Dessert Lab: Spiced Pumpkin Souffle, Sweet Potato Croquettes, Baked Apples, Roasted Pears…
This was a great lab with desserts that are perfect for late Fall early Winter, so it would be perfect to share today! Yikes. I just said Winter.
No, I’m no longer in Food Service Management but I’d love to teach this course in the future. After spending last night and this morning searching for specific photos for curriculum for a colleague at my “day-job”, I found this old post that I never published. I thought it was odd at first because the post was pretty much ready to go. As I looked back, I realized that it was the days before my first Half Marathon almost two years ago to the date!
A little background… I documented every Foods Lab I took during graduate school for the Master of Science degree in Nutrition. These were a wonderful series of courses and I am so glad the professors allowed me to snap away at all of our recipes. The class had ~ 20 students, broken up into teams. One of my teammates ended up becoming a dear friend of mine (Hi Gabe!) and the other is a super-star athlete!
Dessert Lab Guidelines (1 recipe per each lab team)
- choose 1 dessert recipe using assigned main ingredient
- incorporate seasonal fruits/vegetables as appropriate
- keep it simple yet elegant; focus on presentation
- some food preparation must be involved (do not rely on convenience items)
- consider production and holding (i.e., no soufflés)
- calculate yield 4-8 portions
Our team had the main ingredient of…. Chocolate! We were bound for the brown after finding a recipe for Chocolate Hazelnut Lava Cakes. Thanks Paula Dean! ( recipe source)
We melted semisweet chocolate with butter, add powdered sugar, then add eggs one at a time, flour, hazelnut liquor, extract and then bake each souffle dish. The filling was Nutella and we used our raspberry couli (former sauce lab) to add refreshing tartness to the rich chocolate. Hmmmmm!!
Ingredients
- 4 ounces semisweet chocolate
- 1/2 stick butter
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 4 eggs
- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- Nonstick spray
- 2 tablespoon hazelnut liqueur (divided)
- Nutella
- Raspberry Couli ( blended sugar and frozen raspberries)
Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray 8 small custard cups or souffle dishes with nonstick spray. Place on baking sheet. ( We used a souffle/muffin tin)
Heat chocolate and butter in large glass bowl resting over a pan of boiling water until butter is melted. Stir with wire whisk until chocolate is completely melted. Stir in sugar until well blended. Blend in eggs 1 at a time, so that the eggs do not cook. Stir in Hazelnut extract ( We subbed Liquor) and flour.
Divide batter evenly among prepared and nonstick sprayed custard cups, about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way full.
Bake 12 to 14 minutes or until sides are firm but centers are soft. Let stand 1 minute.
Invert cakes onto dessert dishes and top with a little hazelnut liqueur and a spoonful of nutella on each lava cake. *Note* The cakes did created a well inside to fill with “lava” but we did have to cut out a tiny bit more. A veggie peeler worked perfectly – I’m resourceful! *
Here are some more recipes from the other Lab teams:
Spiced-Pumpkin Souffle with Bourbon and Molasses Sauce
Baked Apples with Crisp Topping (Baked Apple recipe…Team C)
Creeping next to the apple is Team A’s Chocolate Pecan Chess Pie. It was super rich but Sarah had made this great Bourbon Whip Cream, which was a perfect contrast to the rich pie!
Roasted Pears with Almond Crunch (recipe for roasted pears from Epicurious)
For almond crunch
- 1 large egg white
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup sliced almonds (preferably with skins; 2 3/4 oz)
For pears
- 3 firm Bosc pears (1 1/2 lb total)
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
- 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
- 3 tablespoons Amaretto or other almond-flavored liqueur
- 1/2 cup water
- Special equipment: parchment paper; a melon-ball cutter (optional)
- Accompaniment: mascarpone cheese (optional)
Make almond crunch:
Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F.
Line a baking sheet with parchment.
Whisk together egg white, sugar, and salt until sugar is completely dissolved, then add almonds, stirring until coated. Spread mixture in a very thin layer on parchment-lined sheet, spreading almonds away from center of pan.
Bake until deep golden, 15 to 25 minutes. Cool on baking sheet on a rack, then break into pieces.
Roast pears:
Increase oven temperature to 425°F. Halve pears lengthwise and core with melon-ball cutter or a paring knife. Spread 1 tablespoon butter on bottom of an 8-inch square glass baking dish and sprinkle with 1/4 cup sugar. Arrange pears, cut sides up, on sugar, then dot pears with remaining tablespoon butter. Sprinkle remaining tablespoon sugar over pears, then drizzle with 1 tablespoon Amaretto. Roast pears, uncovered, until barely tender, about 25 minutes (sugar will harden on bottom).
Add water, a pinch of salt, and remaining 2 tablespoons Amaretto to baking dish and stir (around pears) until sugar is dissolved, then baste pears with pan juices. Roast pears, basting twice with pan juices, until tender, about 15 minutes more.
Serve pears, warm or at room temperature, drizzled with pan juices and topped with almond crunch.
(Team F) Sweet Potato Croquettes
My pear and potato fritter up close
Our professor also french pressed some Kenyan coffee for us to sample, and we had a bourbon sauce to add for extra flavor. We will be tested on coffee and tea as part of our dessert section… so it was educational.
This was my lunch…
*Sugar Sigh*…
I actually cut my lava cake in half before taking a bite and couldn’t finish the pie or the souffle. I brought some veggies, a piece of tofu and an individual cottage cheese for some protein for later in the afternoon stabilization of my blood sugar! Thank goodness.
Hope you start your weekend off sweetly!
