Flourless and frozen

Thursday, November 16

So was the title of our class today and I went in intrigued...

Today was all about frozen and refrigerated desserts, including sorbets, ices, granitas, gelatos, ice creams, fruit compotes, rice puddings (I made this with brown rice, fresh almond milk and maple crystals), parfaits, puddings, cold fruit terrines, pastry creams, tapioca puddings, made in more healthy ways with ingredients such as brown rice syrup, fresh almond milk and natural flavours. One of my favourites was the vegan vanilla ice cream made with rich almond milk, which we made, natural vanilla, maple syrup and brown rice syrup, though all were yummy and it was hard no to eat too much. The good thing is that most of the end products melted quickly (vs the commercial types which have stablizers in them to hold them for a long time) so they either were eaten quickly or turned into mush. Our teacher Guido, Seinfeld's former personal chef, owned a gourmet ice cream and chocolate place in the West Village for about 10 years ,which supplied upscale restaurants in town and the public. He said that he would put up a sign for people to scoop ice cream and would get a number of young people that would later become celebrities such as the Beastie Boys band members, Julia Roberts, writers for Sex in the City, etc.

Later, on to Candle 79 and all the head people seemed to be there... the owners, the head chef, the head manager and chef. It was a busy night and I still managed to hold on to staying upstairs for now....