Just desserts
The Age
Friday October 30, 2009
Save room for dessert - we're living in a golden age of sugary fantasies and technical marvels...Quietly, unobtrusively, behind the rattling of pans by celebrity chefs, there has been something of a sugar revolution in Melbourne - a dazzling array of "new-school" confections with ingredients such as sandalwood meringue and pop rocks, wild-violet fromage blanc and sorrel granita. All a dessert chef used to need was a cool pair of hands (hot hands make it notoriously difficult to work with pastry), creative flair and a deep font of patience. Now they are equipped with an armoury of Pacojets (a machine that churns ice-cream in three minutes), food dehydrators, Isomalt sugars and whacky gelling agents. Dessert specialist Pierre Roelofs (lately of the Deanery and Monsieur Truffe, currently in Spain competing for the award of world's best dessert) calls his creations "gastronomic desserts". "Yes, there is a science to it and this implies that I have put a deeper level of thought in than people may have in the past," he says. Good pasty chefs have not always been lauded, according to fellow specialist Philippa Sibley, who says desserts can generate less than 30 per cent of a restaurant's revenue, so paying a dedicated pastry chef is often not viable. But still, a "cream of the crop" core of pastry chefs is rising in Melbourne, and now is a great time to be indulging a sweet tooth. Many of the restaurants on our "best of" list are among this city's most celebrated (read; not so cheap) but here's a tip - most are happy for you to walk in and simply order a dessert.DESSERT IN WONDERLANDChocolate parfait, meringue, chocolate crumb, sorrel granita, $18, at Embrasse 9347 3312It's an interesting mind that goes foraging through a forest in Woodend, stumbles across a clump of mushrooms and thinks: great dessert. That is what Nicolas Poelaert and his pastry chef did. A nature ramble inspired this most Alice of Wonderland of desserts - an edible, sweet mushroom field. A forest floor is made of crumbled chocolate gateau, mushroom stalks are fashioned from piped meringue, a thin chocolate lacy biscuit juts out as a branch. But the most surprising and delicious element is a scattering of grassy green granita made from sorrel. This dessert will change to match the seasons but for pure fantasy on a plate this Young Chef of the Year (The Age Good Food Guide 2010) with a passion for pastry is one to watch.NOT-SO-TRADITIONAL CRUMBLEViolet Crumble, $18, at Attica 9530 0111Memories can play a big part in food, says Ben Shewry, Attica's head chef. Memories, say, of a childhood spent scoffing Violet Crumble bars. Being a New Zealand lad, Shewry devoured Crunchy bars but he wanted to create something that would connect with the city he now calls home, so he created the Violet Crumble. As well as its playful pull towards childhood, part of the joy of this dish is its colour - a perfect purplish hue that comes from crushing wild violets into the fromage blanc (milk and rennet) base. "I found a clump of wild violets at my business partner's home - they were exactly what I needed to make this work," he says. The base is churned in a Pacojet (which freezes it down to minus-40 degrees) to produce an ethereal violet sorbet that oozes over honeycomb at the bottom of a fish-bowl-like glass. Frozen chocolate powder, more honeycomb and candied violets finish the dish. Sheer bliss.CREME DE LA CREMESauternes creme caramel with citrus salad, $18, at Bistro Guillaume 9693 3888Philippa Sibley, Melbourne's dessert queen, believes every great dessert should contain fruit. "Fruit helps balance and cut the richness of the cream and butter," she says. This from the woman who leapt to fame with her deliriously decadent reinvention of the Snickers bar at Circa about four years ago. These days she is conforming to a classical French dessert line-up. But she still can't resist tampering with tradition. "This dish is a creme caramel without eggs - more of a panna cotta, really," she says. French dessert wine (Sauternes) is added to the cream, orange-infused sugar and gelatine base, a dark caramel is poured into moulds that are left in the fridge for two days to develop flavour. Gold leaf is then laid over the unctuous, de-moulded dish rimmed by citrus fruits. "I've always been crafty - that makes me a good pastry chef. The funny thing is, I actually don't have a sweet tooth," Sibley says.MMM... DONUTSChurros, $10, at MoVida 9663 3038There are no secret ingredients, no tricky techniques and, actually, no deft touch of a pastry chef at work here. But if any dessert can be dubbed an icon in Melbourne, 2009, this is it. We are crazy for a Spanish donut dunked in a vat of chocolate, and MoVida serves one of the originals, which debuted eight years ago, and one of the best. Up to 80 serves a day emerge from a kitchen smaller than a bedsit where sweating apprentice chefs load a blend of self-raising and plain flours and boiling water into plastic churros extruders and screw the handle to churn out thin logs of dough, which are then deep-fried in cottonseed oil. "We are not pushing any boundaries