Sunday, December 30, 2012

Roasted Banana




Roasted Banana Cremeux 
Otucan chocolate / shiso / cocoa / matcha green tea ice cream


This dish is inspired by the classic "Fried Banana with green tea ice cream" that you see on many sushi restaurant menus. The cremeux is made with bananas that have been roasted black with the skins on and the "tuiles" are fried-dehydrated banana. I use Valhrona's 69% Otucan Chocolate for this dish, which works great matched with the banana, and the herbal-earthy flavors of the shiso and matcha green tea. The chocolate is in the nitro poached chocolate mousse as well as the green, green tea-chocolate cake. The green sauce is a shiso puree, which is difficult to make since shiso browns so easily. It is blanched at 180 degrees F and then pureed with ice. The ice cream is an intense matcha green tea and then I garnish the dish with micro shiso.





Yule Log 2012


                              



Here are some pictures of my "Yule Log". I decided to try to make it look as realistic as possible. I am tired of seeing goofy "buche de noels" that look like every other cake/ gateau. The majority of them are perfect chocolate cake cylinders with perfectly smooth chocolate glazes, tempered chocolate "curls", french macarons, and chocolate plaques that say Merry Christmas. I love the retro american yule logs that resemble actual logs and that are covered with meringue "mushrooms". I wanted to emphasize on the beauty of imperfection and the beauty of nature. The best, classic yule logs have imperfect frosting that resemble real logs so I thought, why not go even further. I like to forage for mushrooms in the spring and summer so I thought I could use that knowledge of mushroom types to my advantage. Instead of making generic button mushrooms, I made black trumpets, chanterelles, oyster mushrooms, and even white truffles. All are made out of chocolate that is softened with some glucose syrup (except the oysters are meringues. I had to keep some of it classic). The cake itself is a gingerbread genoise that is very thin. The filling is a soft chocolate ganache and when the cake is rolled up it actually resembles the rings of a tree. We tried to keep it as realistic as possible but keeping in mind it has to taste great as well. The "moss" is a matcha green tea/ milk chocolate cake. The green tea goes very well with the chocolate and gives the cake a perfect "moss" color without the addition of food coloring. We had grooves in the cake that resemble the grooves of an actual log and kept that look by lightly spraying the cake with chocolate. We also cut the cake in such a way that it actually looked like the log "broke" and fell on the ground naturally. It actually came out looking quite nicely and really resembles a log sitting in the forest. Enjoy the pictures and Happy Holidays!

Chocolate "Black Trumpets"
 Chocolate "Chanterelles"
 White Chocolate " White Truffles"












Very cool that a picture of one of my desserts made Daniel Krieger's top 15 food pictures of 2012!

http://firstwefeast.com/eat/year-in-pictures-daniel-kriegers-15-best-food-photos-of-2012/s/on20/