Victoria Burghi

An Impressive Dessert to Wow Your Holiday Guests

ohoadmin — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 17:59:16 +0000

An Impressive Dessert to Wow Your Holiday Guests ohoadmin Fri, 11/07/2014 - 12:59 /sites/default/files/styles/width_1400/public/content/blog-article/header-image/An%20Impressive%20Dessert%20to%20Wow%20Your%20Holiday%20Guests1400x680%20copy.jpg.webp?itok=9G1vxCtB November 7, 2014

By Victoria Burghi

The holidays bring out a little extra style and glamour in all of us. In the same way, we like to decorate our homes and dress up for our celebrations, we should create festive desserts to match the allure and the magic of the season. When deciding what to serve at a holiday gathering, I take into consideration a few factors: how easy it is to prepare a dessert, flavors I want to highlight, my budget and—of course—how much I want to impress my guests!

In terms of flavors, I like to keep holiday desserts within the seasonal range. Nothing says the holidays like cranberries, pumpkin, sweet potato or eggnog. After all, we have the rest of the year to make apple pie, don’t we? Holiday celebrations are also the time to splurge on expensive ingredients that we might avoid otherwise, from nut pastes (pistachio, almond and praline) to expensive chocolates or liqueurs. As far as impressing guests, a beautiful presentation is key. There are some obvious options, like silver and gold dragées, but with a few easy tips, you can make any sweet more glamorous and festive. If you would like to learn first-hand how to create show-stopping desserts, I will be teaching a Holiday Baking class at ICE on November 14^th. In anticipation of the class, I’m sharing one of my favorite creative holiday treats: White Chocolate Bûche de Noël with Cranberry Marmalade. The sweet nature of white chocolate provides the perfect blank canvas to showcase the tart flavor of cranberries. Cocoa butter is the main ingredient in white chocolate, a vegetable fat found in the cocoa beans of the cacao tree. This recipe uses melted white chocolate as the primary fat in a sponge cake, the base for a rolled cake or “roulade.” To create the roulade, the cake is layered with a thin coating of cranberry and clementine marmalade and filled with a white chocolate mousse. For a final touch, this bûche de noël is decorated with red and white buttercream, silver-dusted holly leaves and candied cranberries.

White Chocolate Bûche de Noël with Cranberry Marmalade

White Chocolate Roulade (yields 1 rectangular 18”X12” sheet pan)

170 g white chocolate
56 g butter
6 g vanilla
30 g water
320 g eggs
150 g sugar
122 g AP flour
1 g salt

Gently melt white chocolate and butter over a bain-marie. Add the water and vanilla extract and whisk until smooth. Set aside and keep at room temperature.
Whisk together the sugar and the eggs in the bowl of a Kitchen Aid mixer set over a bain-marie and heat until warm and all the sugar has dissolved.
Transfer the bowl to the machine and whip on medium-high speed until very thick, fluffy and increased in volume (ribbon stage)
Fold in the sifted flour and salt by hand. Mix a small amount of the batter with the white chocolate mixture and then fold in the rest of the white chocolate.
Spread the batter onto a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.
Bake at 350F for 15 minutes.
Once the sheet cake has cooled for 5 minutes, run a knife around the edges, dust with a small amount of granulated sugar and flip over a piece of parchment paper. Peel off the back of the paper attached to the cake and gently roll up the sponge cake. Allow the cake to cool rolled up until ready to use.

White Chocolate Plastic (for holly leaves)

75 g white chocolate
30 g corn syrup

Gently melt the chocolate over a bain-marie or in the microwave until completely melted and smooth.
Add the corn syrup and mix only until the mixture thickens and is well blended.
Wrap and place in the refrigerator until ready to use.
When ready, knead and roll the plastic and cut the holy leaves.
Dust the leaves with silver or pearl dust.

Cranberry and Clementine Marmalade

200 g cranberries
200 g sugar
200 g clementine segments
100 g water

Simmer all the ingredients together (low heat), stirring to avoid the mixture from sticking to the pan.
The mixture will be ready when all the water has evaporated and the fruits have disintegrated.

