in the kitchen x chocolate, lavender, and cherry blossoms

I know, I'm obsessed with Spring. After such a cold winter, it's been such a relief to feel the warm weather upon us and see the small changes in the array of ingredients at the farmers market. To lighten up the chocolate dessert on the menu, I thought, flowers. I wanted to bring floral notes to the dessert, one that would enhance all the different notes of dark Valrhona chocolate that I tend to use. Lavender brings a nice bright floral element to the dark chocolate and hazelnut flavors. The addition of cherry blossoms is unusual, since they are pickled in salt and vinegar. A balance of sweet, sour, salty, and sweet. All in one dish.

in the kitchen x spring garden

My official first Spring dessert is on the menu! Featuring an all veggie dessert (don't be scared!), it's become one of my favorites. Whenever I describe this dessert, people usually look confused. While the idea of a vegetable dessert does not have the same mouth inducing result of something like a warm brownie, chocolate sauce, and vanilla ice cream, this is delicious. Not to fear, this dessert is a crowd pleaser. White asparagus, sweet pea and mint ice cream, and lemon meringue is an intriguing and delicious combination. Add on the rest and it's a bona fide dessert.

These are cape gooseberries, also known as golden berry. Funny enough, these are not related to berries, but to vegetables such as tomatillo and tomatoes. The taste is similar to a sweet and tart mini tomato.

in the kitchen x the beginning of spring

The beginning of Spring marks a whole array of fresh produce and new products for chefs to use. Unfortunately this year, the late arrival of Spring leaves much to be desired. The lack of produce as a result of such a cold and long winter leaves one feeling meh. To start off this new season, I decided to play around with the flavors of lemon, basil, and yogurt. Good citrus is still available and I wanted to ease into Spring without having to use the first of the season's fruits. I love to wait until its the height of the fruit season before fully incorporating it into my dessert. Here's to the first dessert of Spring.

One of our chefs had made fresh cheese with rennet, and I had a bunch of leftover mise en place. I thought, why not play around with these ingredients?

With the City Grit dinner on the horizon, I finalized this vague concept into a full-fledged dessert. Basil yogurt, honey-roasted peanuts (I know, I'm obsessed with incorporating this into everything!), lemon curd, cake crumbs (for ice cream), and micro basil.

A sneak peak of the final outcome.

What makes this dessert so delicious is the dairy used from Argyle Cheese Farmers. They have the best yogurt in NY state, which was used in both the basil yogurt and greek yogurt sorbet.

Lemon cake, lemon curd, basil yogurt, microbasil, honey-roasted nuts, and greek yogurt sorbet. Ready for Spring!

in the kitchen x grapefruit, green tea, yogurt

Now that we're nearing the end of winter, brainstorming for Spring desserts have become my biggest priority. When thinking of a new seasonal menu, I never think of flavors together, but rather ways in which to highlight an ingredient. My idea was to play around with citrus, a bridge between winter and spring. What better way than to make a fruit curd. Popular curd flavors include lemon, lime, and orange. My favorite flavor of curd happens to be grapefruit. I love how the bitter grapefruit is tamed with the addition of eggs, sugar, and butter. The biggest surprise of this dessert happens to be the crumble. It is a basic green tea crumble, but it's the flavors that are added after that makes it come alive. This entire dessert brings about flavors and ideas people are familiar with, such as curd or a crumble, but it is the way it has been treated that makes the familiar new.

in the kitchen x chocolate, passion fruit, and coconut

When you have an abundance of ingredients, it's nice to challenge yourself to create a cohesive dessert from a variety of extra things you have on hand. This dessert consists of components from a couple of different desserts and extra ingredients I had on hand. I had leftover passion fruit semifreddo batter from the baked alaska dessert. Toasted coconut was already on hand. Cocoa nib crumble leftover from a tart. Coconut cupcakes prepared for family meal. Chocolate ice cream for emergency requests. Sometimes these dessert challenges fail, but this time it yielded something delectable. That's the best thing when you set challenges for yourself, your never quite know the outcome.