Dessert » The Saucy Coq

Plum Sorbet with Sloe Gin

I almost never make dessert because I’m not a baker of any sort. But, I lifted this plum and sloe gin sorbet from a Jamie Oliver cookbook I have and I couldn’t have been happier with the result. It takes only a handful of ingredients and a couple of simple steps to impress your guests!

Plum sorbet with sloe gin

2 pounds mixed plums

Zest of 1 orange

5 tablespoons sugar

1/4 cup sloe gin, plus extra for serving

Keep in mind that you could substitute pretty much any kind of fruit – paired with an appropriate fruit based liqueur – in the below recipe.

Sloe gin is a liqueur made with sloe (or blackthorn) berries, gin and a few additional flavours.

To make the sorbet, cut the plums in half and remove their pits. You are going to blend the plums with the other ingredients so putting them in the freezer first will give you a more slushy, less juicy texture for the sorbet. Place the plums in a freezer bag and put into the freezer for at least 2 hours or until frozen solid. An hour before you want to make your sorbet, put a serving dish into the freezer to get really cold.

Once you’re ready to roll, put the plums into a food processor with the orange zest, sugar and sloe gin and pulse until smooth. Scoop into your frozen bowl or dish and use a spatula to smooth out the surface. Throw that in to the freezer, and bingo bango!

Once you’re ready for a flavour explosion, remove the sorbet 5 to 10 minutes before serving so it softens slightly. Serve in big scoops, with a swig of sloe gin over the top if you like.

CRÈME BRÛLÉE – IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO?

Sooooo. Nothing like a six week hiatus to make me feel bad about myself. Apologies for the lack of updates here on The Saucy Coq in the past several weeks. A lot on my plate to get the new decade rolling in the right direction. Back on track now!

Like every Christmas, my family’s go-to gifts for me fall in the kitchen & cooking genre. And, rightly so…I’m always up for experimenting with new foods and techniques. This year, my sister got me a blow torch with some nice ramekins. The next gift I opened was some Vanilla beans from Madagascar. Then, she let me know that there happened to be a dozen fresh eggs and cream in the fridge. “Merry Christmas” she said, “I want crème brûlée”.

Crème brûlée, French for “burnt cream”, is a dessert consisting of a rich custard base topped with a contrasting layer of hard caramel. This was actually my first attempt at making the rich dessert. For starters, as I’ve mentioned many times, I don’t bake. Secondly, even though crème brûlée is a pretty basic affair, it’s always remained a restaurant dessert for me. Enter the blow torch. If you weren’t a fan of Home Improvement in the ’90s, you wouldn’t understand, but the torch makes me feel a bit Tim Taylor-esque. Grunting, looking around the kitchen for anything that will volunteer to be torched.

For now, it’s just this custard mix. For the future, I’m scared.

Crème Brûlée

3/4 cup sugar
4 large egg yolks
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 large vanilla bean

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. If you have a whole vanilla bean, use the tip of your knife to open up the bean length-wise, then press the knife down at an angle and scrape it along the length of the bean to remove the seeds. It actually looks like a brown paste inside, but what you’re extracting are all of the seeds, and, all of the flavor.

Place the cream, vanilla bean and its pulp into a medium saucepan set over medium-high heat for 10 minutes, but do not bring to a boil. Remove from the heat, cover and allow to sit for 15 minutes. Remove the vanilla bean.

In a medium bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup of the sugar and the egg yolks until well blended and it just starts to lighten in color. Add the cream a little at a time, stirring continually. If the cream is still hot, it’s important to add the cream in small batches so as not to cook the eggs.

Pour the liquid into 6 ramekins. Place the ramekins into a large cake pan or roasting pan and pour enough hot water into the pan to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake just until the crème brûlée is set, but still jiggles in the center, approximately 40 to 45 minutes. Remove the ramekins from the roasting pan and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 3 days.

Remove the crème brûlée from the refrigerator at least 30 minutes prior to browning the sugar on top. Divide the remaining sugar equally among the 6 dishes and spread evenly on top. Using a torch, melt the sugar and form a crispy top. Allow the crème brûlée to sit for at least 5 minutes before serving.

Sooooo good.

HOLY ____ DARK CHOCOLATE ESPRESSO CHEESECAKE

What am I doing here? I’ve never made a cake in my life. I really just don’t like or enjoy baking. Baking the verb, not the noun. I really love baking the noun when it involves chocolate. Huuuuuuge chocolate fan. Don’t have much of a sweet tooth other than that, but I would fight children for chocolate.

I think the part of baking that just doesn’t turn my crank is its unforgiving demeanor. There’s really not much room for improvising in baking, which is my forte. No “some of this, if you have it” or “add this if you like”. It’s all “2.65 deciliters of this”, “12 fathoms of that”.

Needless to say, it was a buddy’s 30th birthday last week, so I decided to make a cake. A manly cake of course. And when I gave it to him, I kind of just tilted my head toward the cake slightly, as if to say “Yeah, whatever. Don’t make a big deal out of it”. Pffff. I showed him.

This dark chocolate espresso cheesecake is insane. Like, seriously intense. If you close your eyes and imagine riding that big white luck dragon from The Never Ending Story in to the center of the sun, that would approximate the intensity of this cake.