White Chocolate and Clementine Mousse

50 g clementine juice
2 gel sheets
150 g milk
200 g white chocolate
Grated zest of one clementine
200 g heavy cream (whipped to soft peaks)

Soak the gelatin leaves in the clementine juice and keep refrigerated for 5 minutes.
Place the white chocolate and the zest in a bowl.
Bring the milk to a boil and pour over the white chocolate.
Add the soaked gelatin and the clementine juice to the white chocolate and whisk to blend into a smooth mixture.
Refrigerate until slightly thickened.
Whip the heavy cream to soft peaks and carefully fold it into the white chocolate mixture.
Refrigerate the mousse for one hour before filling the roulade.

Buttercream

225 g butter, softened
450 g confectioner’s sugar, sifted
100 g clementine juice

In the bowl of a Kitchen Aid, fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and the sugar until very light and fluffy.
Slowly begin to add the clementine juice and continue to cream the butter until all the juice is incorporated and the buttercream is smooth.

Assembly:

Unravel the roulade, but keep the paper underneath. Spread the cranberry marmalade over the entire surface.
Spread the white chocolate mousse over the marmalade, leaving a ½” space all around the edge without mousse.
Carefully pick up the edge of the parchment paper and begin to roll up the cake.
Place the roulade on a cardboard with the seam down and freeze it until ready to finish it with the buttercream.
To create a swirled effect with the buttercream, first, brush a couple of lines of red food coloring inside the pastry bag previously fitted with a star tip.
Fill the bag with the buttercream and then pipe rosettes all over the surface of the roulade.
Decorate with the holly leaves and cranberries.

Click here to sign up for Chef Victoria's holiday baking workshop and visit recreational.ice.edu for even more pastry classes.

Recipe Holidays Thanksgiving Desserts Pastry Arts

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Sweet Spotting in Montreal with Chef Victoria Burghi

ohoadmin — Wed, 22 Oct 2014 21:47:13 +0000

Sweet Spotting in Montreal with Chef Victoria Burghi ohoadmin Wed, 10/22/2014 - 17:47 /sites/default/files/styles/width_1400/public/content/blog-article/header-image/%20Sweet%20Spotting%20in%20Montreal%20with%20Chef%20Victoria%20Burghi-%201400x680%20copy.jpg.webp?itok=cjw8J3UE Photo Credit: Pomarosa October 22, 2014

By Victoria Burghi

Blame it on Joe Beef: ever since Chefs Frédéric Morin and David McMillan opened this popular temple of elegant excess in 2005, American magazines and food blogs can’t get enough of the indulgent dishes from the capital of poutine. But while Montreal’s savory dishes get most of the hype, the city has no lack of impressive outposts for sweets. ICE Chef Instructor Victoria Burghi reports back from her recent trip to the “city of saints.”

As a pastry chef, I’ve always enjoyed exploring the food scene of a new city—in particular, learning about new styles of sweets. So I was thrilled to visit Montreal this summer and to learn about the city’s wide range of traditional, modern, unique and audacious sweets.

Rhubarb Cannolo - Photo Credit: Trip Advisor

My culinary tour of Montreal began on a Saturday night, at Toqué, one of the city’s most distinguished restaurants. After touring the impressive, highly organized kitchens, our gracious server introduced us to its chef and co-owner Normand Laprise, who greeted us from within an immaculate walk-in refrigerator with a handshake and a big smile. After an exceptionally interesting dinner in the hands of Chef Laprise, I only had room for one dessert; but it was a spectacular way to end the meal. Toqué’s rhubarb cannolo consisted of a very thin and crispy tube-shaped tuile filled with cassis chantilly cream and brunoise of strawberries. The filled shell was wrapped in gently poached rhubarb strips, so tender that they fell apart the minute you cracked the shell. This already stunning plate was garnished with mildly sweetened rhubarb purée and a blackcurrant leaf syrup. A creamy, perfectly quenelled juniper ice cream accompanied the dessert. Needless to say, my first restaurant encounter in Montreal left me hungry for more.

So, for the second day of my trip, I embarked on a rambling walk along Rue St. Denis and Rue Mont-Royal. The first stop of my Sunday tour was Pomarosa, an artisanal gelateria where I sampled avocado gelato, along with the distinctive, tropical fruit flavors of guanabana and lulo. Guanabana fruit has white flesh with hints of banana, pineapple and strawberry. It is a highly acidic fruit, perfect for smoothies or any other frozen dessert, and it’s absolutely divine. The lulo (“little orange”) ice cream was also enjoyable, since it wasn’t too sweet and offered a unique opportunity to enjoy the rhubarb and lime-like flavor of the fruit. The next stop was D Liche,a quaint cupcake boutique that offers not only sweets, but also a number of baking and decorating tools for aspiring cupcake bakers. Playing off the popularity of miniature desserts, the shop offers two different sizes, which allowed me to indulge in both their key lime and blueberry flavors.

