Velouté of Bittersweet Chocolate with Cinnamon Stick Ice Cream

It's no coincidence that I saved this as the next-to-last dish to make. Why? Because I'm incredibly bittersweet about this project coming to its inevitable conclusion, so this dish seemed fitting to hold until near the end. And, I also have to confess that it's taken me ages to write this post, because as excited as I am about starting on the Alinea Cookbook, I'm more than a little melancholy about this particular project coming to an end... so I've been procrastinating on putting this up.

My apologies to those of you who've emailed over the past few days with, "Um, Carol? Are you, like, dead or something?" No, I am not injured, dead, or ignoring you. I'm just spending more and more time with every last dish and every last post, because this has been such an incredible project, and I want to savor every last bit of it. And because, let's be honest, procrastination is in my freakin' DNA.

Alright, alright, I'll save all the mushiness for a future post. Let's get our velouté on.

In the intro to this dish, The French Laundry Cookbook reads: "Here, a seductive disk of molten chocolate sits atop a frozen platform of cinnamon ice cream -- for that hot-cold surprise -- in a pool of chocolate sauce."

If I had written the intro, it would've gone something like this: "Holy $(%#$(%, people; you will NOT want this dessert to end. Mother$(%*#$(%&$."

See why Michael Ruhlman is the writer, and not yours truly?

Thought so.

I did this dish over two days, and I think for the best results, you've got to do it that way. Or else, start reeeeealllllyyyy early in the morning to serve it that night. I reeeeealllllyyyy hate early mornings, so I spaced it out over two days. It worked perfectly. The first thing I did was make the chocolate velouté. Here's the mise en place:




I made the meringue by putting the egg whites and some of the sugar into a mixing bowl over a pan of simmering water. I whisked it until the sugar had dissolved and it had gotten a little foamy, then set the mixing bowl on my mixer stand. I whipped it with my trusty Kitchen Aid mixer (man, I love that thing) for a little over 5 minutes -- by then, the meringue had cooled, had soft peaks, and was light and fluffy.








During the five minutes it took to whip, I prepared the chocolate part of the equation. I poured the milk into a saucepan, then sifted in sugar, cocoa powder, flour, and salt and whisked it to combine everything. Then, I whisked in the egg yolks. Over medium heat, I kept whisking it until it had gotten to the consistency of pudding or custard. Then, I kept cooking it and whisking it, until it had gotten a nice sheen to it and had thickened even more.




I'd had a gelatin sheet soaking in water, so I squeezed out the water and dropped the gelatin into the mixture -- still whisking -- then removed the pan from the heat. Then, I stirred in the chopped bittersweet chocolate and stirred it until it melted completely.

I transferred this mixture to a mixing bowl, where I whisked in one spoonful of the meringue.






When that had combined, I folded in the rest of it.






I put this chocolatey goodness into a ziploc bag, cut off the tip, then filled the ring molds with the mixture:



I covered the tray of ring molds with aluminum foil and put it in the freezer overnight.



Before going to bed, I also made the custard for the cinnamon ice cream, because that needed to cool overnight.

I combined cream, milk, and a cinnamon stick in a sauce pan, brought it to a simmer, then covered it and turned off the flame so it could steep for 30 minutes.



I removed the cinnamon stick and added some sugar, then brought it back up to a simmer, stirring to dissolve the sugar.

In a separate bowl, I whisked the rest of the sugar with the egg yolks:




Then, as with any ice cream custard, I tempered the eggs with some of the warm cinnamon-milk-cream mixture, then poured the tempered yolks into the saucepan and continued heating and stirring until the custard thickened and coated the wooden spoon I'd been stirring it with.

I poured the custard into a bowl, set that bowl in a bowl of ice, and stirred it every now and then until it had cooled to room temperature. I strained the cooled custard into a separate bowl which I put in the fridge overnight to cool completely.






I woke up early the next morning, because I wanted to get the ice cream moving along so it would be done in enough time to serve this dessert later that afternoon. It was the weekend, and what better time to serve dessert before dinner, right?

I removed the bowl of custard from the refrigerator and put it in my ice cream maker for about 35 minutes. Then, I slathered the nearly frozen ice cream onto a plastic wrap-lