Yogurt and fruit compotes

At this time, I couldn't be happier about creating a backlog- I've been so caught up that I haven't even had the time to buy butter! (it's much easier with ingredients available for sudden bursts of creativity).

Around the time I started setting my own yogurt, there came through a mellow sweetness of the curd that I hadn't tasted in years. A part of my childhood, I would skim the little cream that would set on the top..

The real reason I was reminded of quality yogurt was actually during a plane trip from Sydney to Melbourne- the best frikkin yogurt. Roy and Ruby's I believe- boysenberry compote to be precise. I remember it being quite like magic, still slightly sleepy in the wee hours of morning.

I really don't know how to attain a texture like their's, but I'd say I'm quite satisfied with mine.

The key ingredient for yogurt is time- lots of it. At least 12 hours or so. The other thing to bear in mind is the inoculation temperature- the milk should feel slightly warm. Remember to monitor the quantity of your starter, and keep it in a closed environment wrapped with cloths. The lower the external temperature, the slower the yogurt will set.

Ideally, you would then rest it till cold before hanging it for greek yogurt. In this particular dessert, I simply whipped the greek yogurt by hand.

What to do with he whey you ask?
Ice, of course! With the help of some xanthan gum, I made some yogurt whey bubbles and froze them, They lighten the dessert effectively.

For my fruit compote, I used some rhubarb and strawberries, perfumed with vanilla and kefir lime leaf. To further enhance the element of fruit- some freeze dried mandarins, raspberries and strawberries that also bring some crunch with them.

I've never managed to make desserts with such little sugar; but that poses the question- aren't most breakfasts desserts?

whipped greek yogurt, rhubarb and strawberry compote, frozen yogurt bubbles and freeze dried fruit

Stringy cheese in dessert

The first time I hear of kunefe, u couldn't imagine eating cheese that was stringy for dessert. How could you possibly dunk sugar syrup on it and make it taste out of this world?

The proof lies in the pudding quite literally. Kunefe, a traditional dessert from turkey/ Middle East, is made with cheese baked into kataifi and soaked in sugar syrup served hot. 

I had neither kataifi or their traditional cheese. 

I'm Indian. My middle name is improvising. 

I got a hold of some locally produced mozzarella and made a semolina crumble in the style of an Indian halwa. The adults in particular loved the dessert because of this- taking then straight back to the 'kadah'. The kunefe wasn't made traditionally though; I used a ratio of creme caramel base and mozzarella cheese. 

I'm well aware that cheese and figs go well together, and anything brown butter is always welcome. I had some fresh sage on my hands and so happened sage and brown butter ice cream. The fig was caramelised with a bit of kluwak, a really delicious Balinese spice. 

An idea that only came along well in my head turned out to be more than I expected. Cheese does make everything tasty after all. 

Kunefe with semolina crumble, caramelised fig with kluwak, sage brown butter ice cream. 

labneh labneh labneeeh

Ever since my family switched to commercial yogurt, I've almost forgotten what the home made one tastes like. Sure, its almost got a cheese like set, but it usually all I can perceive is th tartness fro the yogurt that should last 2 weeks (sad, real sad yogurt).

As it turns out labneh is a super thick yogurt- well beyond the greek. When done right, for me it happens to be a bit reminiscent of cultured cream. Technically, it should make a nice gelato- which it did, especially by using invert sugar, which prevented a lot of technical flaws to otherwise occur. 

Yogurt, providing the white of the canvas, was ready to take on a shade of lime leaf. Just like vanilla makes almost everything better and cohesive, the lime leaf added another dimension.  

With room for acidity to be present, I felt sea buckthorn could be played with here. Turns the Himalayan region grows these really delicious berries, which ended up in a sorbet.

I wanted to avoid using any wheat based products for crunch, but couldn't quite figure out what it would be until I tried the dist with some freeze dried raspberries, which tasted like the best raspberry I've had in years.  

