Truffle Mutt

Sweet Sorrow

This months SHF #10, cleverly themed "Oh Honey you shouldn't have", is being hosted by Nic of Baking Sheet. 

Truthfully, I wasn't feeling at all inspired, adventurous or motivated this evening when I attempted my entry, and so it fell far short of what it could (and should) have been.  When I finally decided at 7:00 pm that I wasn't going to call in sick for the event I went in search of something that wasn't going to require a lot of slaving away in the kitchen, because I really wasn't up to it.  Turns out after a bit of surfing, that I found what I was looking for in this recipe for honey cake on the Food TV website.

In the cake I used a blueberry honey that I'd picked up at the farmers market awhile back.  I thought the subtle hint of blueberry would compliment the spices in the cake nicely.  What happened in actuality, was a batter that turned a really weird and unappetizing color of brownish purple.  I also didn't have any honey wine, so I used ice wine instead.  I'm not sure what honey wine tastes like, so I don't know how great of a substitution that was. 

When the cake came out of the oven it ended up not looking that bad, so I glazed it with plain honey & a dash of wine.  When I cut into it I was even happier to see that it had lost some of it's terrible coloring.  It's appearance was surprisingly normal.  Things were beginning to look up for my honey cake, so I let it cool off.   

Since I was almost done the write up it was time test it out, and things went really downhill from there.  The cake was moist and light, but tasted like an incredibly boring spice cake.  There was no hint of the flavor from the honey or the wine, and the faint spice notes were the only discernible flavors.  It wasn't bad exactly, but it was a disappointment for sure. 

I learned my lesson.  When I'm not in the mood to cook, I shouldn't step into the kitchen.  Honey, I really shouldn't have!

High on Tarts

For this SHF event I had to ponder long and hard before deciding to make Pierre Hermé's Nutella Tart.  I'd already made this dessert once before, so I was reluctant to give up the opportunity to try something new.  However, since I wasn't all that impressed with the results of the first attempt this would provide me a chance to play with the recipe.  And I hadn't posted about it the first time, so I figured it was probably okay.

The first time I made the tart it turned out well and tasted good, but it's fairly hard to mess up anything made of chocolate and hazelnut.  In my opinion the tart fell short of perfect and I wanted to make a few changes. 

First off, I wanted to introduce a contrasting, but complimentary flavor to the rich chocolate ganache and Nutella fillings.  So I used a crumbly, buttery dough from a Cooks Illustrated recipe.

I also wanted to turn up the hazelnut influence by adding Frangelico liqueur to the filling somehow.  But I didn't want to add it to the chocolate ganache and lose the flavor contrast between the bitter chocolate and sweet Nutella.  So, I started thinking about other options and  I came across a recipe that called for soaked Ameretti cookies as a filling.  I liked the idea but didn't want those flavors, plus the cookies would likely get soggy once baked with the filling.  In the end I came up with fine ground toasted hazelnuts.  The flavor obviously fit and the texture of the nuts wouldn't be affected by the filling.  So I soaked the ground nuts in Frangelico, spread them onto the prebaked tart shell, added the Nutella, and finally poured over the chocolate ganache.

The finished product was better then I had anticipated.  The shell, which turned out almost shortbread like, highlighted the flavors in the filling, while the drunken hazelnuts added a level of complexity without being overpowering.  I was very impressed with the flavors and textures of this second attempt and I would be happy to make this tart again. 

Banana Foster Napoleons

Let me introduce you to my very first SHF entry, the Bananas Foster Napoleon.  This little tower of pancreas stressing delight was on tonight's dessert menu, so I'm coming in just under the time limit.  I made the puff pastry from scratch earlier in the week and was very surprised (actually jumping with joy) when it began to puff in the oven.  This was a truly amazing moment for me considering the agony of making it.  I was so sure it would be a dud that I purchased a package from the frozen section as back up.  All went reasonably well however and it ended up looking really good.  I think it should have puffed more than it did, but I'm not going to complain.  Not too loudly anyway.

This dessert layers bananas foster and caramel pastry cream between circles of sugared puff pastry.  The napoleon is then topped with a big scoop of toasted coconut whipped cream.  I really liked the presentation and the taste was a smash too.  The pastry was slightly underdone, so next time I'll bake it 5 minutes, or so longer. 

Since the recipe for it was thrown together as I went along I won't be posting it tonight.  Figuring out what amount of what, went in where is a job better left for tomorrow when I'm a bit more awake. 

Merry Sugar High to all and to all a good night!