The Daniel Craig Lollipop:

Photography by PA.

Despite whatever limited coolness there might be to it due to being James Bond, I still think it’s going to be quite entertaining to see people eating this. However seeing how the release of the pops might be limited to the National Ice Cream Week (last week), it was probably hard to get one unless you were already in the UK.

According to Del Monte, the guys behind the pops, it will be available in three flavors: cranberry, pomegranate and blueberry. All of them under 100 calories. “Daniel Craig topped our poll of Britain’s coolest celebrities and thanks to our Del Monte lolly replica, he is officially immortalised as super smooth and licensed to chill,” said spokesman Matt O’Connor to the Telegraph.

Quince and Manchego:
Quince paste and Olive Oil cake, 3-month manchego, artisanal quince paste.

Goat Cheese Flan: It wasn’t really going to go on the menu… but I ended up putting it there anyway.

Yogurt Panna Cotta:
Honey-Braised Peaches, Almond-Caramel tuile.

Citrus Mousse:
Pistaccio Joconde, Camomille Gel, Citrus Crisp.

Pear Tarte Tatin:
Port Wine Sorbet, Blue Cheese Crumble

Lavender-Infused Chocolate Mousse:
Flourless Chocolate Cake, Apple Glass, Green Apple Granite.

It’s simple, but it’s working. The big seller is the Chocolate Mousse (it was in the newspaper review). Funny thing is that a lot of people deserve credit for inspiring or helping with the composition of this menu (Eric Briffard, Romain Renard, José Andrés, Frederic Robert, etc.)… but isn’t that the case these days with the amount of information we’re sharing on the Internet? I would, however, like to give a shout out to people like Michael Laiskonis and Aran, whose inspiration and advice has been invaluable.

There have been a couple of recipes from the book that I’ve liked, and while I’ve never done a recipe in its entirety, some of the recipe components have helped me complete some desserts. NorCal is one of those desserts; it’s composed by a Chevre rice pudding, candied kumquats, dates and pistachios. Just the thought of it gets me drooling.

For a recent dinner, I decided to take NorCal and use it as inspiration for dessert. I couldn’t use the rice pudding because not everyone in the group was fond of it, so I decided to make it into a flan. No rice, just a good old goat cheese flan. Candied kumquats would have to be replaced by oranges, because getting kumquats on short notice and a short budget around here would be tough. I decided to turn them into an orange purée. The pistachios would be made into a crumble and the dates simply chopped and set on the plate.

The dinner party enjoyed it, and insisted that this has to go on the menu for an upcoming project.

In case you’re interested, the recipe’s here.

Again, my wife bought what seemed like an interesting package of candies: Reese’s flavored Whoppers. Again, as in some other occasions, it seemed like the lovechild of two great candies. Also, the thought if adding this to the ongoing Reese’s theme in my last posts had me twice as excited.

As I must have stated earlier, I love Reese’s, but I haven’t found other spin-off candies to be much good. Reese’s Pieces, for example, I just steer clear of. I’d rather go for Peanut Butter M&M’s; The Mexican Hazelnut Reese’s? I think I can live without those too. As excited as I was about Whoppers meeting Reese’s there was a shadow of a doubt lingering.

There was only one thing to do, dig in. I pulled a couple of candies out and met a pale, peanut-butter colored orb. They smelled like peanut butter, kind of looked like peanut butter, but did it taste like it? I popped the first one into my mouth and let the cover melt in my mouth. It took longer than a regular Whopper, but I was in Peanut Butter and Whopper heaven. These things are good. All that was left was the fight between the urge to eat them all, and the urge to save some to make them last.

They’re all gone now. And as I’m writing this, I got a thought of what I should’ve done for the ultimate experience: mix these guys with the regular candies … instant party.

I’m taking a small break from eating Reese’s candies to bring you this recipe. In light of the recent obsession with the candy, I decided to make a Reese’s dessert for a party. I had also thought about making a Snickers-inspired dessert, but in the end, Reese’s won for, mainly, two reasons.

