Saturday, March 21, 2015

Dessert Bar by Pastry Chef Cora James

Pastry chefs are garnering more attention lately. Instead of being stuck with the last course where most diners are beyond bloated, pastry is now stepping into the limelight (finally!) One way pastry chefs are giving their creations the stage it deserves is by offering a dessert tasting menu, and Cora James (@CoraCake) is doing exactly that with Dessert Bar.

Cora, a pastry chef at Bar Buca, founded Dessert Bar last summer with the vision of bringing plated desserts and cocktails together. This is further explained on Dessert Bar's Facebook page:

"By placing equal emphasis on both, Dessert Bar encourages indulgence and sin...It is the sort of place you bring a date after dinner, but before you go home. It is the sort of place you gather with friends, over cocktails and loud music and gossip. Dessert Bar is excessive and indulgent. It seeks to be the space where all your sinful behaviour is tolerated, if not encouraged."

I, for one, feel encouraged that I am encouraged to indulge in as many cocktails and dessert plates as I please. I welcome this behaviour!


 I had the pleasure of attending Cora's third Dessert Bar event a.k.a Dessert Bar 3.0 at Belljar Cafe last week. The four-course tasting menu offered a multitude of flavours and textures, beginning with the palette cooling vanilla milk custard with pickled mango. Served alongside a cocktail made with Mezcal, amarena cherry, creme de cacao rinse and habenero bitters, this certainly is a good sign of what was to come. I especially enjoyed the stampede of the senses coming from the pickled mango, the slightly chewy mochi and the crunchy puffed rice granola. I have to admit that I was confused, then thrilled.

VANILLA MILK CUSTARD, PICKLED MANGO, CHOCOLATE MOCHI, PUFFED RICE GRANOLA


The second plate is a delicate assembly of profiterole topped with balsamic cheesecake surrounded in peanut butter praline and pecan. I deliberately split the one-bite profiterole into a three bites since the only way to achieve a perfect bite (to me at least) is to have on every spoon a pastry puff with some of that crunchy nutty deliciousness.

PROFITEROLE, BALSAMIC CHEESECAKE, PEANUT BUTTER PRALINE, PECAN


The beautiful Cora James at work.



Our second cocktail: Hakutsuru sake flip, ginger, burnt honey


The sesame baklava was excellent. The layers of thin and crispy phyllo was done to perfection. However, what intrigued me the most about this plate was the marriage of components and flavours accompanying the baklava. The helva was especially delicate yet gritty, which created a crumb-textured mouthful with varying types of deeply flavourful sweet notes from the wildflower honey, date, and candied lemon. The flavours here are definitely focused and bold. 

SESAME BAKLAVA, ROSEWOOD ESTATE WILDFLOWER HONEY, HELVA, CANDIED LEMON, DATE.


 The final act is romantic. Composed of a soft white-out cake, pretty dollops of rosewater frosting and a dusting of black tea powder, the end result is light, which seems impossible after three courses of dessert. I didn't particularly enjoy the dried strawberries; I almost wish they were fresh ones instead as I was longing for something to cleanse / wet my palette.

WHITE-OUT CAKE, ROSEWATER FROSTING, DRIED STRAWBERRIES, ROOIBOS TEA CARAMEL, BLACK TEA POWDER


Cora's Dessert Bar 3.0 was structured perfectly in that the lighter more tart combinations came first followed by richer and more indulgent courses. The artful and aesthetically pleasing presentations on all of the desserts make them really easy to love. Cora combines marvelous ingredients together, letting them shine through with a minimum of sweetness, or balance out the sweet with contrasting sour or salty components. Her repertoire of desserts are never one-note when it comes to texture either; there is bound to be a satisfying crunch in there somewhere.

 Make sure you follow Dessert Bar on Facebook for updates and event schedule!

Related Post: