Tag Archives: #dessert

A FANTABULOUS Dish the Gianduja Chocolate Mousse from Confluence Restaurant in Carefree AZ – Worth a Fork!

FANTABULOUS means – Top of the line, marvelously great, peachy keen, and DYNAMITE! The Gianduja Chocolate Mousse from Confluence is all that! I usually don’t pick desserts for the FANTABULOUS Dish but this one is exceptional. All the food I had that evening was truly amazing. Everything was creative and masterfully prepared like from the best restaurant anywhere but….a really FORKING FABULOUS dessert sure doesn’t happen at most places (even the most expensive of places)……. really is The Forking Truth….just saying.

Gianduja Chocolate Mousse from Confluence in Carefree AZ

Gosh it’s tragic that you can’t taste it because it’s more FORKING FANTABULOUS than I can describe…..They don’t have a pastry chef here……The chef here does it all (bakes delicious breads, prepares all the dishes….probably washes all the dishes and pans)…and creates the desserts too! ………….and It’s like this Gianduju chocolate mousse came from the finest restaurant…..anywhere.

We got Gianduja Chocolate (that’s a sweet chocolate spread with 30% hazelnut) mousse. On top of the mousse is something that looks like a cheese curl but it taste just like orange zest!!!! I don’t know WTFork it is but it’s crunchy and orange zest-e. Maybe it’s some sort of concentrated dehydrated orange segment?…….The yellow sauce on thee plate is caracara orange curd that has the perfect amount of sweet and tartness to it with a lot of orange flavor it’s so YUM! To the right is caramelized white chocolate ganache that’s also is wonderfully flavorful with a rich mouth feel. The the left is a chocolatey Florentine cookie and there are other crunchy yumminess that make things more interesting. It’s just FANTABULOUS! It’s a very rare that you get desserts this jaw dropping astonishingly delicious!

The Gianduja Chocolate Mousse from Confluence in Carefree is a FANTABULOUS Dish!

Worth a Fork!

Worth A Fork!

The menus at Confluence do change often. You might have already missed it? (but they are sure to have something else that is also amazing)

www.RestaurantConfluence.com

36889 Tom Darington Dr Carefree AZ

480-488-9796

Everything is subject to change. Remember thee menus do often change!

The Forking Truth

Chocolaty Beet Brownies with Beet Coconut Caramel Beet Meringues

I got this recipe off the internet and had to edit it, simplify it, change some ingredients and change the amounts of the ingredients to make it work. I wound up with something that is this that is FORKING delicious. The original recipe was originally in metric. So I continued fixing the recipe in metric. I do like cooking in metric…..metric is perfection…and the measuring is so easy. This recipe makes 6 brownies and around 12 meringues.

Ingredients for 6 servings

1 medium/large beet – skin removed – beet grated – split into two bowls. Slightly larger amount of beet to go into the brownie mix. – brownie (smaller 1/2 is for caramel)

60g 100% chocolate grated – brownie

50g unsalted butter – melted – brownie

100g sugar – brownie

1 egg – beaten – brownie

15g cocoa powder – brownie

15g flour – brownie

neutral non stick spray – brownie

1 egg white – meringue

50g sugar – meringue

1 Tablespoon beet powder (or juice from a beet) – meringue

110g sugar – beet coconut carmel

45g water – beet coconut caramel

150ml coconut milk – beet coconut caramel

1/2 reserved shredded beet – beet coconut caramel

Directions

Set oven to 250 degrees F or 121 C

Make meringues.

Whip egg white till stiff. Fold in sugar and beet powder. Get a pastry bag with a large star tip and squirt them out on a parchment covered baking sheet. Put them in the pre-heated oven for an hour. Then shut oven off and let them cool down and harden.

Make the beet coconut caramel.

In a sauce pan add the sugar and the water on medium high heat. DON’T STIR. This will eventually boil and you want it to turn brown. When it turns brown then take it off the heat and add the coconut milk and the reserved shredded beets and stir. BE CAREFUL because this will foam up. Keep to the side.

Make the brownies.

Set the oven to 350 degrees F or 180C . Get your muffin pan and spray 6 of the muffin cups with non stick spray. In a large mixing bowl combine the beetroot, chocolate, butter, sugar, egg, cocoa powder, flour and mix well. Evenly fill the 6 spots for muffins in the pan. This needs to stay in the middle rack of the oven till cooked. All ovens do differ. In my oven at 15 minutes mine were almost done but I could feel the center was ever so slightly wet so I put them back. In my oven mine were done in 18 minutes. At 18 minutes my kitchen smelled like chocolate and I knew they were done. After I tasted one I knew it was perfect.