First off, the nougat. I didn’t really wanted to get into that territory yet. Second, I wanted to re-visit a technique for making mousse I hadn’t used since school. So here it is: Reese’s Cake. Beware, it’s a large recipe.

Brownie

320g Eggs
420g Sugar
400g Butter
250g Semi-sweet or dark chocolate
200g Flour

Melt the chocolate and the butter in a bain marie. Beat the eggs and the sugar together. Mix the chocolate and egg mixtures together. Gradually, add the flour. Pour the batter into a greased half sheet pan. Bake at 375 until done. Remove from the pan and cut with an entremet ring or rectangle. I used a rectangle and added a layer of cajeta and roughly chopped salted peanuts.

Peanut Butter Mousse

835g Pastry Cream
300g Creamy Peanut Butter
885g Heavy Cream
17g Gelatin (hydrated and melted)

Beat the cream to soft peaks and reserve. Fold the peanut butter into the pastry cream, add the gelatin into the mix. Fold the cream into the heavier mix in thirds. Pour into the ring or square of choice. Freeze.

Once frozen, I cut, glazed and decorated (sparsely) mine.

Here’s a picture of it after cutting into it, unfortunately the glazing had sat a bit too long out and it was oozing all over.

I was at first confused that they’re labeled as “new” (The peanut ones). Since I’ve known Reese’s for so long, I didn’t think there was nothing new about these. However, after some thought, I realized that they are “new” because they are no longer the imported candies. Hershey’s has a plant nearby so now they’re making a local version of Reese’s.

The peanut reeses are significantly better than their hazelnut counterparts for a couple of reasons. First up, the texture; it’s creamy like we’d all expect from PB, and the flakes, although still somewhat alien, add a nice crunch. Taste is also improved; it’s still a bit sweet but more like the flavor we’ve grown to love.

Tasting this candy left me with even more doubts, and since I think there are some imported Reese’s candies at home, I might just turn this into a “trilogy” and do a side by side comparison of the local version of the peanut candy and the original.

Stay tuned.

Being a lover of both Reese’s and Nutella, it was pretty inevitable that these new cups would attract me, so I ended up buying a couple packs. I noticed that Hershey’s Mexico decided to add corn flakes into the mix. I’m guessing they’re just trying to improve on the texture and not just throwing in some low cost ingredient to cope with the economical crisis. I tasted the peanut butter cups with flakes and they do add just an unfamiliar crunch to the candy.

On the outside, the cups look just like the typical Reese’s candy. It’s on the inside that the difference is noticeable. The filling is paler than the peanut butter. It’s also “fluffier” than the peanut butter filling I am used to eating. The pieces of cornflakes are pretty much invisible.

I was expecting something completely different when I tasted them. The filling is sweet and not as nutty as I would’ve liked. Actually I found it too sweet. This actually made it hard for me to eat more than that first cup. I prefer the taste of the classic peanut butter cups, or if I want a fix of chocolate and hazelnut, Nutella.

I started by perusing over all my old notebooks, and realizing that I couldn’t figure out what I’d written for the amount of chocolate. So I went for Pierre Herme’s Chocolate Desserts. I took the recipe from the Chocolate Eclairs. And here it is:

