As usual, I'm a bit late with my posting. However, this time it's really because we've been very busy as of lately. Deadlines for the restaurant's opening are approaching and we're all on fifth gear to get things ready on time. Off the bat, I had thought of making something involving mole. However this idea quickly got scratched because one of the contributions had mole in it, so back to the drawing board. I felt that this combination really called for the ingredients to be left pretty much alone. But some of us can't really do that. So I had to go and complicate things a little bit.
One of my favorite pastry blogs, Cannelle et Vanille just posted a recipe to the latest daring bakers challenge. Funny, it was just what I had been thinking about. Flourless cake and Ice cream. You could say that this post would fit both TGRWT and Daring Bakers...
So here it is: Smoked Salmon and Chocolate Ice Cream Sandwiches.
First up: The flourless cake.
I had been thinking about flourless cake for the restaurant. We have a mousse dessert that needed something texturally different. For this idea, I initially considered the double chocolate cookie from demolition desserts. But when I saw Aran's recipe, I decided to try it. It is good. The valentino's texture is really nice and dense and the taste is quite intense (we used dark chocolate of unspecified percentage).
The Ice Cream:
For the ice cream, we used a pretty straightforward custard recipe. We infused the smoked salmon in milk. Cooked it like a Creme Anglaise, then while churning we added bits of extra salmon. I ended up piping the Ice Cream into cilinders with a valentino bottom, topped it with another piece of valentino. Overall, there was about 75g of salmon in 500ml of liquid (50g in the infusion and the rest folded into the ice cream).
While it was hardening, we tested the ice cream on it's own. It was quite good. Tasting really sweet and creamy at first then yielding to the smoked salmon taste. A bit later, when it was colder. We tasted it again. The flavors were a bit more integrated, and the feeling of it was strangely reminiscent of the sensation of eating smoked salmon and cream cheese, only sweet. I could eat a lot of this. I believe it'd be a hard sell because of the psychological block that the idea would propose.
Tasting them together, the combination was very GOOD! The only problem is that the valentino was a bit too thin for the amount of Ice Cream. The cooks, one of the owners tasted it and they were all captivated. I don't know if the'yd order it from a menu.
I'll save one for my wife to taste tomorrow when she gets back...
