10/20: Anatomy of a dessert

When it comes to dessert ideas, I always follow my taste buds.  I come up with my best stuff when I indulge my sweet tooth.  This could be why I’ve never really had a desire to make “low-cal” or “healthy desserts.”  What’s the fun in that?  Since I’ve been consulting for an Asian style restaurant I’ve been able to tap into all my childhood favorites for inspiration–particularly the sweet stuff I craved from the dim sum cart.  One of them is this visually stunning confection called the black sesame roll.  When I was a kid I called it “Kodak” because it was as black as camera film.  It’s delicate gelatinous layers could be unraveled like a fruit roll up and eaten in one long strip.   And so began my fascination with anything black sesame–mom’s rich, impossibly silky sweet black sesame soup, black sesame candy, and more recently mom’s mochi with sweet black sesame filling.  So when I was thinking about new desserts it came to me–why not try to make something with black sesame?

Thus was born the coconut and black sesame panna cotta.  This would be the perfect amalgam of two of my favorite Chinese desserts, black sesame soup and coconut pudding (well really more like coconut jello).  The coconut panna cotta was easy enough.  I substituted a certain amount of coconut milk for whole milk, added some coconut powder to the cream and a tiny bit of coconut extract.  The black sesame creme, however, proved to be a bit more challenging.  Lucky for me, mom is a great resource.  In fact she rose to the challenge and actively participated in my experiments.  Did you know you have to rinse the black sesame first to flush out the sand and grit, and then carefully toast them in a wok to bring out the nutty sweet aroma?  And who knew that certain brands were “blacker” than others?  The brand mom favors has more pure black sesame seeds than the one I bought, which to my dismay had far too many pale seeds that did not impart enough color to the milk and cream even when steeped overnight.  And just how much ground black sesame does it take to give the panna cotta the right shade of dark graphite?  A hell of a lot!

After all the experimentation, I got the seal of approval.  Mom loved it.  Now of course it could be that she had a hand in it’s creation.  But then again, I couldn’t have done it without her.

Posted October 20th, 2010  |  2 Comments