet tea is suppose to make you feel at home and comfortable.  If I go to anyones house and they have a pitcher of sweet tea on the dining room table I already feel welcome.

I would like K8 to use southern sweet tea to recreate that feeling in a plated dessert.

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Remember those well penned words of Chiantiglace when he said,

"She doesn't get her hands too wet with plated desserts."

And Thank You, Anthony, for asking me to do the challenge.

So we have Southern Sweet Tea with a Southern Welcome.

So deconstructing iced tea. Umm, the components in iced tea, are the tea, lemon, sugar, ice cubes and the glass would be glistening with sweat. Occupational hazard of drinking cold tea on a hot day. I did add in the idea of mint--I've never had mint in my iced tea, but it made it more fun.

I plated it in two different arrangements.

So you'll notice the lemon tea caviar is on the outside of the upturned glass representing the glistening sweat spilling out and down the side over the plate beneath. The cubes of cake represent the ice cubes of course. Three flavors of cake, mint angel food, rose angel food and lavendar pound cake arranged on apricot flavored rose petals. I thought the florals represented the homey comfy welcome. So the diner tears open a cake cube and scarfs up a wad of caviar and pops it in their mouth. Eating with your fingers is very 'down home'.

The poured sugar accents are mint flavored, straight up sugar.

The iced tea cookie is a linzer style dressed with glistening tea jelly accented with Southern Comfort. Blew my diet on these buggers today--lol! Notice the green straw in the cookie er, I mean 'glass' of tea complete with ice.

The 'pecan pie' is Pierre Herme's lemon cream with instant tea--kinda cheated but it's dynamite and it stays on target, tastes like Southern sweet tea. It's in a phyllo crust with berry sauce.

Doesn't it look like the pecans are praying?

Another view

I need to turn this photo..but in the meantime...

And a close up of the cake cubes on rose petals

So the original plating thought on the pecan pie was to have it stand up on the plate to balance out the martini glass... but it looked so cool laying down...Cornucopia style...which leads me to the next challenge and challenger...

[SweetSide]

Well done K8! I absolutely love the caviar, and you are so going to have to give me instructions on how you did that! I don't think any other form of tea would have been as good in my mind.

You couldn't have fit more Southern hospitality on a plate if you tried.

[JeanneCake]

Very nice!

What will it take to bribe you to do a demo on the tea caviar?! Does that look like fun or what?!

[cookman]

Very nice!

What will it take to bribe you to do a demo on the tea caviar?!  Does that look like fun or what?!

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Love the tea caviar!! I second the motion on begging you to show us how you did the spherifcation of the tea!

[Kerry Beal]

Very classy. Great interpretation of the challenge.

How is the flavour in the spheres?

[gfron1]

Great job!!!! I second the request for more info on your caviar technique.

[chiantiglace]

I definately like the 2nd plating the most.

This is a dessert not dedicated to one person or a quick meal. It is something to be taken time with in the company of many. I am not sure if you were aiming for that or even aware, but it definately attributes to the idea of being homey.

You really did a good job of bringing a new idea like "tea caviar" into a comfortable realm. Normally something like that would raise an eye brow. But really the second you look at it, thats what you want to eat.

I would try everything on the plate, but I would continue to go back to the caviar throughout my tasting, and I think that is a very important action.

well done.

[Pam R]

Well done indeed!

It looks fantastic. I'm curious about the caviar - do they 'pop' or is it more of a melting in your mouth?