Pistachio and Raspberry Financier

July 29, 2015.Reading time 1 minute.

Financiers are small, light and airy petit fours which often contain almond flour with a distinct flavour of beurre noisette (brown butter). The lightness comes from egg whites and baking powder as leavening agents. It’s commonly baked in rectangular form but in this case, I have decided to baked them in rounds with the additional flavour of pistachio and raspberries.

Pistachio and Raspberry Financier

100g butter
15g icing sugar
92g almond flour
100g half and half
90g egg whites
60g pistachio paste
6g vanilla extract

80g all purpose flour
5g baking powder

120g whites
3g salt
25g sugar

50g raspberries

1. Brown 98g of butter, set aside to cool
2. In a bowl, mix icing sugar, almond flour, half and half, egg whites, pistachio paste and vanilla extract, whisk until combined
3. Add cooled brown butter to the mixture
4. Sift flour and baking powder and fold mixture into the batter
5. In a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat whites with sugar gradually until stiff peak
6. Fold the meringue into batter, add raspberries and fold
7. Pipe into desired moulds
8. Bake at 350F for approximately 18 minutes or until golden brown
9. Unmould and cool completely

Campfire Smore

June 18, 2015.Reading time 1 minute.

On June 15,2015, John Placko, Rodney Alleguede and myself, with the help of our friends from Cacao Barry, offered a free demo for pastry chefs in the city at George Brown College. Each one of us had a task, a idea to present, for me it was chocolate with modernist techniques.

My concept was a modern chocolate smores. The bonbon had multiple components that would require several new techniques: a smoked ganache with the smoking gun from Polyscience, a caramelized chocolate component and an edible wick that is torched in front of guests.

Smoked Chocolate Ganache

160g Heavy cream
110g Dark chocolate
50g Milk chocolate
20g glucose
40g butter

1. In a saucepan, add heavy cream and glucose
2. Using a smoking gun, smoke the cream and let it sit for 20 minutes
3. In a stainless steel bowl, add dark and milk chocolate
4. Using a smoking gun, smoke the chocolate mixture and let it sit for 20 minutes
5. Heat the cream to a simmer
6. Add it to the chocolate and let it sit for 30 seconds
7. Mix until combine, add butter at 37C
8. Pipe into moulds

Once the bonbon is capped, it is inverted to have the round side facing down. A caramelized white chocolate disc and popping candy is placed on top, along with marshmallow and the edible wick.