Sweet Reflections

Goodbye, 2009! What a fabulous year you were! Full of special events, wonderful people, and a seasonal parade of delicious desserts. You started off full of promise, and didn't disappoint. Always busy, sometimes frantic, occasionally nervewracking, but so much fun. You were a year of many firsts - first Grange review, first off-site event, first print interview, the first time I've blogged - and tweeted! The first time a customer left a note for me on her credit card receipt to tell me how much she and her guests enjoyed their desserts. The first time I made a dessert featuring tomatoes - and one with duck fat, too! The first time I've gone on a field trip to an artisan food producer and then created a dessert in their honor using the fruits of their labor, a fantastic goat cheese. The first time I've been able to walk across the street from the kitchen to a farmer's market, bursting with amazingly fresh produce all summer long, just begging to come back to the pastry department with me.

I bid farewell to you, 2009, on New Year's Eve with two celebratory dishes - a warm Quince Tatin with Sparkling Wine Sabayon & Gelee, and a Dark Chocolate Chambord Mousse Cake with White Chocolate-Cranberry Bark & Raspberry Chambord Sauce. A sweet send-off, indeed, for a very sweet year!

Hello, 2010! This past year was great, but I have a feeling you might even be better! My assistant and I, unsure of each other at first, have now formed a strong partnership based on a mutual love of pastry AND having fun in the kitchen - a dynamite combination. We can handle anything you throw our way! I know now we can produce at least 700 banquet desserts in a week, because we've done it. A couple thousand mini desserts for an off-site event - is that all? A new dessert feature every week - no problem! I'm so looking forward to seeing what you bring us this year - more special events, bigger banquets, fun field trips, many happy guests, and undoubtedly more than a few surprises.

And since you're bringing gifts, I have one for you - in honor of your arrival I'm rolling out an updated menu this week with beautiful new desserts for a gorgeous new year. We'll really get this party started with Dine Downtown on Friday - ten days of Warm Apple-Cranberry Strudel with French Vanilla Ice Cream and Guinness Ginger Cake with Caramel-Braised Pears. Oh, so many desserts, so little time. Please don't go by too quickly, 2010 ... I want to savor every minute with you.

Best of Sacramento 2009

It's hard to believe it's been a year since Grange participated for the first time in the annual Best of Sacramento event at the Convention Center. Back then we were the new kid on the block, having just opened the hotel and restaurant a few days before in a whirlwind of frenzied activity. Everyone has worked so hard since then to make Grange one of the best dining spots in the city, and so it was sweetly rewarding to go this year having been voted "Best New Restaurant" and "Best Hotel Restaurant" by Sacramento Magazine subscribers.

A group of us went - me, Chef, my assistant Jackie, sous chef Brad Cecchi, extern Randy, and our PR angel Sarah Essary. Jackie and I made over 1,500 mini Ginger Guinness Cakes with Caramel-Braised Pears and Guinness Sauce to go along with gallons of Chef's Butternut Squash Soup. We all had a lot of fun handing out samples and meeting everyone who stopped by our table. It was a great party and we look forward to doing it again next year!

Today's Secret Ingredient Is ... Duck Fat!

Thursday, November 12 was the Duck-Off at Grange, a cooking competition between Chef and Hank Shaw, a local food blogger, avid hunter and great cook. As part of the special event we offered a five course dinner menu featuring duck in each course. My assignment was to produce a dessert for the menu, with the only parameters being that I had to use pears, creme fraiche and duck fat in the crust. I thought, no problem ... I can do that. I simply substituted half of the butter in my standard tart dough with the fat. It was challenging to work with because duck fat melts when you merely touch it, and the dough had to be kept very cold at all stages. But it made a wonderfully flaky crust. OK, that was done. Now what? I wanted to surprise Chef and Hank by using the fat in another way in the dessert. I thought of how it's used in savory cooking, such as sauteeing potatoes in duck fat. Hey, what if I sauteed the pears in it? So that's what I did. I used small Bartlett pears, peeled, cut in half, cored, then sliced but with the halves kept intact. Sauteed in the hot fat and sugar, the pear halves took on a glistening golden brown color, with the slices softening and fanning out like a bird's wing. They tasted wonderfully sweet, but also had a delicious, lightly savory flavor from the duck fat. Pulling the dessert together, I chose huckleberries and port as the complementary components.

