A couple of new desserts available now at Sweet Studio

Summer is in full swing here at the Studio and Christmas and New Year seems so long ago now, we have been working hard to create some special desserts for your summer entertaining.

Stone fruit have been sensational this year and to celebrate we have come up with a double peach and wild strawberry cake paired with our ever popular and versatile pistachio cake.
The sketch above shows the construction of the slice with moist pistachio sponge as a base and rose petal and strawberry jam is then applied before a layer of yoghurt sponge. Both of the sponges have our home made marzipan incorporated and the aroma when baking is amazing.

We try make this dessert in the smallest size batches as possible to ensure that the pastry kitchen has a regular supply of amazing baking smells for us to pump out into the retail area.

The yoghurt sponge is topped off with a luscious white peach set cream and then we puncture the cream with domes of blood peach & peach schnapps mousse. This is all then topped off with a silky smooth wild strawberry and white chocolate mousse and rippled for effect before finishing with our white chocolate velvet spray. The cake is then portioned and topped off with some strawberry clay and a peach and wild strawberry macaroon.

The sec on new dessert that seems to be very popular in the short time it has appeared in our cabinet is our Pineapple, Mango & Chocolate dessert. We are blessed here in Australia with the best of both worlds especially in Victoria in the summer as we have an abundant supply of berries, stone fruit and other summer treats. We also have the supply of exotic fruits from Queensland which include, unbelievable mangoes, pineapples and bananas.

This dessert highlights the exotic varieties of fruits using mango, pineapple and pairing them with coconut and chocolate.

I have discovered a really cool trick a while ago concerning preparation of pineapples. I have found that when making my spiced pineapple jam it is easier for the pineapple chunks to break down in the pan if the fruit has been frozen first. This technique has also brought about a surprising and versatile by product. After the pineapple has been cut into chunks it is placed into a non metallic container and frozen down in the deep freeze for a minimum of 24 hours. After this time it is removed from the freezer and placed into the fridge to defrost, this usually takes 36 hours depending on the quantity of pineapple flesh (I do around 25 pineapples at a time). A huge amount of clear pineapple liquor then appears from the defrosting fruit and I have to say it is an amazing ingredient to work with. The juice is very clear and has a great flavour to it, quite strong. I use the juice to make pineapple cream and jellies which garnish the dessert above. The construction of the dessert is as follows:
Coconut Sponge
Spiced Pineapple Jam
Mango Mousse
Quenelle Chocolate Mousse 64%
Burnt Pineapple Cream
Mango Curd
White Chocolate Velvet Spray
Pineapple Jelly
Chocolate Eyelashes
Mango Jelly Spheres
Fresh As. Freeze Dried Pineapple Chunks

We are working on more delicious desserts and now starting to test recipes for our dessert dinners in March as part of the Melbourne Food & Wine festival http://www.burchandpurchese.blogspot.com/2012/01/book-now-for-exclusive-dessert.html which is getting very close now. Hopefully you can stop by and have a sample of our desserts if you are on Chapel Street. See you soon, Darren

Reverse 'Fried Egg' Using Polyscience Anti-Griddle

We are having a bit of fun in Sweet Studio this weekend playing with our new Anti-Griddle from Polyscience. We have made a new dessert based on the eggs and bacon idea and it is available this weekend in store. The Anti-Griddle is a cool piece of technology which has a surface which cools to around -30C. It allows us to instantly freeze or chill small quantities of food which is convenient for so many applications it is hard to list. On this occasion we made a Swiss meringue of egg white and sugar and whisked until stiff peaks, we then let the meringue down with a solution of coconut puree, vanilla, ascorbic sugar syrup and fresh lime juice. This mixture was stabilised with gelatine and reserved for use at room temperature. We made a mango curd as per a normal curd recipe but used reduced mango puree for an accentuated flavour. This curd/yolk was piped onto the griddle as in the image and then we poured the coconut lime mixture over the top. What happened was a sort of reverse 'frying' of the egg. The curd hardened and the coconut ran away slightly before setting due to the low temperature. We left it to sit for a minute before sliding it off with a palette knife. The perfect sunny side up! For the dessert special on today and tomorrow we made a vanilla infused custard and soaked toast shape pieces of brioche. This was then fried in clarified butter before being glazed with icing sugar. Once cooled the egg sits on top of the toast and is garnished with our own maple cured bacon and a raspberry & tomato ketchup! As we write this blog, we have had greta interest from this and lots of people have asked about the technique, hence  us compiling this information now. It shows that it is an exciting time to be in the kitchen with so many great technologies being introduced all of the time. This Anti-Griddle is so versatile, we have been using it for chocolate work, mini dessert canapés and now this. If you are in Australia and you want more information on this piece of equipment, you need to contact the official distributor Sous Vide Australia, our contact there is Dale Prentice and he will be happy to help you with your enquiries.

MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA SEASON 3 DESSERT THE EVOLUTION - Sweet Studio Cake Cabinet - Banana, Caramel, Rum

Large version of the evolved dessert featured on Masterchef.

Cross section of the current version of the dessert.

Individual portions of the dessert on offer at Sweet Studio

Where science meets sweetness!

Caramelised white chocolate before & after.

Close up of the garnish used on Masterchef - no longer used on the current version of the dish

Experimentation with different finishes continues.

Well most of you reading this will have watched this evenings episode featuring Darren in the chef vs amateur immunity challenge. We hope you enjoyed this as much as we did, we can assure you it is not as easy as it looks under the lights and in the spotlight! The dish above is the current version of the dish that was prepared on the show, as with all things, especially in Sweet Studio, our dishes are evolutionary. We start with an idea and then pretty soon some experimentation of flavour matching starts, then early versions of a dish start to materialise and then we have a finished dish. It does not stop there though as tweaks here and there can enhance a dish for the better and it is rare that we create something and stop there being content with the finished product as there is always room for improvement. So the dish on Masterchef tonight has evolved into the current version on sale at Sweet Studio right now.

