A La Cuisine!

SHF 9: A Pair of Pears and a Chocolate Disaster

Whether I fail or succeed, I've come to think of food blogging events as opportunities to experiment.  Besides forcing me to try preparations and ingredients that I otherwise wouldn’t use, events like Sugar High Fridays and Is My Blog Burning? also give me an excuse to attempt recipes that are too complex and time-consuming for everyday cooking.  Unlike dinner parties, the time constraints for blogging events are more flexible, and the pressure to present something that’s both perfect and impressive just isn’t there.  That's not to say that I won't 'try' to make something that’s impressive and perfect, but I’d much rather fail at making something ambitious, than succeed at something that’s easy and uninspiring.

One of the things I like most about food blogs is that they’re driven more by process and content, than results and audience.  If you want to read about someone’s triumphs and failures in hosting an elaborate dinner party, food blogs are the place to go.  But if you want to read an article about throwing the 'Perfect Christmas Dinner Party' that’s aimed at middle-income North American households with standard kitchen equipment, who are most comfortable with ‘safe’ recipes that use easy-to-find ingredients, then food magazines would probably be a better fit.

Roasted Pineapple with Passion Fruit Caramel and Caramel Dust (SHF 6)

As much as I like caramel, I prefer to have it in small doses.  A little goes a long way when it's paired with nuts or chocolate, while a tart or cake filled only with caramel would probably be too sweet for my liking.  Because the theme of this month’s Sugar High Fridays event, hosted by Debbie of Words to Eat By is caramel, I thought I would try to use this deep and decadent confection in a few different ways.

A quick check of my cookbooks turned up a few ideas.  I had really liked the passion fruit caramel sauce from my previous post, and I’ve always enjoyed the deep, complex flavours of roasted pineapple when its sugars become caramelized.  Add a touch of caramel dust, and here was a dish that was caramel, without being overly rich or sweet.

Sugar High Fridays 5 Round-up

I can't tell you how excited and relieved I am to see so many entries for this month’s Sugar High Fridays event.  After all, practically everyone is up to their heads in work this time of year, and puff pastry was certainly one of the most challenging themes to date.

In spite of all this, 31 bloggers from around the world rose to the occasion to create 39 fabulous desserts using puff pastry. 

So without further delay, I present to you the entries in the order they were received.

Puff Pastry with Peanut Ice Cream, Chocolate Leaves, Praline Ganache and Condensed Milk Cappuccino (SHF 5)

I recently noticed that puff pastry is everywhere.  It's great by itself, or for enclosing meat, fish, fruits, and chocolate.  It can be used in either sweet and savoury preparations, or as a garnish for desserts.  While its rich but neutral flavour certainly makes it appealing to use, puff pastry’s versatility seems to have much to do with its light and flaky texture.  In my opinion, just about everything goes well with something that’s light and flaky, and thus the reason for puff pastry’s universal appeal.

So what would happen if I were to combine puff pastry with a myriad flavours and textures in the same dish?  That was certainly what I wanted to find out when I adapted a recipe by Jean-Paul Bonnet of New York’s Atelier Restaurant for my entry in the fifth edition of Sugar High Fridays.

Announcing Sugar High Fridays 5

On February 11th, I’ll have the honour of hosting the fifth edition of the sweet-tooth blogging event, Sugar High Fridays. Created by food blogger and baker extraordinaire Jennifer of the Domestic Goddess, SHF brings together dessert addicts from around the world once a month to create mouth-watering sweets with a common theme. So far we’ve had four incredible themes: White Chocolate and Apples by Jennifer, Spices by Zarah Maria, and most recently, Nuts by Viv.

For February, I’m pleased to announce that the theme will be . . .
Puff Pastry: hundreds and hundreds of layers!

You are welcome to make any dessert that uses puff pastry, whether it’s something classic like palmiers or mille-feuille, or something creative that you invent yourself. On February 11th, post your entry on your website, or send it to me and I’ll post it on A La Cuisine! The following day, I’ll post a round-up linking to everyone’s delicious puff pastry creations.

Apple Melody Cake (SHF 2)

My entry for the second edition of Sugar High Fridays comes one day late. Despite learning weeks in advance that the theme would be apples, I was inevitably overcome by procrastination, and my unfortunate habit of not reading the entire recipe before starting. Nevertheless, I did end up making an Apple Melody Cake from the book Desserts by Pierre Hermé.

The Melody cake, from top to bottom, consists of a garnish of apples, a layer of cinnamon crust, a layer of génoise (sponge cake), caramel Bavarian cream, baked Fuji apples infused with orange, and two more layers of génoise and cinnamon crust. I chose this recipe because, like most Pierre Hermé dishes, it plays on a balance of different flavours and a contrast of textures.

White Chocolate and Rice Milk Flan with White Chocolate-Pistachio Emulsion (SHF:ISTBE 1)

Is it me who’s changed, or does white chocolate just taste bad? I loved eating white chocolate as a kid, but my recent experiences with this pseudochocolate have been disappointing. “Too sweet, too creamy and tastes like plastic,” was my impression the last time I tried. Admittedly, I’d only eaten the prepackaged white chocolate sold at drug stores and supermarkets; and growing up, I basically liked anything loaded with sugar. So I didn't really know if I liked white chocolate. But I certainly wanted to find out.

I had the opportunity to cook with white chocolate this week, as it was the theme for the inaugural edition of Sugar High Fridays: the international sweet-tooth blogging extravaganza (otherwise known as SHF:ISTBE). Hosted by fellow Torontonian, Jennifer of The Domestic Goddess, the instructions were simply to use white chocolate in a recipe for a dessert.

My plan was to make a dessert which used white chocolate in at least two preparations with different ingredient pairings. Luckily, I came across a recipe for ‘White Chocolate and Rice Milk Flan with Pistachio Emulsion’ by Vancouver-based pastry chefs Dominique and Cindy Duby in their cookbook Wild Sweets.