christmas, part 2....

Santa must have thought that Caleb was spending Christmas at my house because there were some presents left for him. Mary and I drove up to Temple on Saturday and met Carrie and Caleb at an Olive Garden for dinner and present opening. I hope the staff didn't mind.

The toy of choice this year was anything associated with Power Rangers. The toys that I delivered were of the Lego variety. Santa can never seem to get it right.

Caleb is coming to Austin on January 8 to spend a 3 day weekend at Grampy's house. We both are very excited - and nervous. I hope he doesn't wear me out.

merry christmas...

It's been a nice Christmas. Coffee, blueberry muffins, presents, and a movie marathon. So far it's been A Christmas Story, It's a Wonderful Life and Breakfast at Tiffany's. It was my first time to see a Breakfast at Tiffany's. Yikes - what a good movie. Ham dinner is scheduled for 5:30pm. I think I'll top off the day with a healthy helping of egg nog. Cheers....

class dismissed....

Last day. School is over. That was a fast 9 months. We started with 18 back in April and ended up with 11 in our class. They were a good bunch of kids - it was a good experience.

We didn't get a yearbook so we all signed each others coats.

wake up call....

Today was the last of our weeklong practical tests. I was feeling pretty good about myself but the week was a reality check. I had an issue with practically every item. The items for today were the closest thing to meeting expectations so I've included a picture. Blueberry muffins, crepes suzette, cream puffs and a baguette. During the week, I had horrible macaroons, eclairs, and creme brulee. I had marginal opera petit fours, napoleans, fruit tarts, focaccia, birthday cake and apple charlotte. Practice, practice...

17 but who's counting...

I ran in the Dallas White Rock Marathon on Sunday. I went up with a running buddy on Saturday morning, we ran it on Sunday morning and drove back immediately after the run. It made for a quick trip. It is my favorite marathon course. The crowds in Dallas are fun. They are also large. The weather was perfect and I finished, which is always my ultimate goal.

I stayed at the Hyatt and my room was on the 16th floor with a view of the book depository and the grassy knoll. I've seen that Zapruder film so many times, it was weird seeing cars drive down the road that Kennedy drove down. Spooky.

It was the 4th time that I've run this marathon and it's my 17th marathon. I'm thinking 20 would be a good number to stop at.

oh honey...oh sugar sugar....

This is effectively the end of class for me. Next week is five days of practical tests. We get assigned 3 mystery items per day to whip up. Who remembers how to make a baguette or a macaroon? That was months ago. It should be interesting.

Our final project fell in the "this isn't all that practical but it's kind of a cool skill to know" category. Sugar sculptures only have showpiece value. You can eat a chocolate sculpture. Sugar sculptures are actually made with isomalt which is a sugar derivative. You don't eat it unless you want to spend the next day in the bathroom.

We were supposed to come up with a theme but I just took some of the components and did an abstract showpiece. There is blown sugar (the spheres), poured sugar (the disks), pulled sugar (ribbon), rock sugar (that white rock) and net sugar (the bubbly sheet in the background).

It was pretty challenging. I don't see a future in sugar sculptures for me.

ho ho ho...

I ran with a buddy in northwest Austin on Tuesday morning and he had this big Santa in his front yard. He turns back and forth slightly and he waves with his right hand. It's kind of freaky.

Even though it was cold and rainy at the end of the run, I had to have my picture taken with him. Maybe I should print some pictures and include it in my Christmas card this year.

Happy Holiday's

a winter chocolateland....

The project for the week was a chocolate centerpiece. We had a little more than two days to make it. It had to be 100% chocolate and it had to have a Christmas theme. It had to be 10" wide and about 18 inches tall.

Mine turned out a little rough around the edges but I'm happy with it. The tree is kind of festive. If you use your imagination, those rectangles with the snowflakes are my representation of windows looking out on a winter storm. The original plan was to have a solid wall with a window. I went with the subtle approach. I realize that art doesn't need to be explained but the more I look at it, the more it looks liked a painters easel. Yikes

I'm not sure what those flowers in the flower pots are but I wasn't about to have a blank windowsill.

Happy Holidays.....

run, forrest, run.....

I've had interweb problems the past few days so there hasn't been any blog posting going on. It was fixed tonight. Yay....

I ran my favorite half marathon this morning. I've lost track of how many I've done but it's been many years in a row. The course runs around a small lake outside of Austin. It is always held in the early part of December and the weather has ranged from relatively warm to ice storms. Today was a foggy day with 40 degrees and a light rain. Perfect.

