A little drool and the requested chocolate cake recipe

Sherry wine poached pear tart with almond cream

My March submission to the Deep Plate blog: East meets Old West
Four wing salt bush brined fried shrimp, napolitos, daikon, elm bark panko crust

Some really puffy croissants that I made last week

and that chocolate cake...

Makes one 9" round or two loaves
1/3 C plus 1 T (40 g) Cocoa powder
3 1/2 T (35 g) Potato starch/flour
1/4 C (35 g) Cake flour
5 1/2 T (75 g) Butter, melted and cooled
9 Yolks, room temp
1 1/4 C (150 g) Sugar
5 Whites, room temp

Butter your cake pan. Oven to 350º.
In bowl whisk cocoa, potato starch & cake flour. In mixer with whisk attachment whip yolks and half of the sugar. Whip until very light and fluffy and leaves strong trail in mixture.

In 2nd mixer bowl, whip the whites and remaining sugar, adding the sugar gradually, until whites are at firm peak.

Gently fold dry ingredients into yolk mixture. Take a dollop of this mix and whisk it into your butter. Add the butter mix into the yolk/dry mix - folding very gently. Finally, take a quarter of the whites and gently fold into the yolk mix and finish by adding the remaining whites and fold them in very gently.

Pour into your pan, smooth and bake about 35-40 minutes depending on your oven.
At altitude I go 40 before I even open the door. Touch the center and if it feels firm remove and cover with a towel until cool. I always error on the side of over baking this cake.

Book Review: Ideas in Food

If a book’s worth can be measured by the number of dog-eared pages, then Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work could turn around the international financial crisis. In fact, my copy has so many turned page corners that I’m expecting a ‘Cease and Desist’ order to arrive at my home any day now. Well over 75 pages are marked as requiring my re-reading and note taking. And lest you think I’m a chronic book destroyer, a quick scan of my most favorite and used books show less than ten dog-eared pages in any one book.

This is one worthy book for anyone who cares about the inner workings of their food or for anyone who wants someone to do the homework for them so they can simply follow instructions and put out great dishes.

Read the full review at The Gastronomer's Bookshelf.

A few interesting things

For one of my dishes, I wanted to add flavor without adding food, so I've been making my own lip balms for the customer to apply prior to eating the dish. The primary food is cauliflower and the lip balms come in cocoa, caraway or geranium. It gets mixed reactions but more to the concept than the flavor. The lip balms are bees wax based with a bit of Vitamin E, cocoa butter and essential oil.

At a recent tasting dinner the salad was dressed with cacao infused black truffle vodka. Huge hit!

Here is my new chocolate bar mold. This one contained peanut praliné with nori and soy sauce.

A little drool for your week

A few recent dishes

I'm still struggling with my new camera :/ but here are some recent dishes:

My vegetarian entree: madras curry butternut squash, yellow beet, whole wheat fillo, pine cone tip infused savory cream, rosemary.

Duck Pot Pie: Popotillo poached duck breast, savory granola, cholla cream, chives. The plating on this dish has changed dramatically in the past week. I'll get the new pic up soon.

Dessert Sampler: Passionfruit mousse, chocolate bavarian, candied pecans, chocolate soil, chocolate acorn jelly

And simply cholla powder for some future use - I'm thinking meringue.