I assembled the dessert by filling the tart shells with lightly sweetened whipped creme fraiche and cream, then topped that with a layer of sweet huckleberry compote. The compote was drizzled with a port and star anise syrup, then a sauteed pear half was fanned out over it and napped with a pear brandy sabayon. I used a propane torch to toast the sabayon and warm the pear. A little more of the port syrup on the plate completed the dessert.

I was really pleased with the way it all came together and loved how the pears looked against the dark purple huckleberries. The duck fat made a great flaky crust but also gave an unexpected yet intriguing flavor note to the sweet, juicy pears. It was such a fun dessert to create and Hank told me that the pear tart was one of the most complimented dishes of the night ... very cool!

Featuring ... Dessert!

As some of you may know, Grange offers daily 3-course dinner menu features in addition to our regular menu. I'm pleased that we're now offering a special dessert each week to accompany the feature menu. We're starting today with an Orange-Almond Cake with White Wine Poached Pears and Orange Muscat Sabayon. The cake is citrusy and nutty, made with ground toasted almonds, chopped whole oranges and olive oil. It's garnished with D'Anjou pears which are poached in white wine with a little bit of sugar and lemon juice until they're just tender. The pears are sliced and laid against the cake, then sprinkled with slivered candied oranges. The cake is topped with a lovely orange muscat sabayon which is lightly toasted. Delicious! Next week we'll offer a new dessert, so if you'd like to try this one you'd better come in soon!

The Sweet Flavors of Fall

Fall is my favorite season. The days grow shorter, the weather cools and the bright, juicy fruits of summer give way to the burnished yellows, oranges, reds and browns of apples, pears, persimmons, quinces, cranberries, pomegranates, squashes and sweet potatoes. To celebrate the change of seasons I've put several new desserts on our menu joining our Chai Creme Caramel with its infusion of cardamom, cinnamon, fennel, clove and black peppercorn ... believe me, if fall had a flavor it would be this dessert (see 9/28 post below). Our seasonal lineup now also includes Sweet Potato Tart, Guinness Ginger Cake and Apple-Cranberry Strudel.

I make the Sweet Potato Tart by roasting orange sweet potatoes until they're soft, then pureeing the flesh. I blend the puree with eggs, milk, cream, brown sugar, cinnamon and ginger, then pour the filling into pecan tart shells and bake them at a low temperature so they bake evenly and gently. The tarts are garnished with a dollop of toasted meringue, and flanked by candied pecans and a compote of butternut squash, Granny Smith apples and maple syrup. The gently spiced, creamy filling marries beautifully with the nutty pecan crust and the maple poached squash and apples - it's a delicious change from the usual pumpkin pie!

The Guinness Ginger Cake is packed with flavor - it has molasses, dark brown sugar, Guinness, ground ginger and cinnamon, and lots of candied ginger. I wrap the top of each little cake with slices of caramel-braised D'Anjou pears, then top them with lightly sweetened whipped cream and a candied pear chip. Since the taste of the Guinness is subtle in the cake I emphasize the flavor of the beer by making a sauce with it. I slowly reduce Guinness with dark brown sugar, then streak the sauce across the plate and place the cake on top. The cake is served warm so that the deep flavors really come through - the sweet pears are such a great complement to the moist, gingery cake and slight bitterness of the sauce - yummy!

Last, but certainly not least, is our Apple-Cranberry Strudel. In fact, it's already become very popular with our customers and staff as well. I slice Granny Smith apples, add dried cranberries and gently cook the fruit with brandy, white and brown sugar, and butter until the apples are just tender. The fruit is drained and the cooking juices returned to the stove to reduce to a lovely caramel, with cinnamon and a touch of cloves stirred in at the end. The fruit is then added back to the caramel and the mixture is laid out on phyllo sheets that have been buttered and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. The strudels are rolled up like giant burritos and baked until golden brown. I make an apple-brandy sauce by reducing apple juice, brandy, lemon juice, brown sugar and cinnamon to a syrup, which is drizzled over the warm slices of strudel and French Vanilla ice cream. Oh, is it good - warm apples, sweet-tart cranberries, cold ice cream and flaky pastry ... not the mention the brandy ...

I hope you can join us for dessert - the sweet flavors of fall won't last forever!

