I have to say, I was a plated dessert virgin. I never had it in a fancy restaurant, and I never mad it by myself. Not any more!!!! Not too long ago, my team at work had a team builder lunch at my house. One of the co-workers was a chef, so he took care of all the appetizer and the entrée. Me being the dessert guy at work, of course was responsible for the dessert.
How do you impress the guess at the end of the meal? An exotic cup of coffee from the part of the world you never heard of? A piece of cake or pie? No, not in my household with room full of people who have high expectation of me in pulling up a memorable dessert.
Being that we are in Fall season, I chose a pear theme since it’s in season, and I don’t really care much for apple type dessert. I have to confess, I did not create this recipe, but at least I’m taking baby step by learning to recreate others recipe, besides, that’s what recipe books are for! So, I whipped up this “Pear and Pistachio Torte with Pear Fritters and Roasted Pear Puree”…… boy that’s such a long name, wait until you see the ingredient and the component!
So, to make this plated dessert, I have to make all these components:
- Pear and Pistachio Torte
- Strudel Dough Tubes
- Pear Fritters
- Pear Sabayon Sauce
- Spiced Grapes
- Roasted Pear Puree
- Strudel Crisps
- Pear Sorbet
- Sugar Garnish
I’m suppose to have pistachio oil as the last component, but I could not find it at the store, so I just leave it out.
With so many component, where to start? Well, luckily majority of the component can be made the day before, that’s why I choose this dessert!
The Pear and Pistachio Torte is probably the most tricky part of the dessert since I have to make pistachio génoise, which I haven’t master well yet. It also call for the roasted pear puree component, so let’s starts from there. The roasted pear component is quite easy, just peeled pear, melted butter and honey.
Throw all the ingredient together in a pan and stick it into a very hot oven for 10 to 15 minutes, and it’s roasted.
Puree the roasted pear, and you get this smooth delightful roasted pear puree:
To make the filling of the pistachio torte, I had to whip mascarpone cheese with heavy whip cream, and a little bit of the pear puree.
While everything is going on, bake two pieces of pistachio torte.
The pistachio torte doesn’t have any leavening agent like baking powder or baking soda. Besides, it’s a high sugar content torte, so the cake looks a bit dense. By all mean, it’s very flavorful.
Slicing the torte is not rocket science, after all, I have done it for quite a while. The torte is fill with the Roasted Pear Mascarpone filling
Next, I moved on to the easier thing to take the edge of the stress, which is the spiced grapes. If you can boil water, you can make the spiced grapes. Really, it’s that easy. Just boil clove, cinnamon stick, white pepper corn, cardamon pod, mustard seeds, lemon juice, sugar and water. Let the syrup infuse by the spice a bit.
Rinse the red grapes, and put them in a container that you want to store them in.
Pour the hot spiced sugar syrup onto the grape, let them steep and flavor up overnight in the fridge.
You think that’s it for the night? Not so easy, I had to work on those fragile pieces next, the strudel dough tube and crisps. They are basically just phyllo dough that’s shape into different form. Eight out of 10 times when you work with phyllo dough, the recipe would call for melted butter. Not this time, but it still call for butter, clarified butter that’s it. So, I just make a bowl of clarified butter, and I lost count of how many sticks of butter I used.
To make the strudel tubes, I had to make a trip to the hardware store and visit their plumbing department to get two shinny clean tubes:
The rest is a bit messy, just brush a few pieces of phyllo dough with the clarified butter, stack them, cut them, roll them on to the pipe, and bake until they’re crispy. I wasn’t being patient, and removed the strudel tube from the pipe before they’re completely set, so some of the center curl back.Well, it was like 11 at night, you can’t blame me for loosing my patient, I need my beauty sleep you know.
I had to repeat the strudel process with the crisps, except I sprinkle the top and bottom with sugar, and stack with more number of layers of phyllo dough, and bake them with a sheet pan weight them down. I must had been to tired and didn’t take photos of that part.
