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April 8, 2008
Evolution Of The Katja Dessert
Being that I can not cook at the moment I thought this story would be appropriate for the blog.
I visited London several months ago and met an incredibly talented woman named Katja.
We became great friends and spent alot of time talking about food and the whole dining experience and process. In our talks, she talked about how much she adored great German breads, being that she is German, this is one of her avenues of expertise.
She spoke of rye and pumpernickels with great adoration. Along the way she also mentioned her dark chocolate episodes. I noticed when she had tea, she found great pleasure in the flavor addition of honey. My wheels started to turn and I thought about these flavor combinations in a dessert. Rye and Chocolate? Well many pumpernickel recipes have cocoa in them, this is what gives them their beautiful dark color. When I got back to Santa Barbara, I started to play with these elements. It was difficult finding a way to combine the rye element with chocolate without the chocolate overpowering the rye. I made a rye mousse by using the chunks of bread tossed in a creme anglaise mixture and adding some molasses, caraway seeds and gelatin. Then I would blend them and fold in the half whipped cream. This produced a nice mousse but it was too light. Then it came to me. I needed a crunch element with pumpernickel notes to enhance the texture and flavor. After numerous attempts, I settled upon an inverted pumpernickel puff pastry. The first attempt fell short, but the second combination was a home run. It was caramelized, very crunchy, and with an explosion of pumpernickel. I made a chocolate cremeaux, with a 70% cocoa using Domori.
Lastly, the honey was incorporated as a creme. Honey is hard to use as a predominant flavor because one needs to be able to bring out the honey flavor without making it too sweet. I tried 5 different honeys and none of them worked. Finally I found a local avocado blossom honey that was very bold and did the trick perfectly. In the end, the flavors meshed so well, yet very different and a complete palate experience. So the final dessert is:
70% Domori Chocolate Cremeaux
Rye mousse parfait
Bisquit de chocolat
Avocado blossom honey cream
Inverted pumpernickel puff pastry
Thank you for the inspiration Katja!
April 8, 2008 6:46 PM
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