Category — sweets

Marshmallows are so easy to make. They can be flavored with just about anything too. These are vanilla marshmallows, flavored using whole vanilla beans.

Made from scratch, marshmallows are fluffier and more flavorful than anything commercially produced. And best of all, they toast incredibly well. Instead of becoming black and charred, the sugars in the marshmallows caramelize and create a crisp, créme brulée-like texture. Of course, the inside becomes warm and gooey. Here’s a simple recipe for marshmallows:

Marshmallows:

• 3/4 oz. gelatin
• 1/2 c (115 g) cold water
• 2 c. (415 g) sugar
• 2/3 c. (150 g) corn syrup
• 1/4 c. (57 g) water
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• Flavoring, as desired
• Powdered sugar, as needed for dusting

Begin by blooming the gelatin with the 1/2 c. cold water in the bowl of a stand mixer. While the gelatin blooms, combine the sugar, corn syrup, remaining water, salt, and flavoring in a small saucepan. Heat the mixture to dissolve the sugar and bring to a boil. Add to the bloomed gelatin and whip on high speed for 10-12 minutes. The mixture should turn from a clear, viscous liquid to a thick, white, fluffy mixture.

Transfer the still liquid marshmallow to a plastic wrap-lined and greased container. Spread into an even layer using a greased offset spatula. Allow to set at room temperature for at least 2 hours.

Dust a cutting board with powdered sugar then unmold the marshmallow slab onto the cutting board. Dust the slab with powdered sugar and use either a greased or heated knife to cut into square marshmallows. Dust the marshmallows with powdered sugar and store in an airtight container.

The possibilities with marshmallows are endless. How about chocolate marshmallows or mint marshmallows? Want more bizarre flavors? How about sumac, basil, or celery marshmallows?

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As a child the only way I would eat celery was covered in peanut butter and plastered with raisins. Chefs are notorious for jumping around between ingredient infatuations and currently I can’t get enough celery. Celery is cheap, aromatic, and can play the starring role in savory and, believe it or not, sweet applications.

The light green orb is a sweet celery semifredo. Inside is a rich toasted peanut milk. Strewn across the plate are port wine-soaked raisins, golden raisin gel, peanut powder, and sliced celery. When pierced, the celery orb releases a river of peanut milk across the plate. Eaten together, the elements combine to create the flavors of ants on a log, but a bit sweeter.

Peanut Milk:

• 175 g raw, shelled peanuts
• 500 g whole milk
• 25 g granulated sugar
• 2 g salt

Place the peanuts onto a lined baking sheet. Roast at 350° F for 20-30 minutes, or until browned and fragrant. Meanwhile, bring the milk, sugar, and salt to a boil. Add the roasted peanuts to the milk. Chill and store in the refrigerator overnight. The next day, blend the mixture on high speed for 2 minutes. Pour the mixture into a chinois and allow to drip-strain for 2-4 hours. Do not push on the solids. Discard the solids and reserve the peanut milk.

Golden Raisin Gel:

• 100 g golden raisins
• 200 g water
• Pinch salt
• 3 sheets gelatin (170 bloom)

Blend the raisins and water together on high speed for one minute. Transfer the puree to a saucepan and bring to a boil over low heat. Transfer back to the blender, add salt, and carefully blend for one minute longer. Strain through a chinois and transfer back to a clean saucepan. Bloom the gelatin in ice water. Bring the raisin puree to a boil. Once boiling, add the bloomed gelatin and stir to dissolve. Transfer to a shallow loaf pan and cool in the refrigerator until set. Once set, slice into 1/4′’ cubes.

Port Wine Soaked Raisins:

• 1/4 cup port wine
• 1/4 cup dark raisins

Heat the port wine to a boil. Pour over the raisins. Cover the raisins with plastic wrap and allow to steep at room temperature for 4 hours. Strain the raisins. Reserve the liquid for another purpose (or just drink it like I did…delicious!).

Peanut Powder:

• 100 g raw, shelled peanuts
• 50 g tapioca maltodextrin
• Kosher salt, to taste

Toast the peanuts as you did when making the peanut milk. Once cooled, transfer the peanuts to a food processor. Pulse until the peanuts become mealy. Add the tapioca maltodextrin and pulse to a fine powder. Season to taste with salt. The powder should taste like salted peanuts.

