Halloween Cake

Halloween Cake Video

DESSERT

WHAT IS DESSERT??

Dessert is a course that concludes a meal. The course usually consists of sweet foods, such as confections dishes or fruit, and possibly a beverage such as dessert wine or liqueur; however, in the United States it may include coffee, cheeses, nuts, or other savory items regarded as a separate course elsewhere. In some parts of the world, such as much of central and western Africa, and most parts of China, there is no tradition of a dessert course to conclude a meal.

The term dessert can apply to many confections, such as biscuits, cakes, cookies, custards, gelatin, ice creams, pastries, pies, puddings, sweet soups, and tarts. Fruit is also commonly found in dessert courses because of its naturally occurring sweetness. Some cultures sweeten foods that are more commonly savory to create desserts.

INGREDIENT

Sweet desserts usually contain cane sugar, palm sugar, honey or some types of syrup such as molasses, maple syrup, treacle, or corn syrup. Other common ingredients in Western-style desserts are flour or other starches, Cooking fats such as butter or lard, dairy, eggs, salt, acidic ingredients such as lemon juice, and spices and other flavouring agents such as chocolate, peanut butter, fruits, and nuts. The proportions of these ingredients, along with the preparation methods, play a major part in the consistency, texture, and flavor of the end product.

Desserts can contain many spices and extracts to add a variety of flavors. Salt and acids are added to desserts to balance sweet flavors and create a contrast in flavors. Some desserts are coffee-flavoured, for example an iced coffee soufflé or coffee biscuits. Alcohol can also be used as an ingredient, to make alcoholic desserts.

VARIETIES

Dessert consist of variations of flavors, textures, and appearances. Desserts can be defined as a usually sweeter course that concludes a meal.This definition includes a range of courses ranging from fruits or dried nuts to multi-ingredient cakes and pies. Many cultures have different variations of dessert. In modern times the variations of desserts have usually been passed down or come from geographical regions. This is one cause for the variation of desserts. These are some major categories in which desserts can be placed.

Biscuits and Cookies

Biscuits, (from the Old French word biscuit originally meaning twice-baked in Latin, also known as "cookies" in North America, are flattish bite-sized or larger short pastries generally intended to be eaten out of the hand. Biscuits can have a texture that is crispy, chewy, or soft. Examples include layered bars, crispy meringues, and soft chocolate chip cookies

Cakes

Cakes are sweet tender breads made with sugar and delicate flour. Cakes can vary from light, airy sponge cakes to dense cakes with less flour. Common flavorings include dried, candied or fresh fruit, nuts, cocoa or extracts. They may be filled with fruit preserves or dessert sauces (like pastry cream), iced with buttercream or other icings, and decorated with marzipan, piped borders, or candied fruit. Cake is often served as a celebratory dish on ceremonial occasions, for example weddings, anniversaries, and birthdays. Small-sized cakes have become popular, in the form of cupcakes and petits fours.

Chocolates and candies

Chocolate is a typically sweet, usually brown, food preparation of Theobroma cacao seeds, roasted, ground, and often flavored. Pure, unsweetened chocolate contains primarily cocoa solids and cocoa butter in varying proportions. Much of the chocolate currently consumed is in the form of sweet chocolate, combining chocolate with sugar. Milk chocolate is sweet chocolate that additionally contains milk powder or condensed milk. White chocolate contains cocoa butter, sugar, and milk, but no cocoa solids. Dark chocolate is produced by adding fat and sugar to the cacao mixture, with no milk or much less than milk chocolate.

Candy, also called sweets or lollies, is a confection that features sugar as a principal ingredient. Many candies involve the crystallization of sugar which varies the texture of sugar crystals. Candies comprise many forms including caramel, marshmallows, and taffy.

Custards and puddings

These kinds of desserts usually include a thickened dairy base. Custards are cooked and thickened with eggs. Baked custards include crème brûlée and flan. Puddings are thickened with starches such as corn starch or tapioca.^[19] Custards and puddings are often used as ingredients in other desserts, for instance as a filling for pastries or pies.

