Zucchini Chocolate S'mores Cake

Here is a dessert special I made at the restaurant tonight. It is a moist, double chocolate zucchini cake with s'mores ice cream and chocolate sauce. Perfect for sharing!

When my brothers and I were little, my mom used to bake a chocolate zucchini cake quite often around this time of year when zucchinis were in abundance. But because we were more picky of eaters at the time, especially when it came to vegetables, she used to tell us it was 'green coconut' so we would eat it and not ask questions. I realize now that green coconut is not really a thing and that zucchini is delicious, especially when baked into a chocolate cake.

Strawberry Pastry

It's strawberry season!! That means strawberry muffins, strawberry crisps, strawberry pies, fresh strawberries out of hand, and the classic strawberry shortcake. This is a little dessert I made tonight from my mother's request. It could be considered a type of strawberry shortcake. It consists of my infamous homemade puff pastry - the one I used for vol-au-vent, mini pastries, appetizers, pot pies, mille fueilles, and more. I cut them into thick squares and baked them for this recipe. I then split the squares in half horizontally, and topped with whipped cream and fresh, sweetened strawberry pieces. Add a sprinkle of cinnamon on top and have a delicious strawberry treat!

Trio Of Desserts

Shellfish festival gala dinner dessert plate. That's three desserts per plate times 450 people equals 1350 mini desserts by three amazing pastry chefs.

Top: Lemon macaroon with lemon cream filling
Right: raspberry swirled cheesecake on graham crust with raspberry buttercream and fresh raspberry
Left: blueberry tartlet with white chocolate ganache, chantilly cream, and chocolate garnish
Salted caramel sauce.

Skills - Secondary Cooking Carrot Cake

Day Two, group two cooking carrot cake dessert with icing and decor of choice and fresh fruit.

Free Samples

At the food convention I was at the other day, there were so many vendors set up and nearly all of them had at least one free sample to offer. There was a large variety and many options. Here is a taste of some things there:

An assortment of breads, rolls, cookies, and quick breads.

Italian sodas, ice cream sundaes, and cream puffs.

Different brownie types

CHOCOLATE, CHOCOLATE, CHOCOLATE

Chocolate eruption cake...yummy, yum, yum

Chocolate squares

Desserts...cheesecake

Dough Danish Turnovers

Going along with the same idea as those pie dough scraps from last week, here we have dough 'turnovers' or shortcut Danish pastries. We took the leftover dough from making a tortiere meat pie, and made mini turnovers and one large turnover. We didn't really worry about getting perfect triangles as we were just utilizing scrap dough anyway. 

Some are filled with dark chocolate chips, which melted just enough to form a nice filling but not enough to ooze out of the pastry. Some are filled with spiced almonds, some with crushed maple walnuts, some with cinnamon sugar, and some with a combination of those. They are simply sealed with water, but also could be brushed with egg wash or milk before baking to allow more toppings to adhere. They can be brushed or dipped in melted butter after baking to give them a little more flavor. This is a basic pie dough for a savory pie, so the dough itself is not very sweet, making it the perfect vessel for a maple glaze or a frosting as well.

Practice Plating

During some preparation times for yesterday's competition; one thing we worked on was plating. Plating sometimes falls under the wayside until you are n the heat of a competition, but it is something that is very important to think about in advance. It is best to have a plan for plating, that way you don't start plating the dish and realize you've run out of room, or you should have placed the sauce on the bottom instead of the top. Practice plates do not need to be done with the actual components. Sometimes it is sufficient to draw or sketch the plates - on paper, or on whiteboards so changes can easily be made. It is also possible to cover a plate with plastic wrap and draw on it with sharpies. 

However, it is often very helpful to see the plates in 3-D. This can be achieved by using various objects lying around, such as office supplies, but a common practice is also to make things called 'ketchup plates'. Chefs devise plates using random, common condiments such as ketchup, mustard, stale bread, vegetable scraps, and more to represent the components on their dishes.

Here, we were practicing the dessert plate. We did have the caramel sauce made as we had been practicing it, and we did have some strawberries, but we didn't have any of our other components. We ended up using random bread pieces and such we found near-by. Looks like an award-winning plate, does it not?

Let`s Look At Some Pretty Desserts

Opera Cake, coffe creme anglaise, whipped cream,
dark chocolate, blueberries, raspberry

Parfait with Chocolate Glaze

Mousse, Fruit Compote, Cookie, Chocolate Cigar

Deconstructed Strawberry Shortcake,
sorbet, shortcake, strawberry coulis

Mille Fille with pastry cream and berries

Chocolate Mousse Bombe, sorbet, berries, cream

Bavarian Cream, crumb, caramel

Pear Sorbet and garnishes

Lemon Tart, Meringue, Berries, Raspberry Coulis

Mango Cream

Blueberry Creme Brulee, chocolate chip biscotti, fruit and cream

Tiramisu

Chocolate Brownie and caramel

Berries and Cream Parfait

Sorbet in a Dark Chocolate Cup with garnishes

Coffee Creme Brulee, Biscotti, Chocolate Garnishes

Chocolate Mousse Bombe, Peanuts, Caramel

Strawberry Shortcake and Sorbet

Parfait with Nut Tuile, berries, coulis

Lemon Tartlet, duo of sauces, berries

Miniature Pineapple Upside Down Cake`
with Coconut Semifreddo

Cheesecake with chocolate and caramel sauce

Lemon Tart with Chocolate Butterfly

Frozen Chocolate Mint Parfait

Cheesecake, Fruit Sorbet, Caramel Cage

Blueberry White Chocolate Cake

White Chocolate Cake Batter + Blueberries + Raspberry Pastry Cream + Sugared Ginger Crunch + Dark Chocolate Sauce + Caramel Spiral

The cake is a simple white chocolate cake batter poured into a ramekin, sprinkled with blueberries, and then baked until firm on the outside but still soft and moist on the inside.

The raspberry pastry cream is just as it sounds and lends a pretty pink color. It is underneath the cake.

The sugared ginger crunch is candied ginger stirred into a basic caramel brittle.

The dark chocolate sauce consists simply of dark chocolate and cream, melted together until silky and smooth.

And the caramel spiral is one of my signature pastry garnishes.