here but we do take the dish seriously. We searched all over Spain to get the best chocolate, which is a drinking chocolate from the Basque region," says chef James Campbell. A level of care appreciated by the churros aficionados who come from all day and night to dip and slurp. QUITE DELIGHTFULTurkish delight, rose petal icecream, glace ginger and Persian fairy floss, $21, at Pearl 9421 4599 Geoff Lindsay used to plunder his mum's garden for the rose petals used in this dish, which has been on the Pearl menu in slightly different incarnations since it opened 10 years ago. Richmond residents actually come bearing buckets of precious petals, happy to donate them to this worthy cause. The flowers are gently crushed into a house-churned ice-cream, then flavoured with rosewater, slivers of crystallised ginger, pomegranate seeds and the all-important mini-cubes of Turkish delight. "I actually came up with this dish as a way of getting Turkish delight on the menu," says Lindsay. "People like it because it's fun and frivolous." A blonde wig of pashmak - Iranian fairy floss - crowns the dish, it's "hairiness" colliding wonderfully with the chewy, crunchy and silky nuggets of the ice-cream. A textural fiesta. SPICE OF LIFESpiced apple and goat's cheese fritters, leatherwood honey ice-cream and za'atar, $14.80, at Coda Bar 9650 3155This dish exemplifies the move towards incorporating savoury elements into desserts. Za'atar is a Middle Eastern spice blend made with ingredients such as dried thyme, sumac, sesame and salt, used in vegetable and meat dishes. Here, Coda's pastry chef, Rebecca Creighton, sprinkles it on fritters and ice-cream. You eat it and wonder why no one has done this before, so fabulously does the dusting of za'atar marry with the honey-drizzled ice-cream. This dish takes about four minutes to fry and not much longer to prepare. Pre-cooked Granny Smith apples spiked with nutmeg, clove and cinnamon are worked into a semolina, goat's cheese and ricotta French-style dumpling. The golf ball-sized dumplings are dense but not heavy, a spicy play on the dessert of choice at the local Chinese - the banana fritter. SHADES OF BLACK FORESTViolet ice-cream, chocolate ganache and sour cherry, $17, at Cutler & Co 9419 4888"It's an old-school dessert," says Andrew McConnell modestly. His pastry chef, Ben Sears, dares to disagrees. He thinks it's new-school and it's hard to argue. It reads as a beguiling but relatively simple medley of ingredients - chocolate ganache, violet ice-cream, sour cherry paste and almond sponge. But take the sponge: the batter is put through a foam gun and cooked in a microwave. "It makes it so light," Sears says. The ice-cream is made with French violet essence and locust bean gum (from carob) and churned in a Pacojet then scattered with freeze-dried blackberry flecks. The shards of meringue are flavoured with cloves and shunted to the food dehydrator, which ensures the egg white is perfectly textured and not coloured. This is dessert alchemy at its finest. "You have so much freedom with desserts to let creativity loose," says McConnell, who started his lauded career in the pastry section.CHOCOLATE WITH A TWIST"Homage to Stelios Parliaros": olive oil chocolate mousse, carrot cake, black olive gel, part of a seven-course menu for $95 at Press Club 9677 9677No "best of" dessert list would be complete without that stalwart of the '70s dinner party, the chocolate mousse. George Calombaris (inspired by his friend Stelios) has added his trademark Grecian twist to this French classic - who knew that olive oil and dark chocolate could be so great in bed together? Like many stellar deserts, the ingredients could not be more basic. It's all about technique. The chocolate is melted and warmed to 42 degrees. The olive oil (Cretan, extra virgin) is folded, emulsifying with the chocolate, then whipped cream is added, at which point the dessert is rushed to the dining room before the drop in temperature causes too much of a textural change. The mousse arrives as a velvety ooze nudging a musky carrot and walnut cake scattered with candied rose petals. ULTIMATE POPCORN"Pistacchio panna cotta", caramel salted popcorn, $16, at Sarti 9639 7822For anyone wanting to feel young again, we recommend this dish over Botox. There is nothing like a gob-stopping, sticky, crunchy ball of popcorn to make you feel like a kid. "We've had this dish on for two years and we can't take it off - people love rediscovering childhood," says head chef Riccardo Momesso, who experimented for weeks creating exactly the right caramel to coat the popcorn: some were too dark and burnt the popcorn, others were too light and turned out soggy. The final mix is simply sugar, water and glucose. He'd already perfected the panna cotta (experimenting for months to get that exact "wobble"), which is distinguished by the addition of Italian pistachio paste to the milk, cream, vanilla bean and gelatine base. "My background is Calabrian, pistachios are everywhere. I wanted to reflect my heritage." The combination of wickedly crunchy popcorn and silky, subtle panna cotta creates a very grown-up addiction. (m)
© 2009 The Age
