Passionfruit Butter

Joel Dondis, owner of La Petite Grocery and [charming/beautiful/museum-like/delectable/innovative/colorful/pop-fizzy wonderful/all of the above] “sweet boutique” Sucré was kind enough to invite me to this morning’s media event at Sucré’s kitchen in Mid-City. The scene? People older than me (also known as professionals), most of whom I happily met-in-person for the very first time (hi, René, Peter, and Robert!). Sweets were abundant, leaving even me feeling at a loss, which is why I’ve split this into multiple parts.

For those of you who don’t know, an entremet is literally a “between meal”: a small dish that you eat between courses. In this case, that is exactly what it was; I ate it between my bowl of cereal this morning and my later courses of chocolates, gourmet breakfast pastries, velveteen gelato, and cupcakes. In most other cases, it is simply an impossibly beautiful and meticulously crafted dessert item.

First up: the Fraise.

Think of this as Strawberry Shortcake 2.0. The cake is jaconde, fluffy but rich with a warmth of flavor thanks to the almond flour (also known as, do not mistake the presence of egg whites as an indicator of angel food cake; this is so much more than that). There’s a generous pat of strawberry gelée hidden at the core. The layer above the jaconde is actually vanilla mousse, though you wouldn’t be able to tell since this is so beautifully self-contained and smooth (compare to the mousses I’m prone to make, which are fluffy and spill everywhere like a drunk courtesan). Despite the silken appearance, it’s still got a very delicate (very mousse-y) texture, with the unmistakably full flavor of pure vanilla that compensates for the mediocrity of fake vanilla everywhere. Topping it all off is just a sheen of strawberry gelée. Now, I think many cooked-down forms of pure original fruit lose a lot of that natural essence, but this gelée was not in the least bit compromised by the cooking process; it retained every ounce of its intense strawberry flavor.

Hello, Caffé Caramel. You are tall, dark, and handsome, with maybe a proclivity for Russian literature. It’s a pleasure to meet you.

This fellow is one I have seen countless times, basking behind the thin glass of Sucré’s dessert counter, but I have always had a bit of trouble straying from my favorite, the Tiffany (I’m saving her for last on this post). At restaurants, I actively fight the temptation to order beloved dishes and try to push myself out of my comfort zone to order new things whenever possible, but dessert is such a more intimate and indulgent habit that I have absolutely no qualms ordering my favorite entremet. I was, however, excessively excited to get a nibble (or thirteen) of this today.

The crumbly thin layer on the bottom is technically a cake, though it’s incredibly dense, enough to make cutting with the side of a plastic fork just a bit awkward (but possible nonetheless). It lends just the right amount of structure and variety of texture to the dish as a whole. The dollop you see in the middle is a caramel cremeaux, and it’s surrounded by milk chocolate coffee mousse. The two are similar enough in flavor and consistency that you feel them in your mouth as one multifaceted entity, as opposed to that caramel stuff or this chocolate stuff. I have a kind of love affair with caramel, since the presence of salt in any good version amounts to the perfect salty/sweet ratio for me. Therefore, the caramel (in the cream on the inside and in the glaze on top) was a really nice treat for me, and the big picture of chocolate/caramel/coffee is classic for a reason. Rich, warm, buttery, sweet-brown-sugary. I believe those are cacao nibs sprinkled on the top. Good call.

Hello, Tiffany. You are a short round woman who collects formal hats and enjoys going to the opera. You are decadence incarnate. Reader: are you one of Those who snub their nose at the trite combination of chocolate and raspberry? Take a single bite of this, and that you will be no longer. Tiffany is a disciple.

This, like the Caffé Caramel, has a tremendously thin layer of cake at its foundation, though this cake is much more cakey in the traditional sense, lending itself to the soft richness of the dish itself. The light pink layer at the bottom middle is raspberry mousse; directly above it is raspberry gelée. I LOVE these two elements, especially that they’re right on top of each other. Whatever technique was used to harness the strawberry flavor in the gelée on the Fraise is used here in both the mousse and the gelée, so you have a very prominent RASPBERRY flavor that weaves the two parts together in your mouth, unifying them to the extent that there’s not an overload and most definitely no dissonance. However, the textures are wildly different, the mousse velvety-whipped and the gelée dense and fruity, so there’s just the right level of intrigue. I love the color palette here, too, and the fact that they look encased in the mousse as though they’re on display at an art gallery or the Smithsonian. It’s like all the chocolate that blankets it wants you to see this superior raspberry goodness at its heart. There’s a similar dynamic with the flavors, so that the rich chocolate mousse acts quite well on its own but acts better when it’s working with the raspberry. It’s a study of dark/light, dark heavy cocoa/delightful rejoicing fruit; the chocolate and raspberry, like the mousse and gelée, are perfect complements. Overall, this is really just a treat to eat, though the best part is making that first stab through the satiny dark-chocolate glaze (which, I might add, has been fancified with a dusting of super-fine edible glitter. Oooh, GLITTER!).

More coming: chocolate bonbons, legendary macaroons, fresh-out-of-the-oven viennoiserie… Ah, yes, I’ve just touched the surface.