Celebrating Versailles

Desserts had their renaissance and glory days during the last days of the Bourbons. They were creamy, and elegant, sculpted and delicious. Now thanks to a modern day pastry chef , home bakers and chefs can recreate them for their summer parties.

Yottom Ottolenghi wrote about them the other day in Wednesday's New York Times Food section. He is hosting a night at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the museum's Visitors To Versailles exhibit. It is a joint venture between the Met and the Chateau de Versailles, featuring every aspect of court life from April to closing at the end of July. To celebrate his night there, Chef Ottolenghi has created two desserts worthy of any Versailles pastry chef. One is an elaborate apricot tart made with the heavenly frangipane cream and marzipan a must and luxury of Marie Antoinette. On top of the tart is a creme patisserie layer, a cooked cream that was becoming popular in the late 1700's. It's kind of like a sweet roux married to a sabayon thanks to the addition of  four egg yolks. The star of this though, is poached apricots. Lime and Sauternes, a sweet white  dessert wine are added to it for more flavor. The apricots are cooked again, this time baked when they 're added to the pie. The pie and all its' components is a bit to elaborate to make during these sweltering summer days. Unfortunately there are no short cuts here.

Luckily, there is an easier alternative which I wanted to try. This still has the poached apricots in Sauterne  but without all the fuss of crusts and layering different creams. It is still an elaborate make and will probably take me an entire afternoon. I do want to try this with the apricots but also want to try this with peaches and possibly nectarines.. Could berries be added, like strawberries or blackberries?. I was wondering if it's really necessary to add the Sauterne ttoo - can I just use water?. It's only a scant cup. Will the additional flavor really be missed? Maybe. The fruit slices are cooked twice, once poached, then briefly cooked over a high heat. The cream that goes with it is a marriage of mascarpone and heavy cream. Unsalted and toasted pistachios are added to it along with crushed amaretti cookies and sugar. Again I wonder if I can put in variations. Suppose salted pistachios are used for more depth and to cut the sweetness? As for amaretti cookies which are a rarity around here in the summer - can I switch in crushed biscotti? Both are flavored with anise, except the biscotti has a milder dose of it.  Then another interesting poser- can I freeze it to make a kind of semi freddo? That would make a neat dessert with the apricots.

The French patisserie chefs of Versailles made amazing desserts. It will be fun to emulate them and create these sweets. They are a salute to the glory of Gallic baking and cooking. Let's see if us commoners can recreate them,

Open To Sesame

\Mention sesame to most  Americans and they'll automatically think of a decorative topping for a hamburger bun. Mention the same seed to people from the Middle East, Turkey or Greece and they'll think tahini or halvah. Now it's becoming big stateside

Julia Moskin wrote about this extremely versatile seed in today's New York Times Food section.Sesame seeds can be turned into tahini if crushed or into the classic sweet halvah if mixed with sugar.It was long looked down upon as poor people's food, a treat for those who could not afford expensive pastries made with butter white flour and sugar. However Isreali, Turkish, and Greek chefs, long familiar with both are using both to create interesting main dishes and desserts. It is grown around the world and was one of the first plants cultivated for is' oil.It grows primarily in hot weather climates such as China, India, Myanmar and sub saharan Africa.Black sesame paste is used in East Asia, mostly for sweets.it creates a sugary inky black soup and is being used by trendy Japanese bakers to create elegant dove grey cheesecakes and chiffon cakes.Sesame is a part of the Chinese New Year treat jian due, fluffy rice balls coated in golden sesame seeds.Indians turn the seeds into brittle and candy balls for winter snacking. They're considered warming in the ayurvedic tradition Africans brought them to the american South where they're still known by the Bantu name benne, where they're made into melting savory crackers.

Home chefs too are fully embracing both  as they now crave Mediterannean and Middle Eastern foods.Hummus lovers already have been introduced to tahini. It's one of the ingredients in the chickpea dip.It gives foods a salty nutty under taste that actually works just as well with dessert recipes. In a way tahini is similar to peanut butter with grinding an oily seed or nut until the solids are minuscule enough to form a smooth, silky emulsion with the oil.Halvah also has the sesame seed paste  but it's blended with boiled and whipped sugar foam  to create a fluffy , feather light melt in your mouth treat/. Ms Moskin gives interesting recipes with the article. Home chefs can try it in salted chocolate chip cookies. It creates a different kind of cookie , one with savory notes that work well with the dark chocolate/ There is also a halvah semifreddo, a delicious mix of halvah, pistachios and whole cream frozen in a loaf pan.Another recipe is a fun candy like mix of Rice Chex or cornflakes, tahini and milk chocolate melted and mixed together to form crunchy  sweet rounds. These can be crumbled and sprinkled over ice cream too. For those who cannot get enough of halvah try the Greek pasteli, soft wedges of  sesame seeds, thyme honey and orange made for thousands of years on the island of Kea. Halvah can be bought on line and in different flavors such as chocolate and pistachio.

