Show of hands who loves desserts?!!
pic: veja.abril
Want to know how to create a dessert?? Thanks to the experts from the book "Cooking with Chocolate - Essential Recipes and Techniques", here's how.
"Creating a dessert involves using your heart, your imagination and your senses. A successful dessert of your own creation might conjure up a childhood memory, evoke a flavour, emotion, aroma, colour or shape that is meaningful to you and that will convey something to others."
pic: valrhonaprofessionals
Give it a try, maybe if we follow these 7 tips, we can be our own Willy Wonka!
1 - Your priority must be delicious food
Your creation should not elicit more questioning than pleasure. A dessert may be intriguing and awaken the desire to discern its various flavours, but this should never overpower the simple pleasure of tasting it.
2 - Remember to stay simple
Remember the old adage of the importance of leaving well alone. Sometimes, one is tempted to accumulate the ingredients rather than work towards a harmonious, balanced creation. It's important not to confuse complexity with originality. Try to limit yourself to three different flavours or five, at most, so that each one can be clearly defined.
3 - Work on the architectural aspect
An architect would never construct a twenty-story building without a foundation. Bear in mind when you construct your desserts. Logic dictates that you work from the most solid layer, at the base to the lightest at the top.
4 - But why play by these "technical" rules
Our love for certain ingredients might tempt us to dream up a nut nougatine atop a creamy, melting chocolate mousse. But stop! Take into account the mechanical reality. When you cut your dessert, you'll crush the mousse completely. It's quite simple all you need to do is place the nougatine between the sponge base and the mousse.
5 - Try creating a surprise
Be audacious! Combine unusual and unexpected flavours. Create surprises with complementary textures and flavours - a hot soufflé with a cold sorbet, or a sour passion fruit jelly accompanied by a milk chocolate mousse for a note of sweetness.
6 - If at first you don't succeed, try, try again
Another well-known adage, and true in the kitchen as well. If you don't get your dessert right the first time, it's not serious. Roll up your sleeves again, pick up your spatula and whisk and try again, rectifying an errors you might have made. It's not often that a professional manages to get it right the first time either.
7 - Combine technique and imagination
A successful dessert is the result of a fine balance between ideas and technique. When you have learned the basics, you can give free rein to your imagination. Technique is indispensable, but it provides only the foundation and the tools for your creativity.
pic: amazon
This book has so many beautiful recipes filled with AMAZING photos. These recipes - Homemade Pralines to a Bittersweet Chocolate Panna Cotta with Thai-style Lemongrass Foam to Manhattan Cappuccino sounds delicious!
Seriously, even if at the end of the day, you don't make anything from the book, this book seriously makes a very good food porn coffee table book!
Happy creating! :)
