Burch & Purchese Dishes - 24 'Aphrodite' MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA SPECIAL!

Aired this evening in Australia, the latest episode of Channel 10's popular reality/cooking program featured a dish from us - and here are the close up shots in case you missed it!

We were very happy to be approached by George Calombaris from The Press Club restaurant in Melbourne to consult on some new dishes to coincide with the reopening of his restaurant after a recent refurbishment. The reopening was the focal point of the latest episode and a "Hell's Kitchen' style battle ensued between the blues and the reds. We were asked to develop a dish for the contestants to participate in preparing for diners as part of an 'elimination' process.

The brief was to come up with a light, and stunning looking dessert which incorporated the theme of 'Aphrodite', the Greek goddess of love & beauty. We decided to come up with a sort of rose garden (Aphrodite was closely linked to roses), but the main component of the dessert is a smooth white chocolate mousse which encapsulates a liquid rose & raspberry centre. This provided a spectacular finish to a delicious dessert but also provided the contestants with an additional technical element to master.

Other components on this dessert were the clear rose jelly, nitro frozen fruits, chocolate soil, beautifully crystallized rose petals and baby tarragon shoots. We hope you'll agree this dish looks stunning and we assure you it tastes just as good as it looks! The contestants on the night (&day), were fantastic to work with and the level of talent and expertise were a credit to them, quite surprising considering they are all still amateur cooks.

Special mention goes to Matthew & Skye who executed the dessert brilliantly. We enjoyed this job and hopefully you enjoyed the episode. If you missed it, check out the Masterchef Australia website to see past episodes. We will inform you of another appearance of ours on the show, lined up for next month, closer to the time.

Click here to see the episode again! http://www.masterchef.com.au/video.htm?vxSiteId=f8066236-e138-457a-95f4-298ed80718f8&vxChannel=Full%20Episodes%20Complete

Burch & Purchese Team Up With Melbourne Food Ingredient Depot

We are pleased to announce that we are going to be working a lot closely with one of our favourite suppliers here in Melbourne. Melbourne Food Ingredient Depot are the number one supplier of hard to get ingredients here in Australia, their range includes modified starches, hydrocolloids, freeze dried products, sugar substitutes and much more. Phil Vernon (above right at our Masterclass this year), the owner, is a highly educated man in this field and is a constant source of knowledge to us in our work. As of June this year we will be working much more closely with this brand to help Phil and his team develop recipes for his products to be launched on the market. We will also be helping them to develop base mixes of different hydrocolloids and starches to be retailed along the lines of other recognized overseas brands. This year with Phil's help we introduced a chocolate application for a kaolin/lactose mix to our attendees at the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival and Phil included packs of products for our gift bags (above). Specific areas that we will be working on initially are a dry base powder to achieve great ice cream results, different applications for different grades of tapioca maltodextrin, recipe development for Phil's new emulsifier 'Emulate' and developing Australia's own brand of the US product Pure-Coat.
If you would like to visit Melbourne Food Ingredient Depot for yourself then the details are below. We are pleased to announce this new alliance and we will of course keep you updated with all of our research and results.

Melbourne Food Ingredient Depot
508 Lygon Street
East Brunswick
Victoria
Australia
ph.03 9386 3206
http://www.mfcd.net/depot/

Join Darren For A Dessert Masterclass - Dates In June & July 2010

This is offered to current pupils at Class Culinary School - hope to see you there.

Exclusive Burch & Purchese Recipes On Lifestyle Food

Check out http://www.lifestylefood.com.au/recipes/12463/chocolate-and-hazelnut-spread-on-toast for the exclusive recipe.

And here for the chocolate turron http://www.lifestylefood.com.au/recipes/12464/chocolate-turron-salted-caramel-almond

Jetstar Magazine May 2010 Feature Burch & Purchese

Hey, if you are on a domestic flight in Australia this month and find yourself on a Jetstar plane, check out our appearance in the inflight magazine. If not, then you can view it here! 

Don't Forget Flowers For Mother's Day!!

Make sure you treat Mum this Sunday - just a gentle reminder for you all.

Autumn Has Arrived

All the leaves are falling at this time of year!

One of our new creations for the season.

Chocovic Tarakan Mousse With Pear Gel & Walnut Cream

Preserving the best pears around.

The season gives us the chance to introduce exotic fruits from North Australia to our menus.

Summer is over, and a new season is upon us. We have been enjoying the change of temperature here in Melbourne and we are excited about the produce that is now available to us. Out go berries, stone fruits and light desserts and in come orchard fruits, heartier dishes and fantastic exotic fruits from the north of country. We have been putting to good use the beautiful pears around at the moment and have come up with a dish pairing chocolate, pear, and nuts. Really wonderful combinations and a beautiful way to finish a superb meal. Something we really look forward to in the cooler months in Victoria is the chance to try out the amazing tropical fruits from Queensland, the lucky people up there seem to have sunshine all year round and as such top quality produce comes down to brighten our menus. Finger limes are fantastic and the fruit resembles caviar like pearls of citrus. They make wonderful garnishes on lighter style desserts and we are working hard to use them in a unique and progressive way. Stay tuned for our updates on this and other seasonal produce we are working with.