One of the tasks that we’re given in the last unit of our pastry program is to design a pastry menu for a restaurant. This assignment is a way for us to show our creative side, since most of the time we’re taught the classical and traditional French way to make desserts. The focus of the program is on techniques, and by learning those techniques we can expand and design our own layouts.

If you know how to make a traditional souffle, you’ll know to make a ginger infused mango souffle with basil-mango sauce, right? Right.

So now that the last month is upon us (I know, I can’t believe it’s been 6 months already) we’re going full steam, and the first BIG assignment in the slew of work is the Menu Project, which was due yesterday.

The problem with the project was its’ vagueness … vagueness on how much you should or could do. Some people simply came in with a menu, some came in with large books, table layouts, business plans, and some didn’t come to school at all …

My restaurant theme was “Southern cooking prepared in an elevated and sophisticated manner.” The restaurant, Kitchen, was located in Gramercy (as to attract downtown and uptown clients, and profit from the happy-hour young after-work crowd living in the neighborhood).

The menu reflects what I love about dessert. When I get dessert, I don’t order sorbet. If that’s my option, I go sans dessert. I like dense, rich, decadent, and sinful. And the South is one of the few places that instead of covering up their obsession with butter and sugar, embraces it.

If I were to have a last meal, I’d eat my dinner in Northern California (completely organic, local, natural, filled with veggies and local meats), and then I’d fly to South Carolina and eat my dessert in the dirty-dirty.

So here’s my menu and an assortment of pictures from souffle day (cassis berry souffle) and crepe souffles. What would you get?

kitchen

Gingersnap Creme Caramel

Sweet Potato Whoopie Pie filled with Marscapone

Cast-Iron White Chocolate Hazelnut Bread Pudding

Poured warm toffee sauce

Coconut Creme Cake with Grapefruit Curd

Macerated Grapefruit and Rum Salad

Traditional Chocolate Turtle Torte

Cream Cheese Ice Cream

Vanilla Brown Butter Teacake

Mini Root Beer Float with Butter Pecan Ice Cream

Set of Three Beignets

Dusted Powdered Sugar and Cafe au Lait Sauce

Banana Creme Parfait

Toasted Marshmallows and Graham Cracker Brittle

Mint Julep Ice Cream

Served in 3 mini house-made griddle cones

Stuffed Roasted Dates with Caramelized Pecans

Served warm with Blue Cheese

The kicker is I have to make two of these for my final next week in plated desserts … and the chef picked the two I knew he would: Gingersnap Creme Caramel with Sweet Potato Whoopie Pies and Coconut Creme Cake with Grapefruit Curd.