Prototype week at work means taste testing and tweaking. Its time for the early summer dessert menu to sprout its warm weather wears. Spoiler alert: everything must contain a berry. Its berry season and I must exploit this seasonal ingredient fully. We are all very impatient to have fresh food again, and I anxious to use fruit!
One example of lessons studied this week:
The quarto chocolate is almost ready to hit the plates, it just need to be refined a bit more. What’s on the inside you ask? What exactly is it? Well, you are just going to have to wait and see…
Crème Fraiche Coffee Cake with blueberries and lemon glaze
The spring is not set so tight this year, it’s gotten loose and rusty from years of abuse and over anticipation. It’s a slow start, still getting cold at a moments notice, bone chilling when the sun hides. Scarves are still in full effect, slippers are a house standard, the bed is still weighed down with blankets. Despite the rusty snap that has yet to scar away old man winter, I cannot contain my excitement to throw off my puffy winter jacket, sacrifice it to the fire pit, watch it burn in jubilation of light clothes treading.
Strawberry Shortcake, poppy seeds and whipped coconut cream
Maybe it is too soon to think about berries and juicy fruit, airy mousses and food as light as the clouds, bright tastes and sunshine colors, but frankly that does not bother me. I don’t want winter foods. Squash time is past time, pomegranates are winter’s whore. Pears are a long way off, let’s forget about the apple for the time being. Maple is for later, and so it the brussel sprout. So to begin the new growing season, the season of fun, outdoors, and social interaction, I made these things:
Pistachio cake, tiramisu semifreddo, fresh raspberriesCoconut panna cotta, rhubarb compote, strawberry-rum granite, candied cocoa nibsCookie Plate, with honey caramel and peanut butter frosting