 Chocolate Pastry Cream

• 2 cups (500g) whole milk
• 4 large egg yolks
• 6 tbsp (75g) sugar
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch, sifted
• 7 oz (200g) bittersweet chocolate, preferably Valrhona Guanaja, melted
• 2½ tbsp (1¼ oz: 40g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1. In a small saucepan, bring the milk to a boil.  In the meantime, combine the yolks, sugar and cornstarch together and whisk in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.
2. Once the milk has reached a boil, temper the yolks by whisking a couple spoonfuls of the hot milk into the yolk mixture.Continue whisking and slowly pour the rest of the milk into the tempered yolk mixture.
3. Strain the mixture back into the saucepan to remove any egg that may have scrambled.  Place the pan over medium heat and whisk vigorously (without stop) until the mixture returns to a boil. Keep whisking vigorously for 1 to 2 more minutes (still over medium heat).Stir in the melted chocolate and then remove the pan from the heat.
4. Scrape the pastry cream into a small bowl and set it in an ice-water bath to stop the cooking process. Make sure to continue stirring the mixture at this point so that it remains smooth.
5. Once the cream has reached a temperature of 140F remove from the ice-water bath and stir in the butter in three or four installments. Return the cream to the ice-water bath to continue cooling, stirring occasionally, until it has completely cooled. The cream is now ready to use or store in the fridge.

When shopping for my ingredients, however, I decided to take it in a completely different direction and changing the chocolate for Mexican table Chocolate:

There are a bunch of more widely distributed brands available (I guess) in the US like Abuelita or Ibarra, but I stuck with local.

Also, instead of working with real puff pastry. I reached for some industrial (the shame!) version of a traditional bakery item. They’re basically caramelized puff pastry:

So, once things were all ready. I added a half liter of whipped cream to the pastry cream. Piped onto the “puff pastry” and finished with some 10x. Taste-wise it was really good, the only problem was that the pastries are a tad harder than puff pastry, so it was a hard time cutting.

The name cocada refers to many different kinds of coconut-based sweets. Depending on the region of Mexico you’re in, it may take on different colors, flavors, shapes and textures. In the northeast where I’m from, it’s a soft milk and caramel candy with grated coconut. It’s so soft, it’s usually sold pounded between sheets of wax and cellophane papers.

For this recipe, we’re going one step further and including a gently poached guava to fill with the cocada. But if pressed, just make the cocada.

Recipe:

12-14 Guavas
1-1/3 cups sugar
3 cups water
1 stick cinammon

Cut guavas in half lengthwise. Stir sugar and water together in a pot. Add the guavas and cinammon. Bring to a simmer and poach until soft. Let them cool and remove the seeds.

Cocada

1 coconut
2-1/4 cups sugar
1/4 cups milk
5 egg yolks

Crack the coconut open. Save the water and grate the flesh. In a small pot stir coconut water and sugar together. Cook until it reaches hard ball stage (128 C). Mix yolks and milk. When caramel is ready remove from heat and add yolk mix stirring briskly. Return to stove, fold coconut in and cook until thick and boiling.

Cool down and fill the guavas with the cocada.

Hope you enjoy it!

My wife handed me a pack of these after a shopping trip Stateside… She has picked up on the whole blogging idea and now if she finds some new candy, she’ll either point it out or go ahead and buy one.

At first, I was completely taken by surprise and I wasn’t sure if I was being handed chocolate or chewy candies. When I took a moment to carefully read the package, I realized what I was holding and thought that this wasn’t such a bad idea.

According to the package, the candies come in five flavors: S’mores, Vanilla, Chocolate Caramel, Chocolate Pudding and Brownie Batter. I was curious about most of them, the exception being the Vanilla flavored pieces (and that because they were the only ones not including chocolate). 

Upon opening the pack, I ran into my first “problem” with these candies: The pudding and brownie flavored pieces look nothing like the colors on the wrapping, so I couldn’t really tell them apart. All the other pieces looked pretty much like their printed counterparts, so no problems there.

Taste wise, I was generally disappointed by the Skittles Chocolate Mix. Vanilla and S’mores taste a lot like artificial vanilla flavoring. Chocolate and Caramel is more like caramel and less like chocolate and also with a strong artificial flavoring taste. The pudding and brownie were marginally better tasting like chocolate and actually looked dark inside. The package states that artificial and natural flavors were used, I’m guessing the only natural one is the cocoa.

Overall, I wasn’t pleased by the candies. What seemed like a good idea just didn’t end up being a good product. So with a bunch of other choices for caramel and chocolate chews, I’d steer clear from this one.