Okinawa Black Sugar Couverture

The shell for this confection was made in the mostly the same way you'd make white chocolate (sugar + whole milk powder + cocoa butter... sometimes vanilla), but I replaced the sugar for a very unrefined sugar from Japan called Okinawa black sugar (so unrefined it's almost not sweet, like black strap molasses), replaced the whole milk powder with non-fat milk powder, and used regular cocoa butter. So it's not a healthy confection per-se, but it can be considered healthFUL. The black color on the surface is a mixture of vegetable ash (no aroma, no taste, just natural black color) and cocoa butter.
It is filled with a ganache made with black sesame seed paste and a disc of green tea mochi. Sorry, I have no photo of the insides.

Fried Croissants

Recently, Francis Lam from Gilt Taste, posed a question to me. He wanted to know if it was possible to fry a croissant. My first educated guess was that it was not possible, that it would make a mess in the fryer with the butter oozing out. It is one of the times in my life when I am so happy to be wrong. This worked beautifully. It fried like a doughnut (note the blond band around the midriff). In fact the best way to describe it is that it tasted like a flaky doughnut if you can picture that. I coated the already proofed croissant in wondra flour since I assumed this would create a seal (I was afraid the butter would seep out). I carefully dropped it in the fryer and it buoyed like a, well, buoy. Once it had enough color on one side, I turned it over to brown the other side. I could not believe it. I wouldn't have had I not seen it. A little sugar and some vanilla powder. Just right.

Peanut Butter Cream, Banana Butter and Salted Peanut Praline Lego

As seen in "So good" vol #6 page 107.

Transfer Sheets onto Meringue

Usually I don't use colored cocoa butter transfer sheets. I feel they make chocolate not look so hot because it hides behind the design. Plus I have never seen a design that is not tacky that I find appealing. HOWEVER, when I tried them out on this Italian meringue I surprised, in a good way, mostly because I didn't know if it'd work on anything but chocolate. This is a simple 2-1 ratio Italian meringue evenly spread on the transfer sheet (this image on the transfer sheet I actually liked; how could you not appreciate the perfection of a honeycomb?), then carefully placed it inside a PVC tube to dry in a dehydrator at 40 degrees Celsius for 12 hours.
I can see many possibilities for this, mostly for a la minute pick-ups, but also could be filled with a sorbet or ice cream (or other frozen dessert) and quickly frozen to preserve the crispness of the meringue. A flavored meringue is also a possibility (I would like to make a green tea meringue filled with black sesame ice cream).

CHOCOLATE AND CARAMEL TART

 I've been working on the items I will be teaching this February at the EPGB to document them and make sure they are up to par. This is one of the items. It is a large format tart, with Salted Caramel, Light Ganache, Coconut Panna Cotta (the cubes) and small quenelles of Creme Fraiche. It is sprayed with dark chocolate and white chocolate velvet. The herbs used are fried basil and crystallized fennel fronds.

Details

Why is it that the base of a chocolate confection is often neglected? I think it is as important as the rest of the piece. This is why I am trying out this method in which I use a textured transfer sheet on the base just after capping the mold with tempered chocolate. I really like it.

Candy Corn Eclair

Just in time for Halloween. I am not a huge fan of candy corn but I am a huge fan of eclairs, so it seemed adequate to make this eclair for Halloween. What is candy corn made of anyway? More or less the same stuff as pouring fondant (and candy corn contains honey as well... believe it or not). "What is this filled with?" you might ask, and the answer is very simple: plain vanilla pastry cream. This eclair sold out rather quickly.