Cake & Coffee

For the dessert portion of our meal, I have invited a guest blogger, aka my husband Jason, to describe his mad baking and molecular gastronomy skills!

Dessert was based on the Scrivo family phrase "Cake and coffee" which I understand to be a way to finish a meal, a celebration, or any of a myriad of Scrivo family events.  My vision was to update the typical cake and coffee with playful dessert based on some other gelees I have been making recently.

The cake part was simple.  Amy had given me a madeline pan for Christmas, and I had only used it to make savory madelines.  The cake would be the first sweet madelines from the pan.  My friend and partner in this menu, Matt Freeman, executed most of the chocolate madeline recipe.  The coffee part of dessert was a coffee with cream and sugar gelee topped with a vanilla cream foam served in a coffee cup on the plate with the madelines.  It became a coffee you eat with a spoon.  The dessert afforded me an opportunity to break out the molecular gastronomy kit that Amy had given me for Christmas 2009.

Chocolate Madelines

50g all purpose flour
45g unsweetened cocoa
pinch salt
2 eggs
100g sugar
6 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled
butter to butter pan

--  Butter madeline pan and place in the refrigerator

--  Sift flour, cocoa, and salt together

--  Blend the eggs and sugar together with an electric mixer.  Fold in the flour and then the melted butter.

--  Fill each mold about 3/4 full with the batter, and place in the refrigerator.

--  Heat oven to 425F and bake for 7 minutes.

--  Dust with powdered sugar if desired.


Coffee Gelee

300 ml coffee with cream and sugar
2 g carageenan

--  Make the coffee.  Flavor with cream and sugar to desired dessert flavor.

--  Pour coffee solution into a pan on the stove.  Bring to a boil and add carageenan.  Whisk to dissolve.

--  Transfer coffee to individual mugs and let cool on the counter until no longer steaming.  Move to refrigerator and let gel.  Should be ready in about 45 minutes.


Vanilla Cream Foam

Milk
Vanilla extract
Lecite

--  Put milk and a few drops of vanilla extract into a bowl.  Add lecite.

--  With an immersion blender skim the surface of the milk to create bubbles.  If the foam does not hold add more lecite and repeat.

--  Spoon foam on top of coffee gelee and dust with cinnamon.