Blackout!

Anyone who knows me will contest that I'm not a huge chocolate fan.  Buy me a box of chocolate, and I will invariably pass it on to my husband.  I won't however, pass on a chocolate layer cake.  Something about the soft sponge and semi-sweet filling makes it irresistible and more-ish.  Nevermind chocolate to die for; this is a cake I'd kill for!!  Although, now I don't have to worry about choco-homocide, I can just make this myself.  Opera-thin layers of devil's food stay forever moist with a rum syrup soak.  Each layer of sponge is spread with tempered chocolate, so there's a hint of crunch with each bite.  Three layers of chocolate pudding go between, then the whole thing is coated with a fudgy ganache.  A pouring of chocolate glaze allows the chocolate crumbs to stick, like a million ants to a plank.  A thin slice of this makes for an elegant plated dessert; the whole cake can sit proudly in a bakery showcase.

Rosy

A pre dessert need not be complicated.  In fact, I believe it shouldn't.  A little something chilled and crisply flavored is all you need to refresh the palate and prepare the diner for the sweeter portion of a meal.  Cucumber, strawberry and greek yogurt create the profile here, all in frozen form.  A glass plate pulled from the freezer almost mimics a decorative piece of ice.  By dragging a warm spoon across the top of a sorbet or ice cream, one can create a coil effect.  In this case, the red strawberry sorbet resembles an abstract rose.  The frost bitten look of crystallized micro anise hyssop leaves fit right at home on the plate.  Don't you feel refreshed already?!

Pretty in Peach

This was a lunch dessert we had for the last two weeks.  It's been put to bed for now, but I really like the simplicity of the plating.  It's clean, easy to eat, and showcases the star of the show -- the ice cream.  Co-starring is a moist hazelnut financier, baked in a foil cup then broken into random shards.  For this application, I prefer to bake individual financiers because the crust to interior ratio really adds necessary texture to the dish.  For a little piquancy, thin slices of pickled peach curl up and nestle among the fragments of cake.  A sprinkling of burnt hazelnut shavings add unexpected smokiness.  The globe of ice cream gets annointed with a drizzle of peach puree to reinforce the main flavor and some lemon thyme to add herbal brightness.  This is summer! 

Buttery Art

I have a new love and fascination...with buttercream.  So simple.  So magical!  This particular buttercream was made for me by my extern, who spent many years as a cake decorator.  His technique for making it was unfamiliar to me, so I was a bit skeptical.  Turns out he knew what he was doing.  He likened the texture of his buttercream to oil paint, with the silkiest shine and texture yet the strength to stand tall on its own.

I took the opportunity to work with it on a small 5" birthday cake for my cook's wife.  For the botanically minded, you may recognize my attempt at a climbing blue wisteria.  For those who are not, uh...that's my attempt at a climbing blue wisteria.  Anatomically correct or not, the whole point of the exercise was to bring whimsy, movement, and color to an ordinary cake with just an artful piping of buttercream.  I love how this medium can entirely change a cake's shape.  I also admire how it can pipe beautiful patterns and micro thin petals and still be soft and delicious to eat.

Old Fashioned Beauty

There are really no words to express how satisfying it feels to be able to replicate something I have so loved since childhood.  Each ring of dough I watched float to the top of the bubbling oil kept me in awe.  As those signature cracks revealed themselves and blossomed, I could only keep repeating, "Oh my God, these f*ing rock!".  To glaze them and see them all lined up on the rack, looking perfectly imperfect, was an otherworldly joy.  To eat them was to transport myself back to those wonder years, when an "old-fashioned" could cure all ails.  It was as if I had just found something I'd lost, but didn't realize how much I had missed it until it appeared again.

All sappy sentiment aside, these old-fashioned's are everything you want and need in a doughnut : soft, cakey, tender, light and sweet.  The first couple frys didn't yield the flowery crevices I was aiming for, so I figured a couple slashes with a razorblade would facilitate the blossom effect.  Yes!  It worked!

Please try it for yourself.  They are just as good eaten the morning after they're made.. trust me, I know!

Old Fashioned Doughnuts

About 20 doughnuts with holes

540 g  cake flour

10 g  baking powder

6 g  salt

200 g  sugar

60 g  butter

zest of a lemon

seeds from 1 vanilla bean

80 g  yolks

340 g  sour cream

Whisk together cake flour, baking powder, salt, in a bowl.  Set aside.

Cream sugar, butter, zest, and vanilla together until sandy.  Add yolks and sour cream.

Add dry ingredients.  Wrap into a flat square block and chill for at least an hour.  Even when chilled, the dough is very soft.

Roll to 1/2" thick on a well floured bench.

Cut out 3" circles with holes and hold them on a sprayed plastic tray (or tray lined with Silpat) until ready to fry.

Make 3 slashes with a blade on the surface of dough (see picture below).

Fry at 325F and flip often to help the cracks expand.

Drain on paper and allow to cool.

Glaze.

I don't have a recipe for the glaze, but I started with a bowl of 10X, zested in a lemon and orange, along with their juice and seeds of a vanilla bean.  I splashed in some bourbon and whisked in enough skim milk to make a liquid glaze consistency.  Dip the cooled doughnuts into glaze to cover both sides and shake the ring well to let the excess fall back into the bowl.  Allow the glazed doughnut to dry on a rack.