Forest Floor Dessert Flair

Weeks away from our Wonderful Washington Wine Pairing Party, I am focusing on all my make-ahead elements, especially anything that is intricate.  The Forest Floor dessert I have planned has many details, much to do with chocolate. (Note: the pic is just some elements, there’s still a lot more to come).

6 elements make up the Forest Floor dessert:

–Blackberry cream: blackberry pastry cream

–Edible soil: crystalized chocolate mixed with almonds

–Meringue mushroom: cinnamon flavored

–Honey moss cake: airy bits of green

–Crispy pebbles: rice crispy balls with marbled grey icing

–Chocolate décor: truffle pine cones, pine needs, twigs

The blackberry cream I will wait to make the day of the event, so it stays fresh and light. Everything else I am making well ahead (and carefully storing). This gives me a bit more time for detail work. As an ensemble dessert, I want delightful little touches with each part.

The Dirt on the Dirt

There are many cookie crumb options for making an edible soil, but mine needs to be gluten-free.  Another option was the technique of making crystalized chocolate. It wasn’t too complicated, but it does take concentration and quick timing.  Plus a hammer to break down larger pieces. I found a small meat tenderizer does the trick and its quite satisfying crushing things into little bits.

The chocolate alone makes a good crunchy soil. But of course, I wanted a bit more complexity. So, I added fine almond meal, crushed sliced almonds and cocoa powder to the mix. Final product looks good enough to put in a flower pot.

Building Tree Debris

I based this dessert idea off the blackberry chip ice cream we make in late summer, when you can smell the sun-warmed blackberry flats at the farmer’s markets. I use very thin layers of dark chocolate shards. Thin pieces are important so that the chocolate melts on your tongue as you eat frozen custard.  It needs to melt to truly taste it. So good.  

The forest chocolate décor is to incorporate those dark chocolate bits to melt in your mouth as you eat the blackberry cream. They cannot be too thick. This is why I bothered to make the pine cones as truffles with a ganache center, not a large hunk of solid chocolate.

I purchased a small silicon mold set with little forest elements. I only bought one set (fear of commitment I suppose), and it has just two pine cones cavities the right size for my dish.  So spent the past week making pine cones just two at a time. It took me a while to get to twenty-five.  Therefore, I will be stingy and give each dessert just one pinecone. If fewer people show up, I may play favorites and give some guests one extra.

Pine needles are easier as they are a flatter mold so are solid chocolate. They are to look like the brown needle shrapnel you see all over the pacific northwest. I made bits and pieces from the various branch molds. Quicker work, but it was still in batches. I really should have committed to more molds.

Next up is chocolate twigs. I plan on using the ice water method. That is where you pipe thin bits of melted chocolate into ice water, and they are supposed to instantly set in 3D twiggy shapes. We shall see.

Not A Tooth-Chipper

There is a lot of brown going on with all the chocolate elements. While the mushroom and moss cake have bright colors, it just felt like another neutral color was needed. I thought of buying chocolate rock candies, but some are very hard, and the chocolate is not so tasty.

Nothing for it, I made my own rocks out of rice crispy treats. I rolled them into little pebbles and dipped them into layers of grey royal icing. They look like they will be hard but are rather light. Hopefully a bit of a surprise and delight.

Two Week Pacing Plan

With just two weeks to go, I really must finish make anything that can be frozen or stored air-tight for a week. Currently in my freezer, I have braised chicken, mushroom sauce and now various  bits of dessert elements.

This coming week I’ll make braised beef, port reduction sauce, moss cake, and lastly meringue mushrooms. I have every dish element tracked on a calendar – so I don’t end up running this marathon all at the very end. Like many distance races, you have to pace yourself so that you have the energy to do a final sprint at the end. I ran cross-country for a year in high school. I was crap at it, but the metaphor still works.