So, once again, I am so behind that I am going to give you a quick-ish run down of my plated desserts class, which was actually Advanced Pastry Techniques - plated desserts. I really enjoyed the class and while I never thought I would want to work in a restaurant, I enjoyed the design element of the plates.
The next plate up was phyllo desserts. I made a Pink Peppercorn Caramelized Napoleon with Pistachio Phyllo layered with Caramelized Pineapple and Vanilla Diplomat Creme, Pineapple Sorbet, Candied Pistachios, Pineapple Gelee and Honey Tuile. I really liked how this plate turned out. Unfortunately, I took the photo from the server side, rather than the customer side, so this is the back! It was tasty.
Next we made puff pastry desserts - not my favorite plate up. It was kind of boring and puff pastry takes FOREVER to make and bake. Very labor intensive, so don't ask me to make it for you any time soon. I made an Apricot Fruit Band (apricot tart) with Puff Pastry, Frangipane, Sliced Apricots, Creme Anglaise, Apricot Sauce, Candied Almonds and Almond-Vanilla Ice Cream. The Ice Cream was good.
The fifth plate up was the finger slicing incident that ended with me in the ER. I had to make up this plate after class one day the following week. It was a selection of apple or pear trios. I made the Brown Butter Maple Roasted Pear with a Mini Vanilla Cheesecake, Cran-Raspberry Compote and Coulis, Cran-Raspberry Sorbet and the dreaded Pear Chip. To make the pear chip, we take whole pears and slice them with the mandolin. While slicing my pear, I also sliced the outside tip of my left pinky right off. It. Was. Awesome. Not. I was going to just push through, but we couldn't get it to stop bleeding. I had a lovely time at the ER. It was too wide for stitches, so they put this weird second-skin foam on it. I also had the privilege of receiving a tetanus shot. Yay for me. I made it back to class, but not with enough time to finish my plate. It is a little hard to tell from the photo, but the color on this plate was nice with the sauce and the sorbet. It was delicious.
The caramel plate was next and man was it tricky for everyone. No matter what dessert you had, there were about a million caramel components on each plate. This means cooking a lot of sugar to caramel stage quite a few times. I, of course, chose the Caramel Peanut Tart. A Chocolate Sable Tart Shell filled with chewy Caramel Peanut Filling, Topped with Chocolate Ganache and Peanut Cream on the side is served with Fiddle Faddle in a Caramel Basket, Rum Caramel Sauce, Candied Peanuts and Caramel Ice Cream. I also made a Caramel Coated Candied Peanut that you can kind of see at the back right of the plate. It was like a little wispy flag. The caramel decor for this plate was crazy! I can't believe I didn't take pictures of all the pieces I made.
Those are Chef Michelle's hands in the background. She is a total rockstar.
I'm about halfway through with posting everything, so I'm going to take a break. To Be Continued Very Soon...
-QoT-
So, my favorite plate-up of the class was Seasonal Fruit Soup. I chose Vanilla Parfait with Watermelon-Mint Soup, Sous Vide Honeydew, Poached Cantaloupe, Pickled Watermelon Rind, Candied Mint, Pistachio Tuile, Mint Syrup, Candied Pistachios and Cantaloupe-Honeydew Sorbet. We had to make perfect knife cuts with all of our fruit so each piece of honeydew was exactly the same and a totally different shape than the cantaloupe and watermelon rind. It was fun and delicious. We presented our plates without the soup, then poured the chilled soup "table side" for Chef. All the flavors came together to form the perfect, refreshing bite. YUM!
The next plate up was phyllo desserts. I made a Pink Peppercorn Caramelized Napoleon with Pistachio Phyllo layered with Caramelized Pineapple and Vanilla Diplomat Creme, Pineapple Sorbet, Candied Pistachios, Pineapple Gelee and Honey Tuile. I really liked how this plate turned out. Unfortunately, I took the photo from the server side, rather than the customer side, so this is the back! It was tasty.