Photo Credit: Point G

As I wandered toward Rue Mont-Royal, the range of pastry opportunities continued to grow. One of the spots that would have fit right in with New York’s portable pastry craze was Boutique Point G, a macaron boutique that offers unusual flavors like lime-basil, chocolate-sesame, crème brulée and maple taffy. A note about local flavor: one word that you quickly learn in Montreal is “érable,” which means maple. Canada is the number one producer of maple syrup in the world, most of it coming from the province of Quebec. Thus, it’s no surprise that it has become a very popular ingredient, seen in maple candies, fudge, butter, cookies and an infinite amount of other confections. This ubiquitous maple syrup was particularly celebrated at the most memorable of all my stops: À la Folie patisserie. This super sleek, ultramodern pastry shop has infused maple into three classic French pastries—choux, macarons and tarts—and would attract any passerby like honey to a bee.

Photo Credit: A La Folie

The miniature maple-flavored choux pastries come adorned with small maple-flavored marshmallows, while another noteworthy flavor included a rose water with candied rose petal and pink fondant. Next, to these beauties you will encounter happy rows of traditional French macarons, followed by an oversized invention called the YOLO—a large macaron sandwich filled with flavored mousse and cream, then dipped in chocolate. But the YOLO is only the first of the shop’s creative inventions.

I also discovered the frenesie: a choux-macaron hybrid pastry that resembles a traditional French religieuse, a cream puff base topped with a macaron of the same flavor and color. Even more ambitious, À la Folie’s delire is a work of art: the base is a round pâte sablée crust filled with either a fruit purée or cream. Sitting atop the tart is a glazed mousse dome surrounded by tiny macarons and decorated with large chocolate curls.

Even the tarts defy expectations. Instead of a traditional round tart sliced into wedges, the chef filled triangular pâte sablée tarts with frangipane or pastry cream and then, in most cases, topped the cream with a triangle of crèmeux or a light crème patisserie. The triangles are then glazed and decorated accordingly. My personal favorites were the maple and apricot tart, decorated with a half of a chocolate maple leaf, and the apple dulce de leche, whose paper-thin sheets of Granny Smith apple formed a perfectly glazed triangle on top of the crust. The entire shop was truly magical! If you visit Montreal, you must stop by these dessert destinations and taste the art behind their perfectly executed pastries.

Interested in culinary travel? Don’t miss our Chef Instructors’ guides to Rome, Paris, and Puglia.

Travel Food Culture Desserts Pastry Arts

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How to Make Perfectly Crumbly Alfajores with Creamy Dulce de Leche

ohoadmin — Sat, 25 Jan 2014 14:54:06 +0000

How to Make Perfectly Crumbly Alfajores with Creamy Dulce de Leche ohoadmin Sat, 01/25/2014 - 09:54 /sites/default/files/styles/width_1400/public/content/blog-article/header-image/caroline-attwood-243824-unsplash.jpg.webp?itok=BAWzz0Kb Caroline Attwood A Pastry Pro Shares Her Secret May 14, 2018

By Victoria Burghi

Alfajores are to Latin American kids what peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are to American children: the preferred snack and a must-have in every child’s lunch box.

These popular sandwich cookies can be made in many different ways, depending on the country they come from, but they always consist of two soft cookies with some type of jam.

In Peru for example, alfajores means two shortbread cookies sandwiched with dulce de leche and dusted with powdered sugar. In Argentina, every province has its own type, ranging from two cracker-like cookies sandwiched with quince paste (dulce de membrillo) or a softer style filled with sweet potato paste (dulce de batata) or dulce de leche. Some varieties are glazed with chocolate or royal icing. In my home country, Uruguay, our popular pastry is made with a substantial amount of cornstarch — giving alfajores a very soft texture that crumbles in your mouth — and a creamy dulce de leche center. To finish the alfajores, the sides are rolled in shredded coconut.

Back in 2001, when I worked at Union Square Café as the pastry chef, Chef Michael Romano and owner Danny Meyer asked me to include some of my dessert recipes in their latest project: the cafe's "Second Helpings Cookbook." I was thrilled that one of my favorite home country recipes — including alfajores — as part of such an iconic cookbook. Many years have gone by and the original recipe can still be found on page 304 the cookbook, but below you'll find an even better, updated version.