Central Texas is flat but the country roads around this lake are very hilly. I survived and it was good warm up for the White Rock marathon in Dallas next weekend.

a chocolate bow?.....

Today was chocolate box day. We had the choice of a round box or a square box. It had to be made of two types of chocolate with a base, walls and removable lid plus a chocolate bow on top.

The box that I went with is 7x7" and it's about 2" tall (not counting the bow). I piped a pattern of milk chocolate on a sheet of acetate. When it had set, I spread a layer of dark chocolate over it. I then measured and scored the chocolate for the necessary pieces and shapes. When the chocolate was fully set, the shapes broke right along the scored lines. The bow is made of dark chocolate. It wasn't that difficult to make but it was time consuming. Granted, it was my first one, but it took about 4 hours to make the whole thing. I was pretty wasteful but I probably used $20 worth of chocolate. I think a 7x7 box would cost over $50.

Smaller chocolate boxes are popular in restaurants. It's common to fill them with truffles. It's also common for a small box to be used to hold an engagement ring. Ahhhh...

one quart of cream, 8 egg yolks and a cup of sugar...

One of my favorite gadgets at school has been the ice cream maker. It recently occurred to me that my KitchenAid at home has an ice cream attachment. It's more similar to an old fashioned ice cream churn but it is still an ice cream maker. I dusted it off today and gave it a try.

I've had candy canes in the back of my cupboard since the Clinton administration so I dusted those off as well and made some peppermint ice cream. I made a creme anglaise with the cream, yolks and sugar and started the churning process. I crushed a dozen candy canes and added it to the churn toward the end of the freezing process. The result was 2 quarts of really creamy ice cream with a nice peppermint taste.

The instructions mentioned that a less fattening (and less creamy) alternative would be the substitution of milk or skim milk for the cream. Are they kidding?

what a day....

Woke up at 6:00 and made some pumpkin bread. Ran the Turkey Trot (5 miles) at 9:30 with an old running buddy and 14,000 fellow Austinites. Went to a Thanksgiving buffet at 12:30 at the Carillon restaurant near the UT campus. Made myself uncomfortable from eating too much. Came home and took a 1 hour nap. Watched some football. Completed the circle by eating some pumpkin bread for dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving....

giving jf cooper his props...

Today's assignment was to design and make a candy bar. It had to have 3 elements and here's what I came up with...

I decided to do a semi-spherical shape. A bar shaped candy bar seems like it's been done to death. The outer shell is tempered dark chocolate and under that is a thin layer of Oreo cookie crumbs. Working from the top down (inside) is a layer of chocolate ganache flavored with Amaretto, a layer of marshmallow and a layer of chewy, chocolate caramel on the bottom.

We had to come up with a name for our creation and it took me forever to select one. After many hours of thought, I decided to name it "The Natty Bumpo". Natty never talked much but I think he would have liked this....

not for brittle teeth....

Today was the last day of confections. It was still cooked sugar but the theme was caramel. Some people believe in karma but I believe in caramel.

The squares are toffee, the yellow pieces are honeycomb and the other is peanut brittle.

I ate so much peanut brittle today, I'm feeling a little queasy...

an affection for confections....

Chocolates are done and we have moved into confections. If you drill down one more layer, this first week is candy made from boiled sugar. The task for Friday was to produce 6 confections (12 each). Here they are....

The pink diamonds are peppermint flavored marshmallows.

The purple squares are pate de fruit (pa de fwee). If you ever had Chuckles as a kid, you've had these. Sort of a gummy, fruity, candy.

The orange sticks are candied orange zest dipped in chocolate.

The white candy with the black stripes is divinity. I added toasted coconut and walnuts.

The brown/black candy is New Orleans style praline dipped in dark chocolate. This praline has cream and milk in the recipe and I like the taste better than the traditional Mexican praline.

The little squares are marzipan (almond paste) with tiny bits of candied orange zest and dipped in dark chocolate.

Chocolate project #2.....

