Pouding Chaud Au Sauce Chocolat, Chocolate Sauce, Fruits Grilles Avec Sabayon Au Cointreau

Chef's Fruit Sabayon, Self Saucing Chocolate Pudding

My Mum's coming to visit this Friday, which is exciting, but it is also a school day - yikes! Rather than miss any lesson we pay so dearly for, I switched my classes to the first half of the week, which meant working with different classmates and possibly different chefs.

The planets must have been aligned in my favor, for we had Chef Keith for demo, which made my day; I've been really disappointed to have him for just 1 class this term. Then again, no amount of face time will ever be enough, will it? 

Chef Keith & His Toys

For today we made some easy chocolate puddings and grilled fruits sabayon. I know I always say that but trust me, it usually is a lot easier than than you think, so long as you pay attention in class and not just stare at your darling Chef Keith the entire time like I was. 

Good thing the class was easy to follow, or I would've been totally lost...in his blue eyes...

Grilling The Fruits & Pouring The Sabayon

Sliced fruits were macerated in a gallon of kirsch (really just 10g but who's counting??) before being arranged on a plate, sprinkled with icing sugar and blasted with the fire power of a handheld blowtorch till the sugar caramelised and colored the fruits. Next up the sabayon.

Sounds French and fancy? It probably is. Only with most things French, it's about a few basic ingredients, a bit of skill and a whole lot of love. Egg yolk and sugar are whipped over a bain marie till light and fluffy before being poured over the fruits and blasted on again.

Sabayon is traditionally grilled under a salamander, but a blowtorch works just as fine and twice as fast, and is the preferred choice of many in the industry these days.

Making Cocoa Sugar & Bubbled Glass

This being a rather quick class, Chef Keith also showed us some tricks to making decorative sugar work. He made it look so easy that I decided to put aside my disdain for sugar (St Honore was a painful class) and give it a go today.

Cocoa On Cocoa On Cocoa

For the chocolate pudding we mixed butter, eggs, sugar and flour, your basic cupcake recipe, essentially. For some self saucing magic, just bake the pud for half the time and you will have an uncooked centre that when cut into, flows into a lovely pudding at the bottom of the cake.

As the uncooked center contains raw flour which may not be all that good for you, we baked the cake through and made some chocolate sauce to serve alongside the pud.

Fruit Sabayon & Pud With Some Bubbled Glass

The pud was dense and slightly springy. Drizzled with chocolate sauce it was a very satisfying desert, so good that for once I made it without adding any booze (rum would have been my choice in the matter). If you do want to make self saucing pudding like you know it, place some good quality chocolate pieces in the centre of the mix before baking it through.

Chef Keith In Sugar - Can He Be Any Sweeter?

Plated Grilled Fruits & Brochette

As usual I macerated my fruits in way too much kirsch, which had me all red-faced after tasting it. They did go well with the light and sweet sayabon. Putting the fruits on a skewer, or brochette in French, makes them easier to handle as well.

I like working with plated desserts, the change is welcoming after weeks baking heavy duty cakes, and I get to try out various ideas on the plate. I think I did pretty well today, you think?

Chocolate Eruption