Friday, February 25, 2011

Pomegranate Tuile


The picture above is the tuile I used for my new dessert. It is made by taking pomegranate juice, and lemon juice and thickening them with a modified food starch called ultra tex. Ultra tex is derived from tapioca. It exhibits a lot of the same characteristics from that of a modified cooked starch. The interesting thing about ultra tex is that it is cold water soluble, meaning that you do not need to heat the liquid being thickened. The way I hydrate the ultra tex into my pomegranate lemon juice mixture is by using a vitaprep. The ratio of ultra tex I used for this particular application is 5%, meaning if I were to use 500g of liquid I would use 25g of ultratex. It seems like a lot but ultra tex does not exhibit a lot of flavor. When I am done sheering in my ultratex I pass the mix through a fine chinoise. I leave the mix to fully hydrate overnight. The next day I take a piece of actetate and spray it with cooking spray and then wipe off the excess. I spread the pomegranate tuile mix as thin as possible onto the actetate and then place into a dehydrator until crisp. (usually about 24-36 hours) What I think is unique about this tuile is the fact that it spiderwebs. (which was actually a mistake that I took advantage of) Also I really like the clarity of the tuile, it is basically like red glass. I think the tuile itself looks very interesting kind of like a dreamcatcher. You can break the tuile apart into shards and you will still get the same effect on the plate. (See below New Dessert)

Sunday, February 13, 2011

New Dessert

Popcorn, pomegranate, brown butter, caramel, smoke

Friday, February 11, 2011

Ai Fiori 2/10

I recently had the chance to go into Michael White's new restaurant Ai Fiori with my girlfriend and her parents. We had a spectacular meal. We played the passing game with every dish, which allowed all of us to try just about everything on the menu. Below are a few of Robert Truitt's desserts. My favorite.....Baba al Rhum, beautiful and tasty. Thank you to everyone at Ai Fiori for a memorable evening
Baba al Rhum, tropical fruit, passion fruit coulis, crema di coco (Baba al Rhum plated separate)

Vacherin, basil cream, walnut, persimmon, meyer lemon sorbet


Dark chocolate tart, grapefuit, anise, hazelnut gelato
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Coulant, lemon honey, stracciatella gelato
Mignardises

Thursday, February 10, 2011

WD~50 2/10

Had to make a stop back to check out Malcolm's new desserts. One word...incredible. See for yourself

Caramel, buttermilk, kumquat, orange blossom.



Chamomile, almond cake, dandelion root, apple, celery


Milk chocolate, black bean, plantain, soy, peanut