Dessert Plate Production: Day Two

I'm not going to lie, this whole dessert plating thing is a bit of a pickle. We plated our desserts from yesterday today, and we prepared all the pieces of the plated dessert for tomorrow. You may remember that we prepared a while lotta chocolate and caramel bits for today yesterday.


You saw this tart yesterday without the ganache or Elvis-like amount of gold


But you didn't see this little nugget -- Chocolate puddin' topped with cocoa nibs

Once the desserts were finished, all the components were a little tough to put together. With all the elements on the plate, it was hard to find a way to plate them all together.


First I tried this way...


Then I eliminated the salted caramel ice cream (I just ate it because it tastes so good), and tried a different arrangement which I liked a little better.

Tomorrow's dessert is some kind of coconut and pineapple parfait and I have to be honest, I was not a fan of the individual parts and so I'm a little unsure about the finished whole. The base is a pineapple gelee, then there is a layer of coconut gianduja (basically a coconut and rum mixture lightened with whipped cream and stabilized with gelatin), then a very, very thin layer of coconut dacquoise, then another layer of the gianduja. Tomorrow we are going to be dressing the parfait with a layer of almond stresel (basically, almond-flavored dough that was frozen and grated with a cheese grater, baked and then cut to fit the top of the parfait glass) and a dehydrated piece of pineapple. Maybe if I was a coconut fan this would delight me but being that I'm not, it is difficult to be passionate about the parfait.

No matter. What's important is that today's plates tasted good and I think they turned out ok. This last plate is one made by Shannon, J, and Alicia. It is a gianduja parfait with caramelized bananas. I plated it for fun and thought it looked purty enough to share with y'all.