Thursday, February 25, 2016

Thrifty Finds ~ Desserts! Spago and Gourmet's Best

Spago Desserts, published in 1994. Recipes from Wolfgang Puck's iconic restaurant - winner of the James Beard Award for restaurant of the year - begins slowly with suggestions for equipment, techniques, cooking terminology and information on ingredients, before delving into the scrumptious dishes. At the start of each recipe, a list of equipment and suggestions for prepping ahead are included.

Cakes starts us off with a chocolate chiffon with creme Anglaise, followed by an Austrian chocolate cake with coconut pecan frosting and finally the magnificent Opera cake with coffee buttercream and chocolate truffles. There are a few white cake options ~ basic buttermilk, lemon buttermilk with lemon buttercream, a buttermilk layer cake with strawberry Bavarian cream and lastly - lemon chiffon with fresh berries and creme brulee.

Cheesecakes introduce the Spago cheesecake (topped with blueberry sauce or made with an apricot macaroon crust), a chocolate marble cheesecake, tiramisu (ginger or chocolate options), a macadamia nut cheesecake with macadamia brittle and a white chocolate rum raisin cheesecake, while Perfect Pastry Shells follows with recipes for pate sucre (almond, chocolate or spiced), plus basic or spiced pie dough.

Moving onto Perfect Pies & Tarts, we are offered an almond crunch brown butter tart, rustic apricot or a rustic almond apple pie, apple & dried cherry turnovers, a fresh cherry lattice tart, pear hazelnut sour cream pie, strawberry Linzer torte, pumpkin pie with cranberry marmalade and a coconut cream pie. Puff Pastry and Phyllo consists of an apple-pear tartin, fresh berry napoleons with caramel sauce and pear-cherry napoleons with phyllo nests.

The last of the "pastry" chapters is Brioche with recipes for basic brioche, apricot rolls, sticky buns, a ricotta fig tart and bread pudding (apple or chocolate), followed by Brownies ~ basic, blond, marbled or in pie form. In Muffins & Pound Cakes, we are treated to chunky apple, banana spiced or strawberry muffins, with buttermilk lemon or orange poppy seed options for pound cake.

Truffles and Candied Fruit explores candied fresh ginger or candied grapefruit peel, plus of course truffles ~ chocolate hazelnut or Chambord), with Cooked Fruits kicking in baked apples or tangerine soup. Cookies, Biscotti and Macaroons drum up a myriad of cookies (basic butter, chocolate coconut, ginger spice, chocolate chip, black snowballs or peanut butter chocolate chip), biscotti (pistachio or chocolate) and apricot coconut macaroons.

A few of the treats in Shortcakes include a strawberry shortcake, a peach & berry cobbler, the Spago banana split and a summer fruit cobbler with shortcakes. We end with Frozen Desserts, consisting of sorbets (banana, mixed berry, chocolate, pineapple daiquiri or tequila sunrise), ice cream (cinnamon, eggnog, honey, milk chocolate malt and white chocolate mint)  and vanilla parfaits with strawberry sauce.

Gourmet's Best Desserts, published in 1987. There are 555 pages of 600+ recipes culled from the magazine from 1962 to 1987.

Up first are Cakes, specifically white cakes which consist of Genoise with hazelnut, vanilla or orange options, followed by tortes (raspberry, sugar Kirsch and the Kaisertorte, a lemon or jelly roll and a coconut angel food cake. A few of the choices in layer cakes include carrot, lady Baltimore, Robert E Lee (coconut with lemon filling) and a strawberry cream, while chocolate cakes doles out a chocolate orange cake, marble cake, chocolate mousse cake with ganache, a Queen of Sheba Soul cake and chocolate almond cupcakes.

A few other options in the Cake chapter include blueberry lemon pound cake, orange poppy-seed cake, strusel plum cake, Moravian sugar coffeecake, Stollen, cherry kuchen, cranberry upside down cake, kiwi ricotta cheesecake, orange almond sponge cake, spiced black fruitcake and Buche de Noel.

Pies and Tarts dishes out dough (flaky, lard, sour cream, cream cheese or cheddar) and crusts (graham cracker, vanilla wafer almond and chocolate wafer crumb) before serving up fruit pies ~ apple, gingerbread pear, cranberry maple pear, maderia mincemeat, deep dish blueberry peach and apple cheddar turnovers, followed by custard/cream pies ~ pecan pumpkin, maple lemon, coconut custard, key lime and lemon chess.

There are still even more pies - eggnog, apricot chiffon, chocolate rum meringue, pecan and peanut butter fudge and then come the tarts which encompass pear & chocolate, dried apricot, gooseberry flan, frangipani filled, almond cherry and lemon curd tartlets.

Pastries encompass Neapolitans with raspberry sauce, palmiers, walnut twists, chocolate brioche, babas au  rhum, almond bear claws, profiteroles, croque en bouche, cherry strudel and Gateau Saint Honore, with Meringues contributing a frozen lemon meringue cake, orange Dacquoise double coffee kisses and baked Alaska.

For Cookies, we are offered macaroons (almond, coconut, chocolate almond), Danish butter cookies, orange meltaways, brownies (classic fudge, cream cheese or marbles chocolate butterscotch), filbert bars, Florentines, butterscotch cranberry bars, lady fingers, Irish lace, date nuggets, brandy snaps and brown sugar pecan shortbread. Puddings and Custards adds to the mix with numerous puddings ~ maple rice, lemon sponge, creole bread, chocolate brioche bread pudding, steamed cranberry with Grand Marnier sauce and a steamed orange pudding, while a few of the custards include orange, caramel, creme brulee and of course the Tipsy Parson.

Moving onto Ice Creams and Other Frozen Desserts, we are treated to an assortment of ice creams ( homey, vanills, hazelnut, molasses almond brittle or amaretto peach), a citrus sorbet, souffles (orange or hazelnut praline), mousse (dark chocolate or coffee) and a pineapple strawberry bombe, while Chilled Desserts dishes out lemon syllabub, a chocolate swirl mousse, a chocolate & macaroon mousse, iced lemon souffle, blancmange and coffee jelly.

Even more souffles abound the the chapter titled Souffles and Dessert Omelets which pitches a few more variations on the souffle (dried apricot, gingered pear or praline), plus a marmalade souffle omelet raspberries, and a vanilla lime souffle omelet. Next we tackle Crepes, Pancakes and Fritters which introduce a few crepes (rum marinated mango, orange souffle), a honey pear crepe cake, cottage cheese pancakes, blood orange dessert waffles, banana or applejack fritters, beignets, crullers and spice doughnuts.

A few of the Fruit Desserts highlighted include figs in port, oranges in red wine syrup, brandied peaches, blueberry crumble, a plum slump, sour cherry cobbler, mango fool, prune whip, bananas Foster and figs with marscapone, while Dessert sauces ladles out a brandied coffee custard sauce, rum raisin sauce, butterscotch, tangerine, orange marmalade, praline, an apricot rum sauce and a sinful chocolate honey almond sauce.

A few of the Icing and Buttercreams include chocolate icing with cognac, mocha or royal penuche icing, plus vanilla, lemon. chestnut or praline buttercream and Friandises (small confections) showcase candied ornage peel, glazed strawberries, candied pecan halves, praline nuggets, chocolate cashew toffee, bourbon balls and brandied cherries.

We end with Essential Preparations which offers a variety of butters (cherry, chocolate or clarified), creams (kirsch, chestnut or almond), fondant, red currant glaze, spun sugar, marzipan and chocolate curls.







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