plate after plate

From our third day of this plated desserts unit, I finally have something nice to show you! So far this unit has been all about "still-frozen" desserts. When a dessert is described as "still-frozen" the contrast being drawn is to ice-cream, frozen yogurt, or sorbet, which are frozen while being agitated, or churned. This results in small crystals and the incorporation of air, giving the final product that delicious creamy texture we all love. Some still-frozen desserts, like the Italian granita or French granite, have large ice crystals and a grainy texture - think snow cone. Others, like the French parfait (not the yogurt/McDonald's kind!) or the Italian semifreddo, are frozen mousses that have a smooth, creamy consistency thanks to the whipped cream that is folded into the flavored base before freezing.

Normally we would make the components for two or three desserts one day, and plate the desserts the next. However, owing to a freezer malfunction at the school, we didn't get to plate anything on Tuesday, and we plated no less than four delicious desserts yesterday. As you can see in this picture of our plate-littered workstation, that is a LOT of dessert! From the left, we have here a chocolate-hazelnut mendiant surrounded by a cute little chocolate fence, a white chocolate-citrus parfait with a strawberry salad, a white chocolate-hazelnut semifreddo with a cherry compote, and a mint chocolate dome with orange-mint salad. Choosing a favorite was hard, but the white chocolate-citrus parfait took the title by a nose for the way it harmonized the warmth of the white chocolate and the tang of the citrus. I often don't like white chocolate dishes, finding them either too bland or too sweet, but this was exceptional.

I also have to put in a good word here for the orange-mint salad, as my partner and I spent the majority of Monday afternoon supreming oranges for it. "Supremes," in a French cooking school, refers not to the amazingly talented and enduring Motown girl group led by Diana Ross, but to citrus segments that have been completely stripped of peel and pith. Creating these lovely naked slices of fruit is an exacting, laborious process. It took a little trial and error, some good advice from our chef-instructor, and a giant bowlful of oranges, but I went home Monday with newly acquired confidence in my ability to make beautiful supremes and hands that fairly reeked of oranges. On Tuesday we added some mint, cut into ribbons (or chiffonade, if you prefer the French), a little sugar, and a little Grand Marnier to make the salad. Yum!