The Supreme eGullet Pastry and Baking Challenge (Round 12)

[Chufi]

yes, it's time for round 12!

For this pre-Christmas round I challenge tammylc.

tammy is perhaps most famous on eGullet for her Dinner for 40 thread. However, I decided not to challenge her to make plated dessert for 40 .

She is also an expert trufflemaker, but one of the things I remember about her foodblogs is something that you might not instantly pair with sweet desserts: her interest in cheese and wine.

So, my challenge to Tammy is to sweeten up the cheese course! Create a dessert with at least 2 different wines and 2 different cheeses. At least one of the cheeses has to be a savoury rather a 'sweet' cheese (so no ricotta, mascarpone etc.)

I can't wait to see what she comes up with!

for future reference, these were the previous challenges:

Round 1 (Kerry Beal challenges Ling in Vancouver BC)- Take pineapple upside down cake and bring it into this century

Round 2 (Ling Challenges Gfron1 in Silver City NM) - Make a dessert containing an animal ingredient or product other than lard or bacon

Round 3 (Gronf1 challenges Mette in Copenhagen Denmark)- Create a deconstructed beer dessert

Round 4 (Mette Challenges Shalmanese in Seattle WA) - Create a dessert tapas plate consisting of 7 items in 7 days, using local and seasonal flavours

Round 5 (Shalmanese challenges Chiantiglace in West Palm Beach FL) - create a dessert involving smoke that evokes Autumn

Round 6 (Chiantiglace challenges K8Memphis in Memphis, TN) - create a dessert using Southern Sweet Tea

Round 7 (K8Memphis challenges SweetSide in rural CT) - create a desset using 5 kernels of corn representing the 5 blessing of the Pilgrims

Round 8 (SweetSide challenges alanamoana in the Silicon Valley, CA) - take fruitcake out of the land of the misfits and show us the beauty that lies within

Round 9 ( Alanmoana challenges Dejaq in Nation’s Capital) - make a dessert using Champagne and at least three Citrus Fruits, along with Agar Agar.

Round 10 (Dejaq in Nation's Capital challenges Kerry Beal in Ontario, Canada) - make a dessert utilizing white, milk and dark chocolate, along with a tea of her choice and a fresh seasonal pear.

Round 11 (Kerry Beal in Ontario, Canada challenges Chufi, in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, to make a dessert that evokes the spirit of Sinterklaas, uses speculaas spices and includes a seasonal fruit or vegetable .

Edited April 26, 2018 by Smithy
Adjusted title to show sequence (log)

[jackal10]

What a good challenge:

Lots of ideas come to mind:

Fruit cheese such as membrillo

One restaurant I know serves truffled honey with cheese

Other honeys and gelee

Real Cheesecake

Paska

cheese and pineapple

deep fried brie versions

sweet biscuits to go with cheese, such as Digestive

[Domestic Goddess]

Cheesy deep-fried turones...

[Pan]

I think cheddar cheese would go well with any number of sweet items. Many people enjoy putting cheddar cheese on their apple pie. You'll probably come up with something much more imaginative. I could also easily see parmigiano crisps in a dessert, and I'm sure it's been done. Brie and similar cheeses could go interestingly with various kinds of fruit, too. The more I think about it, the more nearly limitless the possibilities seem (which doesn't mean I could actually execute any of them beyond using raw materials).

[JeanneCake]

For one of my restaurant clients, I created a goat cheese tart filling in a walnut pate sucree crust - they serve it with a pear compote and a wild honey drizzle. The goat cheese is a pleasant, undefinable flavor that keeps you eating it - it's pretty good and I was a little skeptical myself at first! The filling starts off like a pastry cream - combining yolks and sugar, boil cream, temper yolks - strain it over the goat cheese and add some vanilla, salt and gelatin and into the prebaked shell it goes...

[gfron1]

Today I'm receiving the Rogue Creamery Chocolate Stout cheese, which made me think of a unique personal cheese cake.

[K8memphis]

Oh this is gonna be good.