Celery Semifredo:

• 200 g celery, rinsed and chopped
• 250 g water
• 2 g citric acid
• Pinch salt
• 60 g granulated sugar
• 7 sheets gelatin (170 bloom)

Blend the celery, water, citric acid, salt, and sugar together on high speed for 1 minute. Strain through a chinois. Carefully skim any foam from the celery puree. Measure 375 g of the mixture. Transfer 100 grams to a small sauce pot and chill the remaining 275 g. Bloom the gelatin in ice water while you slowly heat the 100 g celery puree to a simmer. The color will dull slightly. Once simmering, add the bloomed gelatin and stir until dissolved.

In a stainless steel bowl combine the chilled celery puree with the hot gelatin-celery mixture. Place the bowl in a bath of ice water and begin whisking. Whisk the mixture until it becomes very light and foamy, and leaves ribbons when allowed to drip from the whisk. Transfer the mixture to a mixer fitted with a whip attachment. Whip to stiff peaks then transfer to a piping bag. Pipe the celery foam into 1.5′’ hemisphere molds. Level using an offset spatula. Freeze the hemispheres for one hour.

After an hour, carefully scoop the centers of each hemisphere out with a parisienne scoop. Dip the scoop in hot water to make the task easier. Freeze for an additional hour.

Remove the frozen hemisphere molds. Un-mold one hemisphere. Torch the circumference of another hemisphere and press the un-molded hemisphere on top of it to create a hollow-center sphere. Freeze the spheres for an additional hour.

To Assemble and Serve:

• Hollow celery spheres
• Peanut Milk
• Port wine soaked raisins
• Golden Raisin gel
• Peanut powder
• 1 peeled celery stalk

  Fill a food syringe with peanut milk. Carefully pierce the celery sphere with the syringe and fill the hollow cavity with peanut milk. Place a mound of peanut powder on a plate and place the celery-peanut orb on top of the powder, pierced side down. Place soaked raisins and golden raisin gel cubes around the plate. Slice the peeled celery stalk into various shapes and use these as garnish. Finally, dust the plate with a bit more peanut powder.

  

  Photographs by Mike Boehmer.

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I love popcorn. I always keep plenty of popcorn kernels, popping oil, and popcorn salt around so I can eat the warm, salty treat any time, day or night. Months ago I spent a day off from work playing around with popcorn in my kitchen and created a creamy and fluffy popcorn mousse. I thought hard about how I could use or feature the mousse in a dish.

I think it’s a safe bet that most Americans associate buttered popcorn with the movie theatre. So I thought of other treats that we enjoy when we go to the movies. I always get a cherry coke with my popcorn and when I want something sweet I reach for the Sno Caps or Sour Patch Kids. I wanted to incorporate all these elements into a cohesive dessert. The popcorn mousse is covered in a mixture of chocolate powder and white sprinkles (Sno Caps). There’s a red carpet of tangy raspberry puree with Sour Patch raspberries and blackberries. Finally, a grenadine foam tops the mousse and adds the Cherry Coke element.

Popcorn Mousse:

• Popcorn Milk:
  • 1/2 cup popcorn kernels
  • 2 Tb. popping oil
  • 1 tsp. popcorn salt
  • 1 quart whole milk
• Mousse:
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 30 g sugar
  • 40 g cocoa butter
  • 3 sheets gelatin
  • 200 g sweetened whipped cream

  Begin by making the popcorn milk. Pop the kernels with the oil and salt. Bring the milk to a simmer and add the popcorn. Simmer for 5 minutes then blend the mixture. Pass through a chinois or fine mesh strainer. Discard the remaining solids

  Measure 250 g of this popcorn milk and to it add the egg yolk and sugar. Cook over low heat until slightly thickened. The mixture should coat the back of a spoon. Remove the mixture from the heat and begin blooming the gelatin in cold water. Slowly whisk the cocoa butter into the popcorn mixture. Finally, add the bloomed gelatin and whisk until completely dissolved. Pour the mixture onto a sheet pan and cool in the refrigerator for 2 hours, or until set.

  When the mixture has set, transfer it to a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and whip to a smooth consistency. Carefully fold in the whipped cream.

  To form a tube of mousse, lay a large piece of plastic wrap onto a clean work surface. Pour about 1/6 of the popcorn mousse in the middle and fold the plastic over the mousse. Carefully pinch the mousse between the plastic while tapering and twisting the ends of the plastic wrap. Roll the tube forward, holding the plastic by the ends while firmly rolling up the remaining plastic. The air trapped inside with create a perfectly round log of mousse. Freeze the logs.