I still wanted an egg yolk in there. It works well in dishes with a sharp zing (the sorbet and raspberries) giving a little extra heaviness for the other components to relieve. An egg yolk custard, tocino de cielo is made with just the yolks, sugar and water. Bearing that in mind, I poached the egg yolk in a lime leaf syrup instead- enough for the outside film to become custard like and manageable, and the inside runny. It worked out pretty well, though I felt that the sugar syrup would need to be much thicker. 

Labneh and lime leaf gelato, freeze dried raspberries and basil, ''tocino del cielo'', sea buckthorn sorbet 

Microgreens make a light dessert

I'm not sure what to write today. It's just one of those days perhaps- when you sleep/ stay up through the night trying to crack a dessert idea, settling to put your big girl pants on and JUST DO IT! (Cc Shia lebeouf)

My recent trip to a market in New Delhi landed me some elusive produce- inclusive of passionfruit, sage, and some nice micro greens. I was really hoping to do something simple yet surprising,  but this was to be churned out in under an hour  (I have to study math first thing in the morning usually, this was some respite). In a way, it turned out to be special in its own right- a part of it felt almost salad like, against the very existence of dessert with all the freshness and acidity in there. The mousse pulls it back to the ground.

As per usual, I was very keen on skipping chocolate to bridge together Beetroot micro greens to the yuzu and chestnut mousse; coffee and kinako seemed like my best shot (which it turned out to be, was).

During one of the weddings this year, I was served some passionfruit with black salt. It was hands down the best thing I ate all week, especially with its lesson in simplicity. Sensing the need for cold, I took my sakte passionfruit and froze it- resulting in a nice and crunchy ice disk. The black salt really makes an impact.

On a side note: enoki mushrooms are the vegetarian meat noodles of this world.

Yuzu and Chestnut Mousse, Frozen Passionfruit with black salt, Beetroot Microgreens, Kinako and Coffee crumble

The many forms of soy

I remember reading about kinako a while back- on how the Japanese used it as a powder and sprinkled it on things like icing sugar. Turned out, it was actually roasted soy bean powder, and considering it couldn't be too hard, I gave it a go. This is my first dessert with this beautiful product with only a single word in my vocabulary to describe the taste- toasty.

Now that it has cooled down significantly enough to temper chocolate, it was time to return to doing chocolate bars while I could. after rosting the whole soybeans, I soaked the in some water overnight and blended them into a pste. This paste was turned into what was a ganache that revealed the tangents coffee, chocolate and roasted soy shared.

Now that I was using soy, why not use miso for salt? With no cream to make a traditional caramel, I made a butterscotch candy instead, adding the miso and vanilla before leaving it out to set and cool.

The taste of kinako like I said before, had a little nudge of coffee. I've seen chefs use ground coffee beans but they've never really worked for me- it tastes too much like grit in cream. Up until late... when I accidentally landed on just then right coffee grind, with a crunch rather than 'sand'. Mixed with a little palm sugar to not let the bitterness of the coffee be overwhelming for the Indian palette,

Side note: chocolate and coffee are pretty acidic, so I ditched the idea of a galgal pate de fruit. This could be your  cheat day protein bars perhaps...

Kinako Ganache, Miso Vanilla Butterscotch Caramels, Coffee and Palm Sugar

Fry your brekkie

Just that rhubarb foam deserves a dish of its own.

Fried ice cream has been on my list to try since I ate it (so a few years). The first when I heard of it, it felt so against the entire premise of ice cream! Met with my childish concerns of 'how on earth can it not melt' in conjunction with my limited knowledge of food, I was in awe of this creation. Up until very recently, when I learnt that it's only fried for about 10-15 seconds- that too protected by some other dry ingredients like bread crumbs or cake, which helps the ice cream to maintain a decent temperature while creating a stable outer coat for it.

I, though wanted to skip this coat, knew it wasn't possible for one other reason- the tempura would not really cling to the ice cream. It would fry off more or less, exposing the poor ice cream to melt away in sadness. (cc- ice cream and sadness). So, how do you turn a dessert into a not so healthy breakfast? With oats, of course! Which went well with a really nice tempura.