Sesame seeds are not just for decorating hamburger buns. They can be turned into a creamy sauce used for both savory and sweet dishes  as well as a feather light candy. Try tahini and halvah to experience a different side of the seed,

Your Ice Cream Guide

The warm weather brings about much wished, things, days at the beach , barbecues, and of course ice cream. This is the start of the frozen treat season. Yet many of us don't; know the difference between  gelato and an ice cream or frozen milk and regular ice cream. Just like flavors, there are so many different kinds of ice cream and ices .

Most of us usually have a brick of ice cream in the freezer.This is known as hard ice cream because of its consistency.It's made with not only milk and cream but also with eggs and stabilizers to keep it from melting..It's churned to keep the ingredients from freezing into a solid mass Ice cream can be made at home thanks to an ice cream maker or one of those balls with a canister inside to hold the mixture.French style ice cream is a bit richer thanks to the addition of eggs to make a thin version of  crème anglais.That boardwalk favorite frozen custard is similar but uses more eggs or just  yolks. Both are cooked and left to cool prior before freezing. Both are denser than regular ice cream and have a silky feeling.There is also Philadelphia style ice cream which is made without eggs.It's simpler to make at home. Remember without the egg base it does freeze firmer and harder. The Italians give us that classic treat gelato. The name simply means frozen in Italian . It can contain eggs or not but it is denser  than our version, thanks to having very little air whipped into it There is also semifreddo.. It means half cold and is a variation on ice cream or frozen custard.It's frozen in a loaf pan and then sluiced and served with fruit.It's usually made at home with just cream and eggs.

Of course there is the lighter side of frozen treats.These don't have  as many calories, yet still have     flavor. There is ice  milk which  doesn't have enough milk fat to be considered ice cream.It is still creamy but lighter and lower in calories. Sherbet has always been a warm weather favorite. Classic kinds are made with fruit juice sugar water or even wine..Some versions do contain milk, buttermilk, egg whites or gelatin.It is sometimes confused and labeled sorbet which is completely vegan. This has been traditionally used as a palate cleanser between large courses.It's usually lemon or strawberry flavored and very light on the tongue and taste buds. Granita is one of the easiest frozen treats to make at home.It's made from mashed ice and usually the preferred flavor is coffee.It can be served with ice cream but is good on it's own with a chocolate syrup and side of whipped cream.  Then there is ice.It can be known as Italian ice or water ice if you're from Philly.It can contain egg white as a binder but it's mostly just water and syrup churned like ice cream.  Another treat is President Obama's love Hawaiian shaved ice and this is the most refreshing of all the ices.It starts with a block of ice that's been shaved with a special gadget , mounded into  cone and then doused with syrup.  Three different flavors can be poured over it for a yummy rainbow ice.

Just as there are so many flavors, there are so may types to choose from. Make a semi freddo for a weekend get together, have a cone on Sunday and maybe some ice during the week. No matter what you finally opt for, it's all cool , sweet and delicious, a perfect break from the sweltering heat.       

Feast Of Sweets

What could be better than having dessert for dinner? There's something decadent about cutting out the nutritious middle and heading right for the sweets.That's just what some of the more trendier Manhattan restaurants are doing.They're letting patrons order fun and exciting desserts in stead of the usual mains and sides. Ligaya Mishan got this fun assignment for her Hungry City column in yesterday's New York Times Dining section. She visited some hot eateries as Per Se, Chikalicious and Picholine to name a few.Many restaurants serve what is known as tasting tables where dishes of unusually made desserts and sugary novelties are served.Doing this serves two purposes,one it highlights the pastry chef, often overshadowed by the restaurant's chef and two ,gives diners a chance at trying a less expensive tasting table.Most tasting menus can go as high as three hundred dollars while a dessert one is only eighty dollars or much less.It also is a great way to draw in foodie's who normally wouldn't visit a restaurant due to it's pricing. What did Ms Mishan get to sample? A lot on interesting creations,basically dessert with a Joan Miro twist.ChikaLicious pastry chef and owner Cjika Tillman,a native of Japan makes sweet little amuse bouches worthy of a Bento box.There was a duo of an Earl Grey infused cotta sitting next to a sorbet made from tart Meyer lemons.She also offers a Japanese style cheesecake resting on a bed of ice.Per Se offers a little scoop of pear sorbet along with a mound of vanilla custard.The plate is decorated with oat streusel crumbs.There's also a cappuccino semifreddo served in a coffee cup.It was paired with airy doughnuts that were more like sugary wisp.Chocolate pudding came with a whiff of apple wood smoke and a halo of olive oil.Unusual desserts were also tried. Such as a lemon thyme gelatin cubes set against chocolate and butternut squash purée tucked under a cranberry sorbet.Picholine offered sweets with twists such as apple crescents poached in caramel dabbed with cider purée along with a Gorgonzola(!) semifreddo. Desserts are what diners remember most about their restaurant experiences.What better way to really impress them than with a tasting table of sweets.It's a great introduction to the place along with satisfying a sweet tooth?