Project #2 was a 3 day project and we had to turn in a dozen chocolates for 6 different varieties. Here they are (working from the outside inward)...
The yellow ones are passion fruit truffles. If you zoom in you'll see that they are covered in sugar crystals.
The irregular shapes are caramelized almonds that are stuck together while hot (ouch), dipped in chocolate and then striped with white chocolate.
Those little guys are knackerli. A dime sized disk of tempered chocolate is piped out and a pistachio, dried cranberry and raisin are set in place. I initially thought they were silly but they are tasty.
The squares are chewy chocolate caramel, dipped in chocolate and then embossed with a transfer sheet (hearts).
The "ovals" are mimosa truffles. That translates into champagne flavored ganache in a chocolate mold.
The bad boys in the center are molded chocolate with orange flavored ganache in the middle.
I actually had some free time so I made some bite size molded chocolates with peanut butter inside (not pictured). They aren't your typical Reeses Peanut Butter cup.

molded (not moldy) chocolates....

Day 1 of molded chocolates - The outside shell is tempered dark chocolate. Inside is a creme anglaise based ganache, flavored with orange oils and Cointreau. Before I poured the outer shell, I painted the inside of the mold with gold dust (edible) and orange colored cocoa butter. The outer shell sets in about 5 minutes. Then pipe in the ganache and seal the mold with chocolate to form the bottom.

Did I mention they were tasty? As luck would have it, a couple had defects so I had to dispose of them the old fashioned way. I ate them. It's a messy process but it is definitely worth it.

nobody knows the truffle i've seen...

This block is only 3 days old and I'm already in chocolate heaven. We had to make and present 4 different truffles (a dozen each) and here is the result. From the center outward....

The candies in the center is a muscadine. It is a milk chocolate and praline ganache, flavored with Cointreau and covered in tempered milk chocolate.

The "spikey" truffle is a milk chocolate ganache flavored with Cognac and covered in tempered milk chocolate.

Next is a Rochet which is a dark chocolate ganache mixed with crushed feuilletine (think sugar cones). It is then covered in tempered dark chocolate and rolled in chopped, roasted almonds. It's like an outrageous Nestle's Crunch Bar.

Last is a dark chocolate truffle rolled in cocoa powder.

The happy thought is that we were able to bring them home. My little presentation platter only represents half of what I made. I'm overrun with chocolate and it's only Wednesday. Anybody want some truffles?

temper, temper.....

The chocolate and sugar block has started. For the next 6 weeks, I'll be using the word "temper" quite a bit so here's a quick explanation....

The biggest use of chocolate is for coating. To give it a nice shine and to make it resistant to melting in your hand, raw chocolate needs to be tempered. I'll use dark chocolate (is there any other kind) as an example. Melt approximately 70% of your chocolate over a double boiler and do not exceed 120F. Toss in the remaining 30% of your chocolate (off heat) and stir until melted. Continue stirring until it cools to 84F. Flash it back over the double boiler until it is in the 86 - 89F range. You can now dip your ganache balls to get a nice coating that will shine and won't melt in your hand. note: if you go over 90 during the reheating, it's no good and you need to start over. Milk chocolate and white chocolate have different temperature requirements but it's the same procedure.

the age of aquarius....

It appears that the mother of my make believe bride was a child of the 60's. That's how I'm explaining all of the flowers on my wedding cake...

Anyway, it's done and here it is. 3 Italian Cream cakes and cheese cream frosting with each cake covered in fondant. It's a little greener than I had hoped but I'm happy with the way the cake turned out. I've never heard of Italian cream cake but I'm a new fan. It's very light and the secret ingredient is coconut. I intend to whip some up in cupcake form as soon as possible.

My last class starts on Monday. It's a 6 week class focused on sugar, chocolate and candy. The timing for a chocolate class is perfect with the holidays coming up. I hope chocolate truffles are on some Christmas wish lists because that's what you're getting!

By the way - our instructor always claimed that those flowers were edible. I tried one and I have survived. Edible yes - Tasty no.

mix it up....

I'm in my final week of the cake block. The final project is a 3 tier wedding cake. The tiers are 12", 9" and 6" in diameter. To get the necessary height, I'm making 6 cakes which has forced me to this medium sized mixer. It's not as big as a Volkswagen but it's bigger than my KitchenAid. The cake is due on Friday. After baking the cakes today, I made 120 gum paste flowers. I was ready to scream...

happy halloween....

Here are my entries in this years Norris Drive pumpkin carving display. One is a tribute to buttons on a remote control (subtle but use your imagination). The other one takes advantage of a rather prominent nose feature - much like myself. giggle...

Happy Halloween

externship....