I paired rhubarb with a coffee and toasted rye ice cream, but the idea of the dish stems from the foam. The making of the rhubarb sorbet revealed that perhaps some fruits simple do make better sorbets than others- because of the massive contribution of solids from using the entire fruit, making the mixture more viscous. The rhubarb was stewed till it completely lost shape, blended to get a foam base sufficiently thick. I always season rhubarb with vanilla, without fail; I can't quite describe what it does, but in a way it brings these hidden flavours in the rhubarb in a complementary manner, just like adding a certain amount of sugar to yuzu does. With a texture that great, the siphon seemed a nice idea, though not without hesitation- the siphon can really aerate batters, and at times it can be almost like bubbles, a texture I wasn't after. Honestly, I was surprised with this one. I cannot begin to describe how happy the mouthfeel of the foam made me feel.

I wanted a last go at rhubarb and chocolate with raspberry, but wanted the dish to be very central to the ice cream and the foam. I decided to a nice tuile keeping in line with the thin crunch of the tempura, with some cocoa nibs tossed in raspberry powder and licorice for an extra kick of flavour.

Toasted Rye and Balinese Coffee fried ice cream, Oats, Chocolate Tuile, Rhubarb Foam, Licorice Nibs and Lyo Raspberry

The happiness within

Okay is okay- churros and friends

I apologise. The title is misleading. It's just that friends sounded better than friend.
So my childhood friend is in town and wanted something fruity and... Cool I guess.
With not much time (literally half a day) I pulled out my secret stash of inspiration. These 'a la minute' (or should I say a la jour) are usually not complex to understand. Stemming from a insufficiently provocative idea, these light and fluffy churros were an excellent vehicle to test out some new things- commercial yogurt and a hot Phirni espuma.
A little bit of yuzu in the pomegranate gel did wonders in elevating the flavour. I simply froze some pomegranate seeds for an instant granita. Such a simple thing I've ignored all my life!
I guess at times, simpler things are okay by me.

Grapefruit yogurt sherbet, hot phirni espuma, pomegranate yuzu gel, frozen pomegranate seeds, churros

Bye Summer/ Why my socks are strange

I'm finally back from the hiatus? Not sure if a couple of weeks classifies as one; creativity is a demanding process at the least. The past few weeks have been somewhat transitional. Abstaining from creating this period has given me a sense of clarity- what my food is about and where it's headed next. I've almost always been around fancy, fine, food. But I'm going to be a hypocrite and say that this isn't it for me. The from where I stand, it's not sustainable. But most importantly, the result never seems to be worth the time. What is to a dessert with a jillion components? It never posed itself as dramatic- like a simple lemon tart perhaps. Minimalizing juxtaposition mars the beauty of the dish.  I guess it's safe to say that even though we search for balance in a dish, components usually need to present themselves in extremes and be slightly off. An apple tart slightly acidic, fudges a tad too sweet an chewy are in 'balance' by not being completely neutralising. And that, is a facet I'm keen on exploring. Summer's almost over in my country (technically Autumn has started but leaves don't fall at 32 degrees) and I wanted that one last zing of the season. Lemon sorbets. It's been stuck in my mind for months, however, I was keen on waiting for galgals (a really nice big Indian citrus) to be back in season. Just because I'm trying to be a minimalist doesn't mean that passes as a complete dessert for me. I added some blood limes (!!!) to the sorbet after churning. Assuming that the freezing point was higher than the sorbet itself, the blood like vessels would freeze, giving bits of ice and flavour bursts to the sorbet.  Cream. First thing in my mind and my only stop. I made a little panna cotta set with cocoa butter and flavoured with a little yuzu juice. I was keen on skipping the gelatin just for trials sake. I didn't want white chocolate, mostly because I've been trying to avoid it in my dishes. However, chocolate has become such an indispensable part of the pastry kitchen, I gave up to cocoa butter. I genuinely wanted to stop at a cream, but stepped a bit further with some passion fruit and barley water. I didn't think barley water would really work as it is texturally. And so came about the 'faux passion fruit'. I'm still as amazed when I see chia seeds 'set' liquids. Them along with some freeze dried passionfruit et voila, une fruit de la passion!  I also promised on my facebook to address why I wear different socks on each foot. It started out of laziness when I was young- I could never find the other half of the pair of socks! Time constraints made me give up- I would eventually struggle looking for socks. A couple of years down the line- I entered the food industry, and with white coats and black pants days, everything seemed far too monochrome and organized. I guess theres a little whim in things being slightly off- somehow, wearing socks that were bright and different throughout the day made me happy. Anytime I wanted respite from a tone, I could just look down...