Deep-fried desserts

Many cuisines include a dessert made of deep-fried starch-based batter or dough. In many countries, a doughnut is a flour-based batter that has been deep-fried. It is sometimes filled with custard or jelly. Fritters are fruit pieces in a thick batter that have been deep fried. Gulab jamun is an Indian dessert made of milk solids kneaded into a dough, deep-fried, and soaked in honey. Churros are a deep-fried and sugared dough that is eaten as dessert or a snack in many countries. Doughnuts are most famous for being a trademark favorite of fictional character Homer Simpson from the animated television series The Simpsons.^[20]

Frozen desserts

Ice cream, gelato, sorbet and shaved-ice desserts fit into this category. Ice cream is a cream base that is churned as it is frozen to create a creamy consistency. Gelato uses a milk base and has less air whipped in than ice cream, making it denser. Sorbet is made from churned fruit and is not dairy based. Shaved-ice desserts are made by shaving a block of ice and adding flavored syrup or juice to the ice shavings.

Jellied desserts

Jellied desserts are made with a sweetened liquid thickened with gelatin or another thickening agent. They are traditional in many cultures. Grass jelly and annin tofu are Chinese jellied desserts. Yōkan is a Japanese jellied dessert. In English-speaking countries, many dessert recipes are based on gelatin with fruit or whipped cream added.

Pastries

Pastries are sweet baked pastry products. Pastries can either take the form of light and flaky bread with an airy texture, such as a croissant or unleavened dough with a high fat content and crispy texture, such as shortbread. Pastries are often flavored or filled with fruits, chocolate, nuts, and spices. Pastries are sometimes eaten with tea or coffee as a breakfast food.

Pies, cobblers, and clafoutis

Pies and cobblers are a crust with a filling. The crust can be either made from either a pastry or crumbs. Pie fillings range from fruits to puddings; cobbler fillings are generally fruit-based. Clafoutis are a batter with fruit-based filling poured over the top before baking.

Sweet soups

Sweet soups is popular among asian country. Normally sweet soup are make from boiling water with sugar and sometime coconut cream . common fruits,seeds and even vegetable such as banana, palm,tapioca, any kinds of bean, pumpkin, Taro, sweet potato,sweet corn are perfect for sweet soups dish.

Dessert wines

Dessert wines are sweet wines typically served with dessert. There is no simple definition of a dessert wine. In the UK, a dessert wine is considered to be any sweet wine drunk with a meal, as opposed to the white^[21] fortified wines (fino and amontillado sherry) drunk before the meal, and the red fortified wines (port and madeira) drunk after it. Thus, most fortified wines are regarded as distinct from dessert wines, but some of the less strong fortified white wines, such as Pedro Ximénez sherry and Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise, are regarded as honorary dessert wines. In the United States, by contrast, a dessert wine is legally defined as any wine over 14% alcohol by volume, which includes all fortified wines - and is taxed at higher rates as a result. Examples include Sauternes and Tokaji Aszú

Meringue

What is meringue?!!

Meringue is a type of dessert or candy, often associated with Italian, Swiss, and French cuisine, traditionally made from whipped egg whites and sugar, and occasionally an acidic ingredient such as lemon, vinegar, or cream of tartar. A binding agent such as salt, corn starch, or gelatin may also be added to the eggs. The key to the formation of a good meringue is the formation of stiff peaks by denaturing the protein ovalbumin (a protein in the egg whites) via mechanical shear. Meringues are often flavoured with vanilla, a small amount of almond, or coconut, although if extracts of these are used and are based on an oil infusion, an excess of fat from the oil may inhibit the egg whites from forming a foam.

They are light, airy and sweet confections. Homemade meringues are often chewy and soft with a crisp exterior, while many commercial meringues are crisp throughout. A uniform crisp texture may be achieved at home by baking at a low temperature (180–200 °F, 82–93 °C) for an extended period of up to two hours.

History

It has been claimed that meringue was invented in the Swiss village of Meiringen and improved by an Italian chef named Gasparini between the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century. However, this claim is contested; the Oxford English Dictionary states that the French word is of unknown origin. It is sure nevertheless that the name meringue for this confection first appeared in print in François Massialot's cookbook of 1692.^[3] The word meringue first appeared in English in 1706 in an English translation of Massialot's book.

Types of meringue

There are several types of meringue: the sweetened, beaten egg whites that form the "islands" of floating island the partly cooked toppings of lemon meringue pie and other meringue-topped desserts; and the classic dry featherweight meringue. Different preparation techniques produce these results.

