Make Ahead

I like serving these with Corn Panna Cotta (page 83), but they’re also delicious with cheese and perfect to put out with beer for Sunday football.

These elegant nuts are a great accent to summer fruits. If you can find the longer, thinner pistachios from Sicily, use them for this recipe—or any time you’re eating pistachios. They have the best flavor.

What I like most about this caramel is the balance the salt provides; you taste caramel, not sugar. The key to making this is cooking the honey long enough so it just crosses from being sweet to bitter. You could use this as a crunchy topping for ice cream. Or pour it into a ring mold when you make it and use it as a layer in a cake.

I often put these nuts under ice cream, but they make a great bar snack, too.

This recipe makes more than you will need for the Rhubarb-Flan Tarts on page 40, but you can use it for any fruit cobbler or crisp or crumble. I love those kinds of desserts.

When I was a young cook, every restaurant I worked in used a tuile to present ice cream. The tuiles kept the ice cream from sliding around on the plate; but while they were pretty, they didn’t impart any flavor. So I started making crumbles and streusels to set underneath ice creams. They have the added bonus of reinforcing flavors and adding texture. I lay quenelles of ice cream on a pile of these intense chocolate crumbs, but you could easily sprinkle the crumble over a scoop of ice cream.

This riff on Crispy Almond Phyllo (page 211)—caramelized with confectioners’ sugar and with peanuts as the nut flavor—is a great example of how versatile this technique of layering phyllo and nuts is. These crisps have a great nutty flavor and crunchy texture to pair with something soft or creamy.

I love the texture that shatteringly crisp phyllo—brushed with butter and sprinkled with almond flour—adds to desserts. You can easily manipulate the flavors by using different nut flours or even instant espresso powder or dried coconut between the layers.

So much of recipe development is taking an ingredient and manipulating its texture without diluting the flavor. This is a good example. I have always liked the texture of puffed-rice cakes but not the flavor, which seems bland to me. So I’ve developed a cracker that highlights the nutty flavor of rice.

Meringues are a staple in the pastry kitchen because they can carry so many different flavors. Here, cocoa powder and cacao nibs are combined to create tremendous chocolate flavor.

Try making this sweet, delicate cookie with any nut. It’s a terrific garnish for ice creams or chocolate desserts.

I love the flavor of graham crackers, but I have always thought the crackers are too thick. So I grind them, rebind them, and make them thin and very crisp.

One of the most important things I learned from Thomas Haas when I worked with him at Daniel was the significance of texture in desserts. I also learned this recipe from him. This tuile is super-crispy. The sesame seeds toast as the tuile bakes, which brings out their nuttiness, and the sugar caramelizes, bringing in a slightly bitter edge.

This is the most visual of all my tuiles, shimmering and translucent. The sugars lend texture as well as carry the delicate flavor of the flax seeds.

This crisp, sweet almond cookie looks beautiful and has tremendous flavor and a perfect layering texture. What’s great about the batter is that you can freeze it or keep it in the refrigerator and just pull it out when you’re ready to bake.

This bread is a staple in the pastry kitchen and it has many uses—from French toast to croutons. The direct mixing method and overnight rise is a technique I picked up over the years. Brioche freezes beautifully.

This bread gets put to so many uses in my kitchen, from pressed sandwiches to croutons (which could go on a cool sundae). You could use it for French toast or as the base of a chocolate bread pudding. Or just slather it with butter and jam for breakfast. I recommend keeping some of this bread on hand in the freezer.

Use this technique to make infused oils with any soft herbs, such as tarragon, basil, and mint. I use herb oil as a garnish whenever I want an intense, concentrated herb flavor in a dessert. Think about serving strawberries and ice cream with a drizzle of black peppermint oil. Or drizzle some tarragon oil on a salad of tender lettuce and shrimp.

I’m not giving quantities here, since you can make as much as you like. Crystallized herbs bring a bright, sweet herb flavor to the plate when you use them as a garnish. You can follow the same procedure with rose petals, too; just make sure they are unsprayed, or pesticide-free.

I use a lot of vanilla beans in the restaurant, and I always reuse the pods, rinsing and drying them before storing. Sometimes they become a garnish (see page 186), but often I use them to make this perfumed sugar.