Brownie and Crispy Chicken Skin

While contemplating what to pick for my final project for a course on the science of food that I'm doing, I narrowed it down to 2 bites- macarons and brownies. Macarons, regardless of how much I love them, are far too sweet, and so I'm left wondering, how can the inherent chewy character be retained without being cloying sweet? Brownies, though had a lot of parameters to play with, would have given an extremely subjective viewpoint on the ideal texture;

I started with a 'desi' chicken- a brownish bird with black patches with slightly darker meat. The flavor it had to offer was significantly better than the generic chicken I get everywhere, except the skin turned ridiculously rubbery on cooking. Ridiculous rubbery as in you could smack it for days  and you'd have no success (exaggeration). I still cant get over the wings that I cooked in the skin; the skin was so tough that the meat was 'trapped' in it. On a side note, I gutted the chicken too. Great excuse to learn some biology I say.

Harnessing flavors off the desi chicken, I made a nice rich stock, rested it overnight and reduced it the next day for the caramel. I've never completely understood resting things overnight, except that they enunciate the flavors and make them more integral.

I decided to stick to the apparently generic chicken for the crispy skin. Some of it was baked till crisp, a part was fried in rendered chicken fat and the remainder was poached in some milk and yogurt till soft and then fried off. The baked skin gave the lightest texture of the three, although the poached and fried skin had a distinct flavor from its poaching liquid. I mixed it up with some dehydrated brownie bits and made a little croustilliant out of it.

The remaining brownie was added to the ganache. Now its a nice trick to add some bakes and blit them in if you're running low on chocolate- they provide a lot of structure for the ganache and its a nice change of texture too occasionally.

It certainly isn't the perfect sort of brownie that I had in mind when I started this because it isn't really a brownie anymore; its a chocolate bar. The hiatus from my bonbons is over (I hear summer saying goodbye in the distance mostly).

A bar of Chicken Skin (baked, fried in its own fat and poached and fried) with dried brownie bits, cocoa nibs, Brownie Inaya Ganache and a salted caramel of reduced chicken stock

Ember Roasted Potatoes and Funfetti Crumbles

So after I finished doing up the pumpkin in my barbecue last week, I thought, 'why not throw in some potatoes in the embers?' And a couple of cheekus? Some ginger even?

Needless to say, the potatoes tasted amazing- after spending the entire night in the embers, the skin had gotten on a beautiful layer of the smokiness. Would be a shame to not harness it.

A while back, I did a dessert with roasted potato skin ice cream with fermented plum jam and Balinese chocolate mousse. I thought it might be a good chance to ameliorate that beautiful ice cream and so I infused the skins in some milk for a day, followed by sedimentation of the heavier coal particles that would otherwise hamper the texture if the ice cream.

That being done, the opportunity to conjuct it with another idea of using raw and roasted chocolate and the same dish to juxtapose differences seemed right (the actual product wasn't quite there and so I will dedicate another dish to it in a future post).