I made a drizzle real fast that I never measure. I had a handful of white chocolate chips, a small knob of butter and the end of my 100% unsweetened chocolate (around 60g) and I carefully melted hit in my microwave and drizzled it all over the brownies.

Put the brownies together and enjoy.

Chocolaty Beet Brownies with Beet Caramel, Beet Meringues

This is a winner!

You will make this again!

The Forking Truth

OMG YUM – Luna Gelateria Scottsdale AZ – Mind-blowing Crazy Good Amazing Gelato

 

Luna Gelateria serves authentic style artisan Italian Gelato. Ingredients from different parts of Italy are used for the Gelato but the dairy products are only locally sourced. The machinery that makes the Gelato is state of the art Italian machinery. You can watch the fresh Gelato being made in front of your eyes.

The interior of the Gelato Shop is upscale, rich and modern and is connected inside to Pomo Restaurant next door. (You can see the open kitchen from a seat at Luna)

What am I going to get?

You can’t really tell from my photo but the machinery is spinning and many flavors of gelato are being created. Some of them are not ready. The first one I got to taste was called Luna (pistachio/chocolate chip) OMG stop right there….It’s the FORKING Best Gelato I ever tasted anywhere……….AMAZ-BALLZ It’s so creamy and velvety……but it really is the flavor…….It’s amazing Pistachio……It’s the best!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s so FORKING Flavorful……They made the chocolate chips creamy and they don’t take away from the pistachio……SOOooooooooo…Pistachio-eeeeeeeee…….Never had a gelato like this before……

My husband asked to try the Giaduio (hazelnut/chocolate) WOW it’s so good….so creamy unlike any other gelato I had before…..but with perfect really great flavor…..so good…. Yum YUM DE-Lish! The hazelnut is such a magical flavor and yummy….The chocolate is really a really good chocolate-teeeeeee.

It will be difficult to ever try another flavor since these were so amazing.

OMG YUM! Mind-Blowing Crazy Good Amazing Gelato!

******(our local newspaper published on Feb. 19th 2018 that breakfast and lunch was available here. On the day of my visit Feb. 24th Luna had Pomo Menus scattered around and lunch was offered next door (at Pomo) (They weren’t ready to serve lunch yet)…….perhaps lunch will be available soon at Luna. As of today March 1st 2018 Luna doesn’t have a food menu posted on their website)

Luna Gelateria is Worth a Fork! …………. OMG YUM! Mind-Blowing Crazy Good Amazing Gelato!   🙂

Worth a Fork!

www.LunaGelateria.com

Everything is subject to change and your experience may or may not differ.

The Forking Truth

 

WTFork is a Clafoutis Part 3

Clafoutis Type of Dessert From Bottega in Yountville CA

Clafoutis Type of Dessert From Bottega in Yountville CA

I had my first Clafoutis at Chef Michael Chiarello’s Restaurant in Yountville CA and ever since I became fascinated with this unique dessert of French origin that seemed light, rich at the same time, airy and accented with delicious fruit. The Clafoutis is basically a custardy, pancake like batter with fruit. The only fruits used for clafoutis are cherries, black berries, plums, prunes, apples and possibly cranberries. I found conflicting information about cranberries so I’m not sure about forking cranberries. When you use another fruit than the ones listed the name of this dessert changes to a flaugnarde.

Then I found Micheal Chiarello’s recipe for an apple Clafoutis so I made one.

Apple Clafoutis

Apple Clafoutis

The batter tasted and had pretty much the same texture as the one from the restaurant. This dessert is very good. But I still have an interest in learning different recipes for clafoutis. The Michael Chiarello Clafoutis were the lightest and airiest of the clafoutis so far.

I also studied several other recipes for clafoutis and I found they were all very different.

So I decided to try Chef Raymond Blanc’s recipe for clafoutis because he is French but is also one of Britain’s most respected chefs. He also owns a two star Michelin Restaurant/Hotel.

IMG_4833

This Clafoutis also was richer and also custardy but had a slightly sugar sanded surface that added another texture to it. In Chef Blanc’s recipe he recommends not to add anything else. The clafoutis is done at this point and should be served warm. This is the only warm one I had so far.

I recently tried the sour cherry clafoutis from Bink’s Midtown in Phoenix AZ.

Sour Cherry Clafoutis from Bink's Midtown Phoenix AZ

Sour Cherry Clafoutis from Bink’s Midtown Phoenix AZ

The Bink’s Midtown clafoutis was the most custardy of all the clafoutis I tried. Instead of being like a custardy pancake batter this clafoutis was more like dense flan. (but not in a bad way)  The Bink’s Clafoutis was also very layered with many flavors and textures.

So this is WTFork I found out about the Clafoutis so far Part 3

The Forking Truth

The Forking Truth