Su-V

Topographical cheesecakes and peeled pistachios (pistachios steeped in boiling water for 2 minutes twice and then peeled and toasted. Sticky date pudding, butterscotch sauce, brandy snap, medjool date, pedro poached fig'n'vanilla Ice cream Candied lemon rind (thrice blanched from cold water) dusted with castor sugar and dehydrated) and a silver balloon. A dicky drawing cleverly placed on my jacket by the gag-master at work.

Rosemary ice-cream: I used a cold pressure infusing technique I heard about from several blogs I read, I thought that it would work well in this instance. Raw rosemary has a brilliant perfume and I believe once heated it errs on the bitter side and looses it's floral notes. So I made a basic anglaise a let it rest over night, the following day I bruised some rosemary with a mortar and pestle, mixed it with the anglaise, poured it into a siphon, charged it with 2 bulbs, let it sit for 10 min, released the pressure, passed the angleise and then churned it up. Once served I put a little rosemary flower on top, it shares a likeness to lavender ice-cream if you have tried it, but better, as I don't like lavender ice-cream. Pinenut shortcrust pastry: I found out on some site that pinenuts had 68% fat and so by my logic 100g of pinenuts + 32g butter = 100g fat + 32 g other stuff. So transposing a basic short bread recipe: 300 flour, 200 fat, 100, sugar, I came up with 236 flour, 2...

It's been a bit busy with Olive and Eliza being all young and restless. Also my phone blogpress application wasn't letting me post posts. Gotta new iPad yesterday and it seems to let Me post so here goes! Here's a few of the dishes that have been coming out of my little pastry section. Pettit fours: (from top to bottom) caramelized white chocolate and coffee pannacotta, Lemon meringue tart, Caramel slice, Florentine(of sorts), Fig and Orange friand. And on the right, Gingerbread (also from the menu) with it accompaniments, butterscotch, peanut brittle, vanilla macerated strawberries and double cream. The rest are specials. Milk chocolate, cocoa dusted brûlée, wood roasted strawberries, roast vanilla popcorn, spiced shortbread and mint Port poached pear, rice pudding ice-cream, whipped butterscotch, maple puffs, cinnamon puffed rice and thyme. Carrot, fig and date pudding, scorched smashed date, carrot and orange puré, walnut log and sour cream'n'candied orange ice-...