I used to do a lot of bonbons back in the day (till summer came and it shot up to 45 degrees, then you don't even need a melting tank) and I wanted this chocolate dish to instill a sense of being fun than technical and exploratory, as I usually do; thus came about the idea of a 'funfetti crumble' as I like to call it. It's got nothing to do with funfetti, but everything to do with fun (I guess). Composed of crispy donut bits, cocoa nib cookies, raw cookie dough, house made grated raw cocoa paste, and potato peel powder. It's sort of all that I dream to eat with ice cream.  Initially, some dried brownie pieces were going to be in there, but looking at the fudgy moistness of them, I decided to turn it into a parfait instead- a parfait soft enough to have a serving temperature of -18degrees C. I put some ganache on the place for some dense creaminess. And just for a tinge of acid (even though the raw chocolate adds to it in a form of astringency) I dusted some freeze dried yuzu pieces with passion fruit powder, just to refresh the palate in case the entire dessert got to heavy at some point.

The joys of chocolate and tons of crispy bits.

Ember roasted potato skin Ice cream, Tanzanie Ganache, Brownie Parfait, Lyo Yuzu coated in Passionfruit Powder, Funfetti Crumble (crispy donuts, cocoa nib cookies, frozen cookie dough, potato peel powder, grated raw chocolate paste)

The 5- Hour Barbecued Pumpkin

My backyard has these gorgeous climbers with pumpkin blossoms and no pumpkins. Digging deep into my reservoir of originality, I decided to serve them with a roasted pumpkin.
In all honesty though, pumpkin flowers when done up as fritters loose a lot of flavour.

I commenced by placing an entire pumpkin on my barbecue.
some 4/5/6 hours (the fire went out for an hour I think, also I have no idea when I put it on) later:

The gateway to the most delicious seeds you've eaten is the flesh of the pumpkin itself.

The skin looked near burnt but tasted like the sweetest pumpkin I had ever eaten- the darker the better. The pumpkins in India are grown for a tart sabji, so sweetness isn't exactly its prominent flavour profile.

Nevertheless, knowing how well fragrant citrus goes well with pumpkins, I had to give the combination a go. I somehow found some delicious, juicy grapefruit in my city and they're literally the best citrus I've seen around here. Seizing the opportunity to turn it into a sorbet, I really wanted to add some crispy caramel to this dish- the sorbet required it and so did the pumpkin. It was either this or honey. Guess what made it to the dish..
Initially the idea was to simply dry tapioca starch with some sugar and fry it up to get this nice, light cracker. I instead ended up with burnt sugar, floating around in smoking oil. The more you know...

Because they tasted great as they were, I simply let the sugar caramelize in the oven a bit longer. Inspired by my tapioca caramel, I decided to crisp up some yogurt the same way- and it worked wonderfully. Living in such a humid place, both the crisps stored extremely well too. For the first time- no weepy caramel, no sticky hands and zero frustration in dealing with an oven that can't seem to go below 160.
To end this post abruptly, a poached egg yolk for fat.

5 Hour Barbecued Pumpkin with its seeds. Pumpkin Blossom from the backyard, Poached Egg Yolk, Grapefruit Sorbet, Caramel Tapioca Sheet, Crispy Yogurt

Bitterness

Grapefruit. The only bitter fruit known to mankind.
I'm joking, of course.
Bitterness is something that people try to avoid as much as possible. Calibrated correctly, it can be addictive- with the right amount of sugar, salt and acid.
Nevertheless, a very, very, delicious citrus. I remember trying pamplemousse a few years ago, alas it was too bitter for my then young palate. We're talking about 'what's coffee?'era.
Facing  it again after so many years, I still somewhat feared the bitter. But bitter is delicious. And so is fruit that is hard to get a hold of.

I knew I wanted an aerated curd from the get go- I look for every opportunity to chuck a fat based element into the siphon as those are literally the only textures I can make work so far. But what is that supposed to go with.....

Well, I may have cheated a bit and have stolen an element from another dessert I was working on. Which also meant scrapping it. Now I have two containers of black/ purple rice pudding and no mangosteen ice to go with. Oh well, I guess I will leave that for another day.

Hazelnut cookies were purely intuitive, the marshmallows- not so much. I had to know what marshmallow cookies tastes like. Great, apparently.
And finally to diverge from giving acidity (not that there wasn't any before) through fruit, I decided to use yogurt water- something which I have leftovers of more or less everyday.