A Perfect Storm ... of Desserts

This past week was the busiest banquet week we've had at the hotel since we opened last November. In five days, from Monday through Friday, the pastry department produced for banquets 700 plated desserts, a full sheet of focaccia and four extra batches of flatbread in addition to our regular production for Grange. The list of desserts included:

• Chocolate Caramel Tart w/Caramel Sauce - 30


• Gianduja Moussecake w/Chocolate Sauce - 30 (a new banquet dessert; see picture, right)


• Mixed Berry Shortcake w/Orange Buttermilk Scones - 30


• Deep Dark Chocolate Cake w/Espresso Sabayon - 100


• Lemongrass Panna Cotta w/Ginger Cookies - 30


• Orange-Almond Cake w/Mixed Berries - 100


• Chocolate Raspberry Moussecake w/Raspberry Sauce - 60


• Chocolate Mousse w/Brandied Cherries - 30


• Lime Tarts w/Lime Curd - 35


• Apple Crisp w/Cinnamon Anglaise - 30


• Butterscotch Pudding w/Milk Chocolate Dipped Shortbread Cookies - 230

The desserts required various components and accompaniments and I'm proud to say that we make all of them in-house: tart shells, cake layers, cookies, sauces ... even the brandied cherries. It's an incredible amount of work but I think it shows in the freshness, taste and quality of the final product.

And of course all of these banquets meant that we had a full hotel for most of the week, so we also needed plenty of desserts for Grange. To make the week even more challenging my assistant, Jackie, was out sick for two days.

But you know what? We all pulled together, and with a little help from externs and stewards we made the banquets, we kept Grange well stocked, and we had a lot of very happy guests. And, we managed to have some fun, too, as you can see from Jackie's picture. She's posing a la Vanna White next to one of the banquet carts loaded with the Deep Dark Chocolate Cake.

It's so important to have a relief valve when you're faced with this kind of daunting workload. Jackie and I share a lot of laughs as we work and allow each other to vent when we need to. I'm very fortunate to have an assistant who cares about the desserts as much as I do.

I'm not eager to repeat this kind of week any time soon, but I do know that when another dessert storm appears on the horizon, the pastry department will handle it with determination, perseverance ... and humor!

Variety is the Spice of Life

One of the things I love most about being a pastry chef for a restaurant and hotel is getting to make a wide range of products. In addition to creating Grange's desserts, Jackie and I also produce flatbread, foccacia and brioche, banquet desserts, breakfast breads, chocolate amenities for hotel guests, celebration cakes for restaurant guests marking a special occasion, the weekly desserts for the Follow The Chef market tours, and more.

Today I went in early to bake off fresh breakfast breads for a meeting that Joie de Vivre's CEO, Chip Conley, was having in the hotel. We made sweet cardamom rolls, orange scones, coffee fruitcake, banana chocolate chip muffins, and almond brioche. I liked the cardamom rolls so much that I might put them on the brunch menu since they can be made a day ahead and left in the walk-in to rise overnight. It's a great sweet yeast dough that's spread with a cardamom, brown sugar and butter filling, rolled up, cut and baked. The rolls are glazed with a powdered sugar and milk icing ... YUM. I think the coffee fruitcake will go on the menu because it's perfect for the fall/winter season. It has coffee, molasses, cinnamon, clove and nutmeg and is loaded with raisins and currants. It's delicious thinly sliced and spread with a little cream cheese.

Two weeks ago I designed a dessert for the Food & Wine Society, a gourmet group that's having a banquet in the hotel later this month. After looking at Chef's menu, which already featured sparkling wine and Sauterne, I decided to do a dessert with port. I made a pecan tart crust, put down a layer of fig and port compote, and topped it with fresh, halved Autumn Royal, Flame and Muscat grapes tossed in a concord grape and port syrup. I crumbled a little Pt. Reyes blue cheese on top and accompanied the tart with roasted figs and grapes, port-glazed candied pecans and lightly sweetened creme fraiche.

And of course we have some new desserts at Grange. We just introduced a Chai Creme Caramel, a Plum Galette and a new cookie plate. The Chai Creme Caramel is fantastic - the custard base is infused with cardamom, fennel, cinnamon, clove and black peppercorn. It tastes like fall! We unmold it onto a crispy shredded phyllo disc with a layer of date and honey puree underneath and a cardamom and coffee poached date half on top. The caramel flows over everything when it's umolded and then we sprinkle some sugared pistachios on the plate. The Plum Galette has a layer of almond cream, sliced Italian prune plums, cinnamon sugar and a raspberry-brandy glaze. It's served warm with a scoop of French Vanilla ice cream, balsamic caramel and cinnamon anglaise. Our new cookie plate features maple pecan butter cookies, apple pie bars and chocolate chip gingersnaps.

My job keeps me very busy, but I absolutely love what I do and enjoy the challenge of coming up with so many different items for the restaurant and hotel. Now I think I'd better get back to designing a couple more new desserts for the menu this week!