[tammylc]

Wow - what a great challenge! I've already got all kinds of ideas floating around, now I just need to figure out how to put them all together into something fabulous.

Some very initial brainstorms:

- port glazed walnuts

- grapes coated in blue cheese and rolled in nuts

- goat cheese - definitely something about goat cheese

Please keep the ideas coming!

[K8memphis]

Domestic Goddess, What's a turones???

I mean I've never understood putting cheddar cheese on apple pie but as I get older I'm enjoying trying some new things.

Mostly, I'm interested in learning on this challenge--this topic is completely out of my comfort zone.

Umm, but then I been thinking how to keep some more definition in the strudel I've been making, keep some more of the layers distinct. I could up the bread crumbs and maybe add some cheese...wonder what that would be like. Probably used a sharp cheddar so I can use very little & get the bang...

Just my scant few cheese dessert musings...then I did previously consider reducing some wine to accent it too...

Hmm, so I guess my idea is cheese in a crust.

Hey, Chef-boy makes a gorgonzola pate choux, but then he ues it savory. But cheesey pate choux presents some possibilities...

What fun! Great challenge, Klary!!

[tammylc]

Hey, Chef-boy makes a gorgonzola pate choux, but then he ues it savory. But cheesey pate choux presents some possibilities...

←

Sharp cheddar pate choux with red wine sorbet?

[filipe]

I'll hold my breath about this topic... the same way I do when passing through the cheese section on supermarket

[K8memphis]

Hey, Chef-boy makes a gorgonzola pate choux, but then he ues it savory. But cheesey pate choux presents some possibilities...

←

Sharp cheddar pate choux with red wine sorbet?

←

Hmm, that has all kinds of possibilities. Wow!

It needs a warm something drizzled on top.

edited to say: or sitting in a puddle of...maybe

Edited December 18, 2006 by K8memphis (log)

[Pontormo]

Klary, fantastic idea!

Tammy, if only Zingerman's needed publicity! Still, I wonder if you could get a deal of some sort on cheeses for your experiments if you explain what you're doing.

For some reason, I pictured Humbolt Fog instantly. My imagination is topped by this wonderful photograph ( !), since I envisioned a thin, perfect rectangle of ice cream bisected by a wavering line of grape must, the slice lying flat on a white china plate. However, the link suggests a decadent wedge of iced layer-cake.

Besides the fresh and soft cheeses traditionally incorporated into desserts (ricotta, cream cheese, stracchino...), blue cheeses and chevre are the most common. I love tart crusts made with blue cheese. Is there any kind of cheese that would be unexpected? Besides Limburger?

I tasted gjetost years ago and didn't care for it. Maybe there is something similar that would be workable.

Or is there something local? Besides "eating local" is there another food trend you could adapt or undermine?

Two other thoughts:

1) Deep-fried balls with a molten cheese center. (Think of those nut-studded cheese balls with port wine spread at Christmas parties, only small, crumbed, warm and delicious with a ruby dipping sauce.)

2) Grilled cheese sandwiches

Okay, I lied. Sicilians make desserts with pasta. You know, thin wisps of angel hair spun into nests dripping with honey. Golden ribbons of tagliatelle sprinkled with powdered sugar. Hannukah has begun, it's time for kugel. In the midwest, the land of casseroles, Kraft and Annie's, need I say more?

[tammylc]

Tammy, if only Zingerman's needed publicity!  Still, I wonder if you could get a deal of some sort on cheeses for your experiments if you explain what you're doing.

The nice thing about Zingerman's is that they'll let me stand there and taste every cheese in the store if I need to, so I can do some experimenting on the fly...

For some reason, I pictured Humbolt Fog instantly.  My imagination is topped by this wonderful photograph ( !), since I envisioned a thin, perfect rectangle of ice cream bisected by a wavering line of grape must, the slice lying flat on a white china plate.  However, the link suggests a decadent wedge of iced layer-cake.

That is a gorgeous picture!

Besides the fresh and soft cheeses traditionally incorporated into desserts (ricotta, cream cheese, stracchino...), blue cheeses and chevre are the most common.  I love tart crusts made with blue cheese.  Is there any kind of cheese that would be unexpected?  Besides Limburger? 