You think I was done for the night? Not so fast! I still have to make the sugar garnish, which is basically sugar stick. The sugar stick it not pull, thank goodness because I haven’t master that skill yet. To make the sugar stick, I had to boil sugar, glucose and water until hard crack stage, plunge the pot into water to stop the cooking process until the sugar become honey type consistency. Then I had to stick a wood stick into the thick sugar, and drizzle the sugar around.
This is where the silicone mat shine, nothing stick and remove process is a snap! I made a lot extra because I have lots of sugar in the pot, and I want to make sure I have plenty of good looking sugar to choose from. Just trim the sugar once they’re cool and set, and snap them like dried spaghetti stick.
So, store all the fragile pieces in air tight container, and that’s it for the night!
The next day morning, I still have a couple more component to make. I started with the Pear sabayon sauce because it needed a couple hours to chill in the fridge. The sauce is quite straight forward, just put egg yolks, sugar and pear liquor into double boilder, whisk until pale and thick, set a side and cool a bit.
Whip the heavy cream and Crème fraîche until stiff form, then fold the egg yolk custard in, and add more pear liquour in after folding all the ingredient in.
To make sure you have a smooth sauce, pass the mixture through a sieve to get rid of any egg yolk lumbs that might have form during the double boiling process. The sauce is silky smooth!
To make plating easier, put the pear sabayon sauce into a squirt bottle using a funnel.
Once the sauce is in the squirt bottle, it’s time to chill them in the fridge.
The last component of the dessert is the poached pear for the fritter. It’s quite striaght forward, just boil the poaching liquid with the peel pear, which consist of water (duh!), sugar, cinamon stick, lemon juice and vanilla bean.
Do not boil the liquid then add the pear. The pear has to be added when the liquid is still cold, otherwise you would end up with mushy pear on the ouside, and the inside is just firm. Once the pear is poached, set it a side and make sure the pear is completely submerge, otherwise they will turn brown a bit.
Since all the component is made, it’s time to get them ready so that I don’t have to spend too much time to assemble them. This mean cut everthing that need to be cut! The spiced grapes needs to be cut in half so that they’re more presentable and show case the color of the flesh inside the grape.
Next is to cut the poached pear into smaller pieces, blob them dry with paper towel so they will be ready for deep fry:
My chef co-worker did a good job in cooking up those wonderful entree. When it was my turn to get the dessert going, I just have to mix the fritter batter, and put them in a dish, next to the panko crumb,
To make the fritter, just put the sliced poached pear into the batter, roll them on panko crumb, and the drop them into the oil I showed my chef co-worker a couple of those, then he helped me to finish the job.
While my chef co-worker was frying the pear fritter, I moved on to start plating the dessert:
Each plated dessert consist of a wedge of the pistachio torte, a strudel tube that’s filled with roasted pear puree, the fried pear fritter in between them with powder sugar sprinkle on top.Them top them with the strudel crisps to form a bridge. Put some spiced grape on the plate, and squirt some Pear sabayon sauce next to the torte and the tube.
I’m glad I have a few different sizes of icecream scoop, so just scoop out a scoop of the pear sorbet, which I made a few days before, and top with a sugar stick.
On the day of the team lunch, I used a sqaure plate for platting. The day after that, I had a left over portion, so I tried to plat it on a rectangle plate:
I have to say, the rectangle plate doesn’t look as breatch taking as the square plate, I think because the rectangle plate is not contemporary enought. The taste of the dessert, however, is still superb! Hot, cold; soft, cruncy; sweet, tart all in one plate! Some of the component is sweeter than the other, but once you combine them together, they’re perfectly balance out, just like the strudel bridge on top of the dessert.
There you are, my first plated dessert attempted by myself. I have to say, it’s really really time consuming, but is also very rewarding. The draw back is, to make this kind of dessert, either your dining guess have to wait for you to finish the work, or you just don’t dine with them as you would be assembling the dessert while they’re still eating the course before the dessert course.
