mousse

Wedding | Sandy & Mike in Malibu

| Featured, Weddings

I previewed, but never got a chance to feature, the event that premiered the new Milo’s Bonbons logo. At Sandy & Mike’s wedding in Malibu earlier this year, we set up a dessert table with a wedding cake centerpiece. It was colorful and fun, and a real smorgasbord of sweets.

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I had a lot of fun collaborating with the bride and groom on interesting flavor ideas and presentation. They were excited to present unique desserts that featured some of their favorite flavors like Earl Grey tea, bourbon and peach. I was also inspired by their wedding colors, which were along the lines of coral and slate blue. What made the experience really special for me was the abundance of support and enthusiasm the couple had for Milo’s Bonbons. It was amazing seeing the tent card signs they printed for the desserts, especially the “Desserts by Milo’s Bonbons” sign. Thank you Sandy & Mike!

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The dessert table featured mini cupcakes, macarons, tarts, mini cakes and parfait cups. For the cupcakes, I made two types: a chocolate bourbon ganache cupcake with bourbon buttercream, and an orange cupcake with champagne buttercream.

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For the macarons, I made two types as well: an Earl Grey chocolate ganache macaron, and a passion fruit pastry cream macaron.

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The mini tarts had a layer of baked almond cream and was topped with mascarpone mousse and little gumpaste flowers.

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To add variety in height and shape, I also had parfait cups filled with layers of granola, peach custard and raspberry puree. The photo I took of them was unfortunately a bit dark.

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The wedding couple’s wedding cake was three tiers, but only the top tier was actual cake for cutting purposes. The bottom two tiers were dummy cakes. The cake was a strawberry layered cake with Chambord buttercream and in order to share this with guests, I also created mini cakes with golden heart skewers added by the bride. That was actually the most challenging item of the event, as I was exploring different cake textures and cutting techniques and learning as I went. I certainly learned a lot for future events!

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Photo below by onelove photography:

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Baby Shower | Congrats Alice & Mark!

| Baby Showers

Babies on the way are always exciting news, but this one in particular makes me so happy. Alice has been a sister to me, friend, confidante, mentor, and even once-employer. Her recent baby shower was a no-frills gathering of friends and featuring great food (Waffle Roost Food Truck), reflecting the priorities of Alice and Mark. Other than some flavor preferences, there weren’t any special requests for desserts. So left to my own whims and imagination, I made chocolate hazelnut mousse (with flourless chocolate cake and chocolate meringues), matcha green tea “napoleon” cakes and lemon curd strawberry buttercream mini cupcakes.

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The chocolate mousse cups had a small circle of cake at the bottom, topped with the chocolate hazelnut mousse, and a cluster of meringue sticks inserted on top. Although baked until they dry out, the meringue absorbs a bit of moisture over time, resulting in a melt-in-your-mouth texture.

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The matcha green tea cakes had layers of green tea chiffon cake, green tea pastry cream and puff pastry (one of my favorite combinations these days). I topped them with buttercream and sprinkled with matcha green tea sugar and turbinado sugar and served as small slices.

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Pastry School Recap | Units 10/13/15 Plated Desserts

| Pastry School

Something about plated desserts feels classy and elite to me. If I were to feel like a true pastry chef, I feel like I would have to master the art of these. However, I doubt I would ever work in the pastry kitchen of a restaurant. So, our dessert menu project from pastry school will have to suffice for life experience.

We had three units of individual plated desserts. Three! That is a lot, and I think most of us were a little sick of them by the end. I could fill pages of this blog with photos of visually stunning dessert plates, but I’ll stick with the ones I concocted for our dessert menu project, for which I created my imaginary dessert restaurant, Spiked, featuring cocktail-inspired desserts.
(Disclaimer: Again, neither this restaurant nor the URL is real.)
From my menu, the chef selected the Margarita and the Rum & Coke for actual presentation and taste-testing.
The Rum & Coke was intended to be a glass full of brown sugar rum ice cream sandwich cubes, coated or sprinkled with chocolate pop rocks, with a side of sour cherry compote and cherry cola sorbet. Unfortunately, the classroom fridge and freezer blew out the night before presentation, which melted everyone’s ice cream. So in a pinch, I remade the rum ice cream and scooped it into the cup, sprinkled with chocolate pop rocks, and inserted a chocolate tuile straw for decor. Tastewise, it was still a success!

The Margarita was my favorite, and is also the concept that inspired my recent eggnog bombe. This dessert is a citrus tequila mousse bombe with Grand Marnier crème brûlée and a lime cookie. On the side is an orange tequila sauce, lime cookie crumbs, crème anglaise and a candied lime.

Please excuse the iPhone photos! That’s all I had available in class.

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