Seems like the whole swiss family doesn't get much play in dessert. Or goudas, for that matter. Hmmm... Zingerman's has a really aged gouda right now - crystally and butterscotchy. Gouda with butterscotch - but how to incorporate the wine?

1) Deep-fried balls with a molten cheese center.  (Think of those nut-studded cheese balls with port wine spread at Christmas parties, only small, crumbed, warm and delicious with a ruby dipping sauce.)

2) Grilled cheese sandwiches

Nice idea on one, but I'm not a deep-fryer. I'm thinking about 2, though...

[dejaq]

this should be good...

I have been recently tinkering around with some of this, and have come up with some interesting things.

Good luck to...

Michael

[K8memphis]

Grilled cheese!! Of course!

Chef-boy took grilled cheese beyond the stratosphere for me. I just never took the leap from thinking of it as a dessert and in fact it was not dessert-y sweet but it was the most amazing thing.

He used real thin challah and he did drizzle a bit of honey on the cheese.

But but but he fried the cheese first before he made the sandwich.

Oh my total gosh.

(He's coming home end of January. My heart rejoices and my waistline suffers. )

I don't remember what kind of cheese he used, colby maybe, or cheddar.

[tammylc]

Thinking some more about this aged gouda thing. I've got a bottle of Alvear Carlos VII amontillado downstairs - it's a totally dry wine made in the Sherry style with Pedros Ximenex grapes. Really interesting wine - the nose is butterscotch and caramel and idodine and soy, but it's not at all sweet, and it has a lingering hazelnut finish. There's definitely potential here to go with the gouda, but I'm just not sure how to incorporate it. I'll have to crack it open and check it out (it's fortified and oxidized, so lasts forever after it's opened, fortunately). Maybe a reduction? Hmmm...

[enurmi]

I'm not sure why, but I keep imagining a parmigiano crisp with a caramel ice cream or the like-- the sweet and the salty seems delicious to me. (in my head)

[miladyinsanity]

I keep thinking layers of puff pastry, maybe a mille feuille of some sort with cheese filling and maybe a fruit compote of some sort.

People were talking about cheddar cheese in apple pie. There's a Sherry Yard apple compote recipe that someone linked to a few days ago, if you'd like a link.

Sorry, I have flu and probably don't make any sense.

[Pontormo]

Tammy, your most recent post prompts:

Cheese soufflé!

[Kerry Beal]

Still thinking apple pie and cheese, I'm picturing a gougere made with nice sharp cheddar and a whipped apple filling of some sort.

Remember - apple pie without the cheese is like a hug without a squeeze.

[tammylc]

I've never been a cheddar and apple pie person, so I'm pretty sure I won't be going that route.

Enurmi - you've got me wondering if this aged gouda I've been thinking about is dry enough to turn into a crisp, like parmaggiano. I think it is. That, with caramel ice cream and Carlos VII reduction, is an intriguing idea. No idea if it will taste good, though. And then how to tie that into the other cheese/wine combo... If I have two distinct things on the plate, I need to come up with a way to tie them together.

[Domestic Goddess]

k8memphis - a turones is a deep fried or baked mini spring roll. A turon is a whole spring roll while turones is a miniature scaled version (almost as small as a woman's finger, same length too). We have a savory filipino dessert that is made of cheddar cheese strips, wrapped up in spring roll wrapper and deep fried. Sauce can be a light caramel sauce or a savory lite-soy sauce with vinegar.

[s_sevilla]

Dessert Mac n Cheese anyone?

Cheese souffle reminds me there was a restaurant in SF that did an amazing quark cheese souffle....no sugar was used except to coat the ramekin and that added just the right amount of textural and flavor counterpoint to the souffle.

Edited December 19, 2006 by s_sevilla (log)

[tammylc]

Just an FYI - while I'm still thinking about all this, my son gave me the stomach flu, so it'll be a couple of days until I'll be up to any actual experimentation.