A bitter caramel is on there strictly for complementary purposes.  

Aerated grapefruit basil curd, hazelnut and marshmallow cookies, mangosteen gondhoraj ice, frozen and fresh grapefruit segments, wood sorrel, caramel, yogurt whey jelly.

Cake Inverse

Given my profound interest in philosophy, I cannot help myself but attach meaning to a dish. Once every few months however...
The brain ticks, connecting seemingly trivial incidents disguised as a neoteric idea.

My favourite 'modernistic' piece of equipment is by far the siphon. I should not touch topics pertaining to the disasters I have had with it, or the first time I fell sick after using it.
It offers a very interesting texture- incorporating lightness without actually 'whipping' the base, per se. Sure, it does not produce a very stable foam, but the few moments after being expelled from the nozzle make up for it lack of shelf life. Unless, you freeze it that is.
In that case, you have landed yourself the technique to incorporate more fat in your base than a usual ice cream could deal with and aerate what would not be great to churn. (exceptions: soft serve)

Always warning my friends to steer clear of raw eggs, my mind ran along the idea of a cake batter. I had been thinking of using eggs in a more explicit manner, but when have they been tastier than in a cake? (more exceptions: scrambled eggs.) With a piece of a simple chocolate cake in hand, months of incubated ideas began to amalgamate- I would freeze a cake batter. Made of  baked cake. An inverse cake.

My short lived creative streak decided to travel an extra mile this time. Trying to introduce umami or salty in new ways, I was hell bent on adding crispy chicken skin. All was great, except I never had actually butchered a chicken.

After spending (just) 20 minutes simply taking the skin off in one piece, I put it in the oven with a tray on. Although next time, I try puffing it up. An hour and a half and some salt later, I removed the crispy chicken skin from my sight for obvious reasons.

Certain 'universal' flavours like caramel, vanilla and chocolate ease the adaption of some of the rather far out elements in desserts. I had my frozen chocolate cake, so I further added a vanilla custard and the chicken skin to a crispy caramel.

Acidity is just as important in a dessert as salt. My personal preference dictates addition of some aroma, in a manner that engages olfaction noticeably- enough to juxtapose a general taste perception which involves the tastebuds, and one which relies heavily on olfactory receptors. For this reason, I added the zests of four different citrus- gondhoraj, Tahitian lime, citron and blood lime. I had to be careful of the fat levels on this considering my frozen cake was heavy, so I used guar gum to thicken the milk for the ice cream to get it to the desired texture. To reinforce the zests in the ice, I made a yuzu syrup to go with it.

frozen cake batter, Ice cream of many zests, Vanilla custard, Yuzu Syrup Crispy chicken skin, Crispy chicken skin caramel

New not-so-native Ingredients

I was thrilled when I landed some native produce- not native to my country, that is. The excitement usually overshadows the doubt there is when working with new food and the hundred and one questions there like,'Okay I have tasted it, but what does it really taste like?'

My initial idea was to bring together blood limes and mascarpone, regardless of how confident I was that the two would never create a stand alone dessert. I simply couldn't get over the sheer complexity of the cheese; after all these years of eating the terrible stuff, I was not going to play around with it this time.

Speaking of blood limes- they happen to be a citrus hybrid! And they give 'caviar' just like finger limes.

Chayote. After almost a moth of googling and texting people asking what it was, I accidentally found it searching under the 'cactus' tag. A vegetable, chayote has an almost pear like smell. Guess I knew a sorbet was coming way before.

I am more keen on trying to incorporate more breads and venoisseries in my desserts and step away from cakes and crumbs for a while (I will contradict this in my next post [spoiler alert]). Now that I have learnt how to deal with puff pastry in a 40 degree weather, that was my first choice.
I added some blueberries which though not many, significantly lift the dish as a whole as I left the blood lime on as a caviar..