Alfajores

Makes 24 sandwich cookies

170 grams soft butter
Zest of 1 lemon
200 grams sugar
40 grams egg yolks
100 grams eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
312 grams cornstarch
140 grams all-purpose flour
12 grams baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
Dulce de leche
Unsweetened coconut

Using a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, cream the softened butter, the sugar and the lemon zest on medium speed for 6 minutes.
At the same speed, slowly add the eggs, egg yolks and vanilla extract. Keep the mixer running until all the liquids have been completely absorbed and the mixture looks smooth.
Sift all the dry ingredients and add them to the butter mixture. Mix until it forms a soft dough.
Scrape the dough onto a piece of plastic wrap and form a flat package. Refrigerate 1 to 2 hours.
Work with half of the dough at a time, keeping the rest refrigerated. Roll it out to 1/4-inch thickness and cut 2 1/2-inch rounds.
The scraps can be rolled out and used again, however it's best to refrigerate them at least 30 minutes before re-rolling the dough.
Bake the circles at 275 F for 8 minutes. The cookies should not have any color or they will become too dry.
Once cooled, sandwich cookies around dulce de leche and roll the sides with unsweetened shredded coconut.

Study Pastry & Baking Arts at ICE.

Recipe Desserts Cookies Global Cuisine Baking Arts

Recipe: Sweet Potato Donuts with Eggnog Sauce

ohoadmin — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 21:29:56 +0000

Recipe: Sweet Potato Donuts with Eggnog Sauce ohoadmin Thu, 11/21/2013 - 16:29 /sites/default/files/styles/width_1400/public/content/blog-article/header-image/Recipe-%20Sweet%20Potato%20Donuts%20with%20Eggnog%20Sauce_1400x680.jpg.webp?itok=KmNweydz November 21, 2013

By Victoria Burghi

Chances are, you'll have some leftover baked sweet potatoes from your holiday dinner. The morning after, wake up, smell the coffee and use those leftovers to fry up some of these delicious sweet potato donuts. (The dipping sauce will give you the energy to go shopping for the holidays to come.)

Sweet Potato Donuts

Ingredients

240 ml warm milk
7 g dry yeast
450 g bread flour
100 g sugar
7 g salt
2 g cinnamon
1 egg
42 g butter (melted)
130 g sweet potato puree
1 t vanilla extract

Instructions

Measure 130 g of baked sweet potatoes and mix with the melted butter. Use a whisk to make a smooth puree and then add the egg and the vanilla extract. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, add the warm milk and sprinkle the dry yeast over it. Whisk until completely dissolved.
Sift the dry ingredients together. Add most of the dry ingredient to the milk and yeast mixture (holding back 95gr) and mix on low speed with the hook attachment until an elastic ball forms around the hook (5-8 min)
Add the sweet potato mixture to the dough along with the rest of the flour and mix on second speed until the dough is smooth and homogenous about 5 minutes.
Keep the dough in the bowl of the mixer and cover it with plastic wrap. Allow to ferment until doubled (45 minutes) in a warm place
Carefully place the dough over a non-stick mat and roll to ½" thick. Place in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.
Take the dough out of the refrigerator and cut the doughnuts using a 3 ½” round cutter dipped in flour. Cover them with a towel and allow them to proof for another 20 minutes before frying. You should be able to get 12 donuts. The scraps can be re-rolled once.
Heat the vegetable oil to 350 F and fry no more than 3 donuts at a time.
Drain over paper towels.

Eggnog sauce

Ingredients

240 ml cream
240 ml milk
1 t grated nutmeg
½ vanilla bean split and scraped
60 g yolks
70 g sugar
¼ c Bourbon
¼ c dark Rum

Instructions

Place the milk, the cream, half of the sugar, the vanilla bean and the grated nutmeg in a medium size pot and bring to a boil. Steep for 30 minutes and then boil again.
In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the other half of the sugar.
Temper the yolks with a 1/3 of the hot liquid mixture and return to the pot.
Cook over medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon until the mixture thickens slightly. Do not boil.
Strain through a fine-mesh sieve and add the bourbon and rum.
Chill over an ice bath whisking until the mixture has cooled.
Keep the sauce refrigerated until ready to use.

Recipe Thanksgiving Fall Breakfast