Merry belated Christmas and Happy New Year!!

In my last post, I was ranting and raving about my final....yes, how the judges claimed the presentation to be "too bland" and "too old-fashioned" and whatnot. Never mind that everyone in my class thought my dessert tasted delicious. Well....so I was thinking about ways to present my dessert in a "modern" fashion. One way to do that is to deconstruct it--present the elements of the dessert separately on the plate. My dessert consisted of a shortbread, chocolate ganache, orange mascarpone mousse, orange segments, French buttercream, and caramel sauce.

...So here it is. The Deconstructed Orange-Milk Chocolate Tart. Clockwise from top left: orange segments, orange-mascarpone mousse, chocolate tart, and a saucer of caramel sauce and buttercream. When I presented this to my parents, their first comment was, "How are we supposed to eat this??"

Good question. I wasn't sure either. Deconstructed desserts are supposed to be enjoyed by first nibbling on the individual elements, then reconstruct them to eat them all together, or however way the customer wants to. When they finished eating, they said, that it tasted great, but didn't feel like they ate a dessert.

I honestly don't see the point in deconstructing a dessert; what's the point of breaking it all down only to have it built back together again? Another thing that deconstructing does is that it robs the desserts of their magic. This is my explanation:

Everything else on the menu is designed to satisfy physical hunger; people order entrees because they're hungry. Desserts, on the other hand, are eaten when people are (most of the time) already full, if not satiated. Why? Because desserts satisfy the mental, psychological hunger--you know, like those times when we indulge in sweets when stressed out. That's what gives the desserts their almost magical properties. By breaking it all down and exposing every individual elements, deconstruction strips the desserts of their power. While I do agree that deconstruction is a fun, innovative way to present desserts, I doubt the trend will last long.

And then, it was time for Christmas. Boy the time flies. My family, being the minimalist, bought a 2'~3' baby tree and decorated that, instead of lugging that huge artificial tree that we've been using since we immigrated to U.S. twenty-some years ago.

I gave my Mom a gardening book for Christmas, with guides on how to plant in the climates of the Rocky Mountain region. For Dad, I made him a Contemporary Buche de Noel.

Coffee sponge cake, Vanilla buttercream filling, and Coffee Mousse frosting--with Chocolate glaze. This is before decorating.

Decorated with coffee-chocolate candies.

And here it is, in all its glory, with almond brittle "antlers" for that modern look. It was rich, but delicious. This was actually half of the cake. I gave away the other half to our family friends, who gladly took the cake to their family get-together.

Then before I knew it, the New Years arrived. The day before, the sous chef at my work got into a HUGE fight with the sushi chef, who promptly fired her on the spot. With three line cooks, two of them being newly hired (and while experienced in European cuisines, no experience with Japanese cuisines), both our sous chef and executive chef gone, things will definitely get interesting at work.

But to start off the new year, I made a Double Chocolate Taiyaki...

Chocolate taiyaki with chocolate filling. A possible dessert option at Naked Fish, perhaps?