December 12, 2003
Dessert, party of the last part
As is often the case, I decided to keep the deserts under control and made mostly ahead of time. One of these days I'm going to "break out" in full CIA-mode and do something insane...so far, not so much.
Chocolate and Rosemary Fraternals
Carol had requested "a dessert with chocolate and rosemary" (two of her favorite things) and so William and I planned ahead a theory -- two desserts, served at the same time, both of which included chocolate and rosemary. With the same ingredients, but differing methods, I dubbed them "Chocolate Rosemary Fraternals" (see previous entries concerning recipe development for the method) More than one clever guest figured out the meaning of "fraternals."
First was a "galub jamun" which had chocolate in the dough, and was soaked in a rosemary syrup (made the day before and re-tossed in the syrup shortly before service).
Second, a rosemary cream puff filled with an egg-heavy chocolate mousse (made well in advance and kept cold until about three hours prior to dessert time). Except for the addition of the rosemary, the cream puffs and mousse are Straight Outta Julia.
Fruit Tarts
I really enjoy making fruit tarts. Fairly easy to do, and quite impressive looking. I made the crusts the day before, as well as the pastry cream filling. I baked the crusts early in the morning and filled the tarts. A light glaze of apricot and placing them in a cool room let them stay in fairly good shape with a minimum of worry.
Fruit Tart and Fraternals, plated
Here's a better picture of both a tart slice and the two fraternals next to one another.
Dried Cranberry Cornbread Pudding
Cornbread pudding is common to see in soul-food places, usually with chocolate chips in it. I went with dried cranberries due to the season. William claimed it was thus "Amish Soul Food."
I'm not a huge bread pudding fan myself, but cornbread has a nice texture that I like better than most. I enhanced that by first toasting the cornbread.
Posted by dowdy at December 12, 2003 06:49 PM