Components:
Macadamia & B&P Spice Blend Speculos Pastry
Zingy Passionfruit Jelly
Caramel Bananas Cream
Caramelised White Chocolate Mousse With Vanilla
Caramelised White Chocolate Velvet Spray
Caramelised Milk Solids
Ascorbic Syrup & Dark Rum Jelly

So the changes that are immediately obvious to the version on Channel 10 are:

The omission of the coffee sable (for the speculos) - we did not want a polarising flavour to deter some customers.

The frozen items have been removed - for cake resale in a shop rather than dessert in a restaurant.

The banana straight banana has been removed and incorporated inside the mousse, the jelly now sits alone on top.

We hope that this current version is as popular as ever and hope that you can pop down to 647 Chapel Street, South Yarra to give it a try. We have LOTS more in store and you can view our current product list here:
http://www.burchandpurchese.com/media/1990/product_list_june_2011.pdf

and our June cake selection here: http://www.burchandpurchese.com/media/1987/cake_list_june_2011.pdf

BIG THANK YOU to all of you for the support shown to Darren on tonights show and we hope that it has inspired some of you to give a few tricky desserts a go.

For more information on Burch & Purchese call +61 3 9827 7060 or email info@burchandpurchese.com

Sweet Studio Cake Cabinet: Chocolate, Mandarin & Murray River Salted Caramel

This is one of the most popular cakes in our range since Sweet Studio opened just before Easter this year. It is set to be a favourite that stays on the menu with the only changes being a tweak here or there.
The base of the cake is a light aerated chocolate shortbread and that is topped by our very own St. Clements orange & lemon marmalade. The marmalade is available for retail in our studio if you wish to try your own creation. One of our signature creams a 'burnt mandarin cream' sits on top of the marmalade and a generous layer of golden caramel flavoured with pink Murray River flakes is added on top of the cream. The layers are encased in a silky smooth chocolate mousse made with Chocovic's Kendari 60% dark chocolate. The entire cake is glazed with our mirror like shiny chocolate glaze and we garnish with one of our coloured chocolate spheres. The cake is available in 18cm and in an individual portion size but we can tailor to your needs.
Some combinations of flavours are just so good together and we are struggling to think of a better match than chocolate, orange & caramel, we hope you can come down to the Studio to try it out.

Sweet Studio Cake Cabinet: Mango, Toffee, Almond, Chocolate & B&P Spice Blend

This is the second in a new series highlighting the offerings in our cake range, we are committed to providing the details of all of our creations in order for us to quickly convey to our customers the intricacies of the cakes on offer. Again we have produced an individual version of a larger cake so that you could purchase a couple for an intimate gathering or invest in a larger one for a dinner party of 8 people. This post focuses on our Mango, Toffee, Almond, Chocolate & Spice creation. It has lots of interesting texture contrasts and flavours (not least our special spice blend) and is finished in our signature chocolate velvet spray.

The components are as follows: (bottom to top)

• Almond 'Drunken' Sponge
• B&P Special Spice Blend Syrup
• Mango Mosaic Jelly
• Spiced Toffee Cream
• Crunchy Spiced Kendari 60% Chocolate Wafer
• 60/40 Smooth Chocolate Mousse (Nayarit Milk 37% & Kendari Dark 60%)
• Chocolate Velvet Spray Finish
• Almond Microwave Sponge Dehydrated and Sprayed In Chocolate
• Phial Mango Streusel
• Phial Spiced Syrup

This cake is perfect for the cold weather already upon us here in Melbourne with the spice blend particularly seductive and warming. We prefer to blend our own spices in order for us to achieve the absolute precision in the taste of our creations. We have created two general use spice blends, a Garam Masala and a Christmas spice which we will be retailing very soon in the studio as part of our 'Pimp up your pud range'.

We hope that if you live in the Melbourne area that you can come down and see us and we look forward to providing you with a real chocolate treat for your next dinner party or gathering. 

Sweet Studio Cake Cabinet: Coconut, Passionfruit, Ginger & Mint

This post is the first in a series of spotlights on some of our most popular desserts in our cake collection. Things have been pretty hectic since the opening of our studio a couple of weeks ago and we have been receiving loads of great feedback on our range. One of the cakes that has really caught our customers eye is our Coconut, Passionfruit, Ginger and Mint creation, it is texturally enticing and the presence of four bold flavours really works together. As always with our creations there are multi layers of components which all come together to make a whole.

The components are as follows: (bottom to top)

• Salted Oat & Ginger Crumb
• Passionfruit Curd
• Coconut Caviar
• Passionfruit Jelly
• Coconut Mousse 
• Crunchy White Chocolate (Chocovic Jaina 31%) & Mint Wafer
• Coconut Mousse
• Brilliant White Velvet Spray
• Mint Chocolate Blush
• Ginger Macaroon With Passionfruit Curd
• Mint Jelly
• White Chocolate 'Coconut'

Our cakes are presented in two sizes, large 18cm (8 persons) or individual, this is the same with the entire range and we also retail some of the individual components and ice creams and sorbets to complement so that you can 'pimp up your pud' at home. What we mean by this is that you can recreate quality restaurant style plate ups at home to really impress your dinner party guests. 

We really are enjoying life in our new home and our creative juices are flowing, we will run with the current cake range for a while but we are working on some new techniques and flavour combinations for the future ranges. We will highlight all of the cakes in the cabinet to record our work and allow you the reader to be fully up to date when you visit the Burch & Purchese Sweet Studio.