• French meringue, or basic meringue, is the method best known to home cooks. This method is beating egg white till become soft form than adding caster sugar bit by bit. Continue beating till the meringue become 
• Italian meringue is made with boiling sugar syrup, instead of caster sugar. This creates a much more stable soft meringue which can be used in various pastries without collapsing. In an Italian meringue, a hot sugar syrup is whipped into softly whipped egg whites until stiff, and until the meringue becomes cool. This type of meringue is safe to use without cooking. It will not deflate for a long while and can be either used for decoration on pie, or spread on a sheet or baked Alaska base and baked.
• Swiss meringue is whisked over a bain-marie to warm the egg whites, and then whisked steadily until it cools. This forms a dense, glossy marshmallow-like meringue. It is usually then baked.
• Vegan meringue is imitation meringue made using aquafaba with a small dose of vinegar and caster sugar. It holds similar characteristics to that of egg-based meringue, but it will quickly burn if torched or baked incorrectly

Chemistry

When beating egg whites, they are classified in three stages according to the peaks they form when the beater is lifted: soft, firm, and stiff peaks.

Egg whites and sugar are both hygroscopic (water-attracting) chemicals. Consequently, meringue becomes soggy when refrigerated or stored in a high-humidity environment. This quality also explains the problem called "weeping" or "sweating", in which beads of moisture form on all surfaces of the meringue. Sweating is a particular problem for French meringues in which the granulated sugar is inadequately dissolved in the egg whites, and for high-moisture pie fillings.

Shelf Life

Meringue is not a stable structure and has a short shelf life of about two weeks if stored properly. Meringue is considered a hygroscopic food, which means it absorbs water from the air. The high sugar concentration in the meringue absorbs moisture from the air and will cause the meringue to become soft and chewy.

SOUFFLÉ

SOUFFLÉ

so today i'm going to share you one of my favourite dessert.

Also it is one of the most popular dessert in every Michelin star restaurant.

Especially, It is also considered as one of the most difficult dessert.

So first let learn about what is soufflé??

What is soufflé??

A soufflé is a baked egg-based dish which originated in early eighteenth century France. It is made with egg yolks and beaten egg whites combined with various other ingredients and served as a savory main dish or sweetened as a dessert. The word soufflé is the past participle of the French verb souffler which means "to blow", "to breathe", "to inflate" or "to puff.

History of soufflé

The earliest mention of the soufflé is attributed to French master cook Vincent La Chapelle, in the early eighteenth century. The development and popularization of the soufflé is usually traced to French chef Marie-Antoin Carême in the early nineteenth century.

So after learning about the history of soufflé and what is soufflé? i'm going to share my recipe,

So this is my hot dark chocolate soufflé.

Ingredients :

Egg yolk 10 pcs

Sugar 140 gr

Butter melt 50 gr

Egg white 10 pcs

Sugar 120 gr

Flour 55 gr

Dark Chocolate Chopped 100 gr

Method;
Pre-heated oven to 180c..(you could melt the butter in the pre-heated oven)

1. First thing first, brush your soufflé cup on the inside with soft butter. Then sprinkle sugar in cup. make sure your cup is coated with sugar. After that set the cup aside in the fridge.
2. Second thing second, melt your chocolate in bain-marie method. Bain-marie method is the fancy term for a hot water bath. It's used for cooking delicate foods like custards and terrines to create a gentle and uniform heat around the food. keep stirring your chocolate till it's shiny and completely melt. 
3. Third thing third, Egg yolk with sugar we do it in sabayon method.  A sabayon is made by beating egg yolks with a sugar over simmering water until thickened and increased in volume. It's like water bath an egg yolk.
4. Forth thing forth, Whipped Egg white with hand mixing or stand mixing till the egg white become formed soft peak. Than start adding sugar bit by bit and keep whipping till it become hard form. set aside
5. Fifth thing fifth,start combine melted butter to the melted chocolate and add sabayon egg yolk to the chocolate. 
6. Sixth thing sixth,Yehhhh!! combination time!!! this is the most important part.Using a rubber spatula, fold a quarter of the beaten egg whites into the chocolate mixture. Gently fold the rest of the egg whites into the mixture, stirring until just combined. (This is very important because if you overmix, your soufflés won't rise as much!)
7. Seventh thing seventh, fill your mixture to the pipping bag and pipe to the soufflé cup till in reach the mouth of the cup. and scrape the surface of the cup. Than run your thumb along the edge on the cup. it help your souffle to rise and make it look nice >.<.
8. Last but not least,Put your souffle cup to the pre-heated oven for 12 to 16 minutes... you know what important to make our soufflé rise beautifully is NOT TO PEEK!!  But watching the soufflé rise is satisfy.
9. Serve the soufflés immediately, sprinkling with powdered sugar, whipped cream, fresh fruit, any kind of ice-cream of your choice but for this chocolate souffle i recommend to serve with coconut ice-cream. or simply just server them alone by themselves!

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