Grand Marnier Soufflé Glacée, Raspberry Sorbet, Crème Glacée A La Vanille, Vacherin

 

Special Guest

It's another mise en place lesson today as we prepare some variations of cold desserts: iced souffle, sorbet, ice-cream, and an old classic combination of the three, Vacherin.

I was feeling under the weather today and was tempted to stay in bed sick and miserable, but I'm glad I didn't, for we had Chef Keith covering Chef Michael who was meant to be covering Chef Karen for demo. Confused? Doesn't matter, we got *Blue Eyes*, that's what matters. So I apologize if some of the pictures seem well, a little out of focused from the subject at hand, but I'm entitled to my shameless adoration ever so often, and this is my free pass.

Boiling & Cooling Ice Cream Mix

The beginnings of all ice-creams starts with boiling milk, cream and vanilla to pasteurize the dairies, which is then cooled before an egg yolk and sugar mix is whisked in, to keep the egg from scrambling. The mix is then sieved into another bowl to remove any nasty bits of egg shells or membrane, and to help cool the ice-cream mixture down.

Hastening the cooling process will keep the dangerous dairy-and-egg mixture from basking in the bacteria-happy open for too long, and the sooner we finish, the sooner we eat ice-cream!

Churning On

The brand new, state-of-the-art ice-cream machine is something you'll have to sell your wife and kids to raise money for, as it costs a whopping $40 grand to procure. A hefty investment necessity, if you're into the ice-cream business.

Away we go churning the ice-cream until it freezes into the right consistency, at which time the volume will increase by about 50%, also known as over-run, due to the aeration and formation of ice-crystals in the churning process.

The ice-cream is then pressed out of the machine, into a sanitized and frozen bowl, to be kept in the freezer ready for use, tomorrow.

Piping Meringue For Vacherin, Dusting Shell Meringue With Cocoa Powder

 

Vacherin is the French version of Bombe Alaska: a cold cake made with meringue, ice-cream and sorbet, all covered in a layer of whipped cream. While Bombe Alaska is blanketed in meringue and set ablaze, the Vacherin is served as it is, sometimes with fruits for decoration.

Cooking Souffle Over The Bain Marie, Lining Ramekins With Acetate

 

Pouring Into Moulds

Now this was as close as we got to a complete product today: egg yolk, orange zest and sugar syrup cooked over a bain marie (again to avoid direct heat or we'll be scrambling more eggs than McDonald's on a busy Sunday morning) then cooled, lightened with half-whipped cream and flavored with Grand Marnier, all poured into ramekins to be chilled, alas, for tomorrow.

Chef Keith Showing Us The Saccharometer

I suppose some valuable tidbit of information is warranted, to justify putting up yet more pictures of Chef Keith: 

The saccharometer is device used to measure the amount of sugar in a solution. First constructed by John Richardson in 1784, it consists of a large weighted glass bulb with a thin stem rising from the top with calibrated markings.

The saccharometer is first immersed into a cylinder filled with liquid in question, then the sugar concentration is read from levele where the surface of the liquid crosses the scale. It works by the principle of buoyancy. A solution with a higher sugar content is denser, causing the bulb to float higher. Less sugar results in a lower density and a lower floating bulb.

There, now stop judging me.