Puff Pastry, Raspberry Macarpone, Mascarpone anglaise, Blood Lime, Blueberries,

 Chayote Yuzu Sorbet

Morels, Truffles..

I ended up with some dried morels when I went shopping for mushrooms a few months back in a bid to try incorporating mushrooms in my desserts. Locally known as gucchi, these aesthetic mushrooms were the least easy to incorporate, as experience dictates... I had seen shimeji, shiitake and gorgeous truffles being turned into almost empyruematic, earthy desserts, some even introducing warmth to an otherwise fresh dish. But morels... incited a near aversion in me to them. Many new forms of expression out of disgust were discovered during the process. Overcoming an aversion seems to be more satisfying than gulping down gratifying creme caramels at 3 in the morning as you fight the urge to sleep. A semi helpful note- try eating a new food sans manipulation, even if that means burning a hole in your pocket.

I can hardly forget how something so amazing as morels cooked in some butter ended up tasting like burnt charcoal paper- a result of me trying to drying them post cooking. Regardless, I simply could not convince myself to surmount my disinclination towards its texture. Unsurprisingly, dried morels behaved significantly different than the fresh ones. The key to well cooked dried morels heavily relies on the hydration time before cooking. Then there's also the dirt to deal with, I wonder if they were picked from the beach. Occasional agitation during hydration does the needful.

Seemingly, pureeing was my last resort. Some cream, some meringue. Light, outspoken and great texture! However, a mousse wasn't going to suffice.

I seized the opportunity of using the white truffle oil I've had in my pantry. I've noticed while trying to incorporate unconventionals, usually salted caramel and/ or chocolate come to the rescue. Deciding to test my hypothesis, the truffle was added to an a la minute ganache (That happens to be my favorite stage of ganache crystallization)  and paired it with a salted caramel and clotted cream gelato. Did I mention I 'harvest' my own clotted cream? Goodbye UHT!

A little footnote about caramel- surely cooking sugar causes dehydration of sugar. The result is somewhat like concentrating carbon leading to a different and more difficult metabolization than sugar, making it unhealthier than table sugar. Not that I intend to be a nutritionist, I find composition and effects of food significant for the same reason most of us don't enjoy ice cream with a humongous amount of air. Kind of like biting into a choux without cream. Just some of the perks of studying science.

To underscore the flavors, I introduced nuances of tea and coffee in the texturals of the dessert.
The tea meringue in particular offers a felling similar to chewing tea leaves without the harsh bitterness. I achieved this by boiling down my tea infusion to almost obtain a concentrate so as to not compromise the desired texture of the meringue.

Acidity is another parameter to achieve equipoise in the dish. A blood lime did the job, juice sacks with its pectiny walls almost mimicking a sour, vibrant caviar. More on them in another post.

Morel Mousse, Salted Caramel and Clotted Cream Gelato, Black Tea Meringue, Baileys Pastry, A La Minute White Truffle Ganache, Pan cooked Morels and Blood Lime

'Semi' Fermented Yogurt

My aversion to yogurt in desserts was something I was willing to overcome since long. Sugar and yogurt never tasted amalgamated to my palette; instead sugar restrained to yogurt's beautiful sourness. Watching my grandmother set yogurt in a span of few hours on a cold winter day prompted me to try setting my own and reviving the practice which was nearly forgotten in my home. As it turns out, commercial yogurt does not make for a trustworthy starter.

Fiddly and inquisitive as I am, I checked the yogurt after every couple of hours and caused concern when I could see hardly any signs of setting. But just as it started to set the slightest...
there it was. the yogurt for a dessert. It tasted mildly sour and accentuated the sweetness of the milk. All was left for me to do was  make a wholesome and acidic dessert out of it.

I paired it with rhubarb for acidity and raspberry for fruitiness. Eyeing my brioche shenanigans, I baked them off with some almond cream. Turned the poaching liquid into ice- consider retaining flavor.

Poached rhubarb, semi fermented yogurt, almond brioche, raspberry caramel, rhubarb and mausambi (an Indian citrus) ice.