  Chocolate Powder:

  • 100 g dark chocolate
  • 40 g unsalted butter
  • 100 g tapioca maltodextrin*
  • Pinch salt

  Carefully melt the butter and chocolate together until smooth. Add the tapioca maltodextrin and salt to the bowl of a food processor. Turn the processor on and drizzle the chocolate-butter mixture into the tapioca maltodextrin. Scrape the sides of the bowl to loosen any unincorporated chocolate or maltodextrin. The powder should be very light and fluffy, not grainy at all.

  Grenadine Foam:

  • 100 g grenadine
  • 3 g Versawhip*

  Combine the grenadine and Versawhip in the bowl of a stand mixer. Whip for 2 minutes on high or until the mixture reaches stiff peaks.

  Raspberry Puree:

  • 1 cup fresh raspberries
  • Pinch salt
  • Sugar, to taste

  Puree raspberries until smooth. Add a pinch of salt and any sugar if the raspberries are not sweet enough. The puree should be slightly tangy. Pass the puree through a chinois or fine mesh strainer to remove any seeds.

  Sour Patch Berries:

  • 3 Tb granulated sugar
  • 1 Tb. citric acid
  • Cooking oil spray, as needed
  • Fresh raspberries and blackberries

  Mix together the sugar and citric acid. Lightly spray the berries with a bit of vegetable oil. Dredge the berries in the sugar-acid mixture to create a light coating of granules.

  To Assemble and Serve:

  • Frozen popcorn mousse
  • Chocolate powder
  • 1/4 c. white sprinkles
  • Raspberry puree
  • Grenadine foam
  • Sour Patch berries

  Carefully remove the plastic from the frozen mousse. Place the chocolate powder into a loaf pan or onto a plate. Lightly roll the mousse in the chocolate powder, creating an even coating of powder. After the chocolate powder, coat the mousse in white sprinkles in a similar manner. Cut the mousse logs into 1 inch long pieces and place on a sheet pan. Place in the refrigerator to thaw.

  Lay a broad line of raspberry puree on the plate. Place 2 mousse sections on top of the puree and top with some grenadine foam. Finally, scatter the sour berries on the plate. Serve and enjoy!

  *Versawhip and tapioca maltodextrin can be purchased from a variety of online retailers, including Willpowder and L’Epicerie.

  

  Photos by Justin Kern.

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The sweet flavors of fall shine in this rich dessert. On the right is a spiced pumpkin ice cream sandwiched between two slices of chocolate stout cake. The cake has only a mild chocolate flavor and the stout adds a bitter quality that compliments the pumpkin ice cream. On the left is a liquid center cranberry truffle. A luscious cranberry puree is coated in a layer of white chocolate. My recommendation is to eat this in one bite, however the center is thick enough to make it a two-biter. Finally, the plate is blanketed in a toasted smear of molasses fluff.

For a complete recipe for both the ice cream sandwich and cranberry truffle, please subscribe to the monthly Garrett’s Table newsletter. Subscribing is easy! Simply click the link below and enter your email address. I’ll include the recipe in the next newsletter (1/1/10). All email addresses are confidential and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Photos by Justin Kern.

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Believe it or not, this is cheesecake. The flavors are all represented here in differing textures and (arguably) bizarre forms. The meat of the dish is a very light inflated cream cheese mousse. Set with agar and inflated using a cream whipper, the mousse, shown in the close up below, is very fluffy and porous, a very different texture than the traditional dense cream cheese custard.

One frustration I have with cheesecake is the graham cracker crust: It becomes dense and soggy after baking. Here the crust is appears in a powder and in large chunks to preserve its original flakey and crunchy texture. We also have some hand-made berries made from cherry and raspberry puree. You can eat the liquid-center orbs all at once and pop them in your mouth or puncture them to sauce the plate in a sweet and tangy fruit puree. Finally, for extra texture, flavor, and dramatic flare, crispy cherry leather is stuck into the cream cheese mousse.

For a complete recipe please subscribe to my newsletter. Simply click the link below and enter your email address. I’ll include the recipe, including the cherry-raspberry spheres, in my next mailing (12/1/09). You’ll receive a monthly update of the latest from Garrett’s Table as well as plenty of subscriber-only content. E-mail addresses are confidential and you can easily unsubscribe at any time.

Photos by Justin Kern.

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