Dark Chocolate Espresso Cheesecake

Crust
9 ounce package Dark chocolate wafer cookies (from one 9-ounce package)
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted

Filling
1 bar high quality 70% Cocoa Bittersweet Chocolate, chopped
4 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, room temperature
1 1/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
4 large eggs
2 tbsp strong espresso

Topping
3/4 cup whipping cream
6 ounces high quality 70% Cocoa Bittersweet Chocolate, chopped
1 tablespoon sugar
Bittersweet chocolate curls
Roasted espresso beans

For crust:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a 9-inch-diameter springform pan with 3-inch-high sides. Blend cookies in processor until finely ground; blend in sugar. Add melted butter and process until well blended. Press crumbs evenly onto bottom of prepared pan. Bake just until set, about 5-7 minutes. Cool the crust while preparing filling, but maintain oven temperature.

For filling:
Brew two shots of strong espresso and let cool. Stir chopped chocolate in metal bowl set over saucepan of simmering water (called a double boiler) until melted and smooth. Remove bowl from over water; cool chocolate until lukewarm but still pourable. Blend cream cheese, sugar, and cocoa powder in processor until smooth. Blend in eggs 1 at a time. Mix in lukewarm chocolate and espresso. Pour filling over crust; smooth top. Bake until center is just set and just appears dry, about 1 hour (but keep an eye on it). Ideally, if you have the time (which you should since you choose to bake a cheesecake) you’ll want to completely cool before refrigerating. You don’t have to, but cooling a hot cake will cause moisture to be trapped in. Run knife around sides of cake to loosen. Chill overnight.

For topping:
Stir cream, 6 ounces chocolate, and sugar in heavy medium saucepan over low heat until smooth. Cool slightly. Pour over center of cheesecake, spreading to within 1/2 inch of edge. Chill until topping is set, about 1 hour. This icing can be made a couple days ahead if you like. Cover with foil and keep refrigerated. Reheat slightly when ready to pour over cake.

Release pan sides. Transfer cheesecake to platter. Top with chocolate curls, espresso beans and grated cocoa. Let stand 2 hours at room temperature before serving. This actually makes a big difference believe it or not. The cake will be much more dense right out of the fridge.

Strap yourself in and go to town.

World-class air guitar upon presentation of cake.

SOMEWHAT SPOOKY CANDY APPLES (FOR APPLES ANYWAY)

Recipes and photos courtesy of Mattbites

Photo by Matt Armendariz

This weekend, as you know, is Halloween. The one day of the year when it’s okay for guys to dress like the Joker and for girls to dress like some form of stripper. Might be a nurse stripper…might be a devil stripper…probably a Kate Gosselin stripper or two. The only certainty is that candy will be consumed! Unless you’re over 8 years old. Then it’s most likely alcohol.

In the spirit of this fine celebration, here’s a great recipe, and some great photos, for Halloween candy apples from Adam and Matt over at Mattbites.

Candy apples remind me of losing my fillings as a child. Soooo dangerous, but so delicious. I think I may be ready to digress a couple of decades and give these a shot.

Photo by Matt Armendariz

Red & Black Candy Apples (courtesy of Mattbites)

8-10 medium sized apples
8-10 wooden twigs, twimmed
3 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 cup of water
several drops of cinnamon flavored oil
1/4 teaspoon of red food coloring
1/4 teaspoon of black food coloring

Clean and dry the apples. Try to remove as much of the wax as possible. If you purchase them from your local farmer’s market then chances are they have not been treated with the food grade wax that makes then shine. Remove any stems or leaves and insert a twig into the end of each apple. Sharpen the end of the twig if necessary, but only under child supervision. Set apples aside.

Heat and stir sugar, corn syrup and water in a saucepan until sugar has dissolved. Boil until the syrup reaches 300 degrees on a candy thermometer. Don’t go over 310 degrees or your candy burns and then you’ll be sad.

Remove from heat and stir in flavored oil and food coloring.

Dip one apple completely in the syrup and swirl it so that it becomes coated with the melted sugar candy. Hold the apple above the saucepan to drain off excess. Place apple, with the stick facing up, onto a baking sheet that’s greased or lined with a silpat. Repeat the process with the remaining apples. If your syrup thickens or cools too much, simply reheat briefly before proceeding. Let the apples cool completely before serving.

You can try eating more than one of these if you think that’s a good idea. Otherwise, you can drop the rest in to some trick-or-treater’s bag.

BOO!

FROZEN GRAPES w CHOCOLATE & CHEESE – THE LAZY DESSERT

Leafing through one of Jamie Oliver’s cookbooks a while back, I saw frozen grapes. Oh. Just perfect Jamie. Bring my world crashing down? Turns out, I’m okay. Did not affect my life in any way except for some good grape eating times.

The consistency of frozen grapes is in the ballpark of a nice sorbet. I find the best grapes to freeze are Muscat and Concord grapes when they’re in season as they both have a nice balance of sweet and tart. The size is also perfect*. They will however most likely have seeds in them.

This is a really nice easy dessert served along with some dark chocolate and good cheese. I like to rinse the grapes off before I put them in the freezer so they have a bit of ice on them. Put them in the freezer for 3 hours or so before you want to eat them.

* As a side note, I’m going to complain. When the f**k did grapes get so big? What happened? Look at these grapes we got the other day! I was full after like 4 grapes. Everyone likes a plump fruit, but I shouldn’t need a knife and fork to get through a grape. I give it a year before I’m posting about some carrot I took down with a tree trimmer.