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Meha had asked us a few weeks ago if we would ever be keen on trying a super fancy dessert, like the ones Kirsten Tibballs or Ana Polyviou make. This again was supposed to have four people and two backed out almost at the last minute. So Meha and I decided we'd continue as planned nevertheless.
We planned to meet after lunch and before dinner so that we could take dessert home. Obviously, we've posted enough pictures on our Instagram account to showcase how bad our final products looked. It almost felt like an episode of Nailed It! They all tasted fantastic though. A tad sweet, if I may. But definitely a learning experience in many ways - how to keep calm even if you fudge it up mostly.
We aimed quite high. Here is what we had in mind:
Chocolate Macarons
Concorde
Chocolate Parfait with Strawberry Sauce
Dark Chocolate Icecream
Florentines
Chocolate Coated Honeycomb
White Chocolate Mousse Cakes with Passionfruit centres
Milky chocolate mousse with a crunchy base
And here's what we finally made and ate:
Chocolate Macarons (Meha was keen on these because she has never managed to get 'feet' on the macarons she bakes. Again, no feet.)
Concorde (Meringue layered with cream. She complained about the consistency of the meringue itself which made piping it hard. We figured it deflated a little, even though she had originally ensured her egg whites form stiff peaks)
Chocolate Parfait with Strawberry Sauce (The spun sugar was the highlight of the evening. I had my concerns about all the ingredients of the parfait just being mixed well together and being frozen... So it was essentially raw egg frozen, salmonella and all that... I also loved how in order to freeze the parfaits they sat up in cones in a bed of sugar. I made the cones out of parchment paper and they turned out considerably smaller than I had hoped they would be.)
Dark Chocolate Icecream (The icecream mix called for 8 yolks which is a bit much, if you ask me. Meha made a dark chocolate and beer icecream with 4 egg yolks too. I think both of us have been making icecreams without an anglaise and with cream alone, so we were both quite keen to see what making one was like.)
Florentines (These bombed so hard, I just left them at home.)
Whether I'll try a fancy dessert recipe again. I most likely will. But I'll definitely be more prepared to fail.