My classes are scheduled to wrap up on December 19. At that point, we do an externship that runs through the beginning of April. Where we do an externship is completely up to us as long as certain criteria are met. Some people take the opportunity to go to Europe or New York. My initial intention was to go to a big restaurant or resort but reality set in and I decided to focus my search to the central Texas area. I interviewed for and got an externship at the Driskill Hotel yesterday. It's one of the finer hotels in Austin and it has a highly regarded bakery. The hotel offers fine dining, casual dining and banquet experience. It also does a high retail cake business. It's an unpaid externship but I feel fortunate to get it. I wish I could start sooner - the holiday season is the best and busiest time to be in a bakery.

note to self....

I took one of the devil's food cakes, sliced it into 3 layers and covered it with chocolate Italian buttercream frosting. Stupid idea. They call it buttercream for a reason and butter doesn't like the Texas heat. It was like frosting it with whipped cream and as you can see, it doesn't look very good. Cake #2 will get ganache and fondant this weekend. Hopefully it will come out better.

devil's in the details....

Here's the start of my weekend project... If you remember back to my Fred Flintstone cake, it was a 3 layer 9" cake. It was way too much cake for a small family to eat. It also had chocolate ganache between the layers which made for a rich cake. Not that I'm complaining.

I bought a couple of 6" cake pans and used the same Devil's Food cake batter recipe. I put the small honey bear in the picture for reference. These bad boys are small but thick and dense. They'll sit in the refrigerator tonight and I'll slice them up tomorrow. I'm going to go with chocolate italian buttercream on one and ganache and chocolate fondant on the other. By the time I get 3 layers done, it may be as tall as it is wide. It should be interesting.

May the best cake win.... I'll need to find someone to take one of the cakes off my hands. As much as I would like to try, I won't be able to eat them both.

excuse me boy...is that the chattanooga choo choo?...

This week was sculpted cakes and the theme was toys. I went with the Fisher-Price locomotive. It has some issues but if you use your imagination, it looks like a train. It consists of 2 dense white cakes that were sliced in 3 layers with buttercream between each layer. From there we sculpted the cakes and covered them with rolled fondant. I stood my cake on its side and shaped it in order to give it some height. We air brushed on the color. I got all artistic and tried to give it a dirty, sooty look which my instructor didn't care for it. Toys aren't sooty! The railroad crossing sign looks like it was rushed to meet the deadline (I barely made it). The track is sitting on a bed of crushed oreo cookies. I wish I had time to put some detail on the main body but there it is.

i have found the enemy and it is cakes...

Or more precisely, the enemy is the act of piping royal icing. This cake was a 6 day project and it has more problems than I can begin to list. I'll just describe the cake for blog purposes...

It is a 6" and 9" tier white cake. Each cake is sliced in 3 layers with American buttercream between each layer and on the sides. The cake is covered in rolled fondant. The fondant is handmade, which is an adventure. The flowers are made from gum paste - totally edible but I would save my appetite for the cake. The dough is pliable when we're forming the flowers but they dry and are very brittle. The little sculpture on top is made up of pastillage pieces (unflavored Altoids). The squiggly lines are cornellis which is piped royal icing. Please don't inspect it closely. It represents my major area for improvement.

let it rain, let it rain, let it rain....

It was a really rough summer in central Texas. It was over 100 degrees for practically 3 months straight and there was very little rain. The city imposed mandatory water restrictions. We were allowed to water our lawns one day a week and the fine for homeowners that misbehaved was pretty steep.

There have been frequent showers the past couple of weeks and the temperature this weekend is dipping down into the 50's. I have a couple of rain chains rather than drain spouts on my rain gutters. They don't get much of a workout but they are nice to watch when it does rain.

I would normally complain about rain on a weekend but today I plan on making a crock pot of chili and enjoying this nice fall weather. Please pass the tabasco....

i'll take option 2.....

There is a policy at school that we aren't allowed to bring our product home. They cite some legal issues but my lawyer buddies scoff at the notion. We put our cakes from yesterday on display overnight. At the end of class today, our instructor asked us to take them to the dumpster or take them home. He's a free spirit. Emily insisted on a slice before her calculus class tonight. I see many slices this weekend served with the darkest, strongest coffee that I can make.

By the way - dark modeling chocolate tastes like tootsie rolls. giggle

yabba dabba doo.....

We had to come up with a theme for our Devil's Food Cake and I went with the Flintstones.

Here are the details...

