Chocolate Parfait with Fresh Summer Berries
The next recipe is the desert for the summer dinner party menu, chocolate parfait with fresh summer berries.
I kind of expect this kind of thing to be a bit more difficult than the usual recipe and this one does live up to that expectation. I used all three of my mixing bowls, had to improvise a fourth one and the recipe went kinda wrong somewhere along the way.
The first bowl was for melting the chocolate along with some butter. This was fine. You can't really go far wrong with melting chocolate over simmering water.
The second bowl was first to mix sugar and butter. The recipe said to use an electric mixer until it's light and fluffy but I have no idea how you're actually supposed to do that when there's only 20 grams of butter to mix; it would just stick to the blades or not be reached by them. So I used a fork and some elbow grease instead. Next was to add egg yolks, brandy and cocoa powder. I think this is probably where the electric mixer probably does come in kinda handy. This part was also fine and probably was ok despite the animal powered fork substitution.
I think the main problem came in combining the contents of the first two bowls. The recipe said to fold the chocolate and cherries into the butter mixture but that was a bit difficult due to the lumpy nature of cherries and the viscous, sticky nature of the chocolate. I think main problem was the chocolate was still too hot from being melted and cooked the egg as it was being folded in though it seemed that if the chocolate was much cooler then it would have seized up making folding it into the egg that much more difficult. The result was, I think, a mixture that was rather more grainy and rather more solid than it really ought to have been.
The third bowl was to whip the cream in and the forth bowl, improvised from a serving dish, was to whip the egg whites. Both of which were fine in themselves.
One of the troubles with all these bowls is that of picking the right sizes for each stage. Small for the chocolate was fine, medium for egg mixture was also fine to start with, large for the cream was a bit bigger than really necessary but that's ok, improvised serving dish threatened to spill egg white all over the worktop but managed to contain it in the end. The trouble was that the recipe then said to fold the cream and egg white into the egg mixture and the medium bowl just isn't big enough to hold that much so it had to be the other way around.
By this point the egg and chocolate mixture had congealed, through cooling and cooking from the residual heat from the chocolate, into a bit of a solid lump. I tried to break it up as much possible while folding it into the cream but it wasn't easy. The egg white folded into that reasonably easily once the cream had loosened up the mass a bit but the resulting mix was still rather grainy with bits of the egg chocolate mix refusing to blend with the cream and egg white.
The rest should be easy, put it in the freezer for a bit then cut it up put it on a plate and put some berries on top. After freezing the thing is rock solid as most things from the freezer are. The recipe says leave it out for twenty minutes but after that it's just kinda soggy on the outside and still frozen solid on the inside. I think to get it right you probably have to freeze it at just below zero and then unfreeze it in the fridge so that it can warm up more slowly and uniformly. I think my freezer was way too cold so the middle stayed solid for a while after the outside started to melt.
In terms of taste though it was rather good; the parfait itself was nice but it was the berries and raspberry sauce that really made it good.
Mum used to make strawberries in raspberry puree in the summer and that was pretty much what was around the outside so it could be just that and the fond memories that made the dish for me rather than any amazing fusion of fruit and chocolate.
The whole thing would have been much better if it hadn't been frozen solid so I might see if I can increase the temperature of my freezer before I do something like this again so that I can get it at a better consistency.
Overall, it was quite difficult but the recipe got screwed up in several places and it was still reasonably good. I might try it again to see if I can get it right. I don't think I'd do it without the berries though and since we're coming into autumn now, I wouldn't try it until next summer when I'll probably have forgotten all about it.
I kind of expect this kind of thing to be a bit more difficult than the usual recipe and this one does live up to that expectation. I used all three of my mixing bowls, had to improvise a fourth one and the recipe went kinda wrong somewhere along the way.
The first bowl was for melting the chocolate along with some butter. This was fine. You can't really go far wrong with melting chocolate over simmering water.
The second bowl was first to mix sugar and butter. The recipe said to use an electric mixer until it's light and fluffy but I have no idea how you're actually supposed to do that when there's only 20 grams of butter to mix; it would just stick to the blades or not be reached by them. So I used a fork and some elbow grease instead. Next was to add egg yolks, brandy and cocoa powder. I think this is probably where the electric mixer probably does come in kinda handy. This part was also fine and probably was ok despite the animal powered fork substitution.
I think the main problem came in combining the contents of the first two bowls. The recipe said to fold the chocolate and cherries into the butter mixture but that was a bit difficult due to the lumpy nature of cherries and the viscous, sticky nature of the chocolate. I think main problem was the chocolate was still too hot from being melted and cooked the egg as it was being folded in though it seemed that if the chocolate was much cooler then it would have seized up making folding it into the egg that much more difficult. The result was, I think, a mixture that was rather more grainy and rather more solid than it really ought to have been.
The third bowl was to whip the cream in and the forth bowl, improvised from a serving dish, was to whip the egg whites. Both of which were fine in themselves.
One of the troubles with all these bowls is that of picking the right sizes for each stage. Small for the chocolate was fine, medium for egg mixture was also fine to start with, large for the cream was a bit bigger than really necessary but that's ok, improvised serving dish threatened to spill egg white all over the worktop but managed to contain it in the end. The trouble was that the recipe then said to fold the cream and egg white into the egg mixture and the medium bowl just isn't big enough to hold that much so it had to be the other way around.
By this point the egg and chocolate mixture had congealed, through cooling and cooking from the residual heat from the chocolate, into a bit of a solid lump. I tried to break it up as much possible while folding it into the cream but it wasn't easy. The egg white folded into that reasonably easily once the cream had loosened up the mass a bit but the resulting mix was still rather grainy with bits of the egg chocolate mix refusing to blend with the cream and egg white.
The rest should be easy, put it in the freezer for a bit then cut it up put it on a plate and put some berries on top. After freezing the thing is rock solid as most things from the freezer are. The recipe says leave it out for twenty minutes but after that it's just kinda soggy on the outside and still frozen solid on the inside. I think to get it right you probably have to freeze it at just below zero and then unfreeze it in the fridge so that it can warm up more slowly and uniformly. I think my freezer was way too cold so the middle stayed solid for a while after the outside started to melt.
In terms of taste though it was rather good; the parfait itself was nice but it was the berries and raspberry sauce that really made it good.
Mum used to make strawberries in raspberry puree in the summer and that was pretty much what was around the outside so it could be just that and the fond memories that made the dish for me rather than any amazing fusion of fruit and chocolate.
The whole thing would have been much better if it hadn't been frozen solid so I might see if I can increase the temperature of my freezer before I do something like this again so that I can get it at a better consistency.
Overall, it was quite difficult but the recipe got screwed up in several places and it was still reasonably good. I might try it again to see if I can get it right. I don't think I'd do it without the berries though and since we're coming into autumn now, I wouldn't try it until next summer when I'll probably have forgotten all about it.