It's a 9" Devil's Food cake sliced into 3 layers with a crumb (thin) coating of ganache between each layer, on the top and sides. The whole cake is then covered in rolled "brown" fondant which was made by kneading vanilla and chocolate fondant together and rolling it very thin. The rope on the bottom and the frill on the side is chocolate fondant. The boulders and the Flintstone car is made out of modeling chocolate. The stand and the circular disk is pastillage which is formed from powdered sugar, glucose and gelatin and allowed to dry firm. (If you add cinnamon during mixing, you create Altoids). Fred's portrait is done by mixing cocoa powder and melted cocoa butter. Fun and completely edible.

drop and roll....

I don't know if I haven't noticed before but it seems like the oak trees around my house are producing a lot more acorns than normal. I think acorns is the right term for nuts from an oak tree. All day, including the night, I hear a "ping" as the acorn is dropped onto the metal roof and then the roll roll roll as it tumbles down the roof and then a short pause and then the gentle "thud" when it hits the deck. It's kind of fun to listen to it.

The deck was swept last week so this amount in the picture is one weeks worth - minus what the squirrels take and hide.

hapy anivversry.....

The project for today was an anniversary cake. It's a white cake that was sliced into 3 layers of 1" thickness each. A thin layer of apricot jam is spread on each layer and the sides. A very thin (1/16") sheet of marzipan is rolled out and molded onto the cake. The whole thing is topped off with a fondant glaze.

The structure of the cake is good, the marzipan roses look similar to roses and Happy Anniversary is spelled correctly. We actually had someone in class write Hapy on their cake. There is no edit key or scraping it off. I got confused in the middle of piping the double border. I forgot what was supposed to loop where so it turned out a little goofy. It's better than cake #1 but I still have a long way to go.

chocolate dream...

This has nothing to do with me but I thought it was cool so I'm posting it. One of the head pastry chefs from Le Cordon Bleu spent last week in Austin and he did a chocolate sculpture demonstration on Friday, which I attended. At the risk of stereotyping, he was exactly what I picture when I think of a pastry chef - French accent, full of energy, always talking, strong opinions, very demonstrative, very passionate and has a story for every situation. He came to our classes every day and it was a blast having him around. He peppered his sentences with "alors (a-lore)" which has many meanings but if I remember right ,"so" or "then" is the closest translation. After being around him for 5 hours every day, it was easy to walk out of the room speaking in a French accent... "You put this here and that over there...alors, I think it is perfect, yes?"

He did the majority of the sculpture on Thursday and did all the finer details during the demonstration. He shaped all the leaves and constructed the flowers during the demo and started adding them to the main body. Just when you think it was done, he'd add a flower or another leaf. It was like he was winging it as he went. "I think I will add a flower here and angle it this way and add this accent piece. Alors, I think it is OK, yes?"

chicken scratch....

My first cake in the cake block. It's a vanilla chiffon, 3 layer cake with Italian butter cream masking and filling.

Summary - the cake has nice square edges, the basket weave on the side is good (for the most part), the shells along the top and bottom are fairly uniform, and the butter cream roses and flowers are promising. What's up with that writing? I felt like I was in first grade in a one room schoolhouse and I was writing on a piece of slate with chalk. I'll be making some butter cream this weekend and practicing. I think I'll invest in a cake stand and start whipping out some cakes as well.

This adventure took about 90 minutes to do. There is a speed drill in 2 weeks where it has to be done in 30 minutes. It should look interesting

croquenbush....

Croquenbusch. The dessert that's more fun to say than it is to make. This is a traditional French wedding cake as well as a celebration cake at communions and other religious events. The "croke-in-buusch" is a tower of profiteroles or puff pastries filled with a liqueur flavored pastry cream. There was a lot of dipping of profiteroles into hot caramel. The face of each ball is squared off with caramel and caramel is used to glue it all together. I didn't get any second degree burns so I consider the exercise a success.

Some variations include a tower or eclairs or chocolate coated profiteroles. The base is made of nougatine which is a rich mans peanut brittle. Heat up some sugar, caramelize it and stir in almond slivers. I made sure that none of the extra nougatine was thrown away.

By the way - those flowers were made out of sugar. Go figure! giggle

hook 'em.....

A running buddy had an extra ticket to the UT football game against UTEP this past saturday and he invited me along. UTEP gave them a good game last year out in El Paso but it wasn't a contest this year. UT won 64-7.

This picture is of the pre game festivities. Look at all those burnt orange shirts. I understand that if there is a good breeze, keeping that flag on the ground can be a real adventure for the handlers. The game started at 2:30 and it was 94 degrees. The paid attendance was 101,000 people - that's 40 times the size of Cooperstown. yikes. The good news for us was that we were in the shade for the entire game. Even though it wasn't much of a game, it was fun to be a part of it.

the final finally....

The 6 week block on Advanced Patisserie Techniques (Plating) ends tomorrow but I had my final today. The assignment was to create 4 desserts (hot, frozen, chocolate and fruit). Some of the items were repeat creations while others were new. We started from scratch on Monday and made all of the components. We then had 12 minutes today to plate them up and present them. Mistakes were made, lessons learned and items omitted from the original plan. I hate when that happens. Here the 4 plates...

Hot - Sticky Toffee Fig Pudding with Cointreau syrup, creme anglaise and pistachio caramel ice cream

Fruit - Caramelized pineapple napolean with mascarpone pepper cream, coconut gelee, toasted coconut and pineapple sorbet.

Frozen - Blackberry parfait with creme anglaise, blackberry coulis and cassis (black current) sorbet.

Chocolate - Milk chocolate bavarian on a layer of peanut butter ganache and flourless chocolate cake. There is also a chocolate sauce and Black Tea Ice Cream.
Next is a 6 week class on specialty cakes. I'll keep in touch....

happy birthday, caleb....

Carrie had Caleb's birthday party at the Waco Zoo this past Saturday. I've been in Texas for 30 years and I've never been to the Waco Zoo. It was actually quite nice. He turns 4 (wow) on Tuesday, the 22nd. Everybody got him action toys as gifts but I really think he liked the clothes I got him. giggle

It's Andre behind the sunglasses.

Lily is the little girl that lives across the street from Caleb.

tiny bubbles....

The assignment for todays test was to create a dessert for any holiday. I went with Valentine's Day and this is what I came up with....

Behind that chocolate band (I need to work on doing the band perfectly) is a white chocolate bavarian cake. There is a thin layer of flourless chocolate cake on the bottom, fresh strawberries and white chocolate bavarian filling in the mold. Since it is a Valentine's dessert, I came up with a champagne sorbet laying on a bed of strawberries. Yummy.

The sauces are a creme anglaise and strawberry coulis. And then there are chocolate garnishes for the lucky Valentine. Ain't I a sweetheart....

fruit loops....

The assignment for todays dessert was fruit. We were all given a specific fruit and we had to design a dessert around it. Mine was kiwi and here were the guidelines...

There couldn't be any raw fruit in the dish, the dessert had to include a fruit soup, the whole dessert was to be served in a bowl and we had to use fresh fruit for the sorbet - no frozen puree allowed. Here's my creation....

We have a herb in our school garden that is called a kaffir lime plant. It is a waxy leaf but anything you infuse with it tastes like lime flavored Fruit Loops. I chopped some up and included it in the heavy cream that I heated up for Panna Cotta (think flan / custard). Sure enough - when the custard set, it tasted like Fruit Loops. Fun

Here's a picture before I poured in the kiwi soup - the panna cotta is in the center. On top are candied pistachios, a mango kiwi sorbet, a pistachio tuile and a dried lime chip. Around the edge of the bowl is lime dust and poached kiwi wedges. It's hard to see but there is candied lime zest on the top of each piece of kiwi. I infused basil into my kiwi soup so I included a single candied basil leaf in the bowl. My kiwi soup was just a tad thick so I'm not including a picture. I was disappointed in it. It is served cold and even though it could have been a little thinner, it was very refreshing.

no caramel apples allowed....

The theme for today's dessert was caramel. I was a little apprehensive at first but this is what I came up with....

The item on the left is a Sticky Toffee Pudding and it is served hot. It is a cake batter with diced figs and it is drenched in toffee syrup that I flavored with Cointreau (orange liqueur). It was the first time that I had used figs in a recipe and I am now a big fan. Caramel Ice Cream is on the right. It was a hassle to make but it was very tasty. I had meant to tie in the Cointreau with an orange cream in the center but I grabbed the strawberry puree by accident. What a dork. I realized my mistake as I was plating up the dessert and I didn't have time to fix it. The little filagree that is stuck in the ice cream is caramel as well.

Caramel is fun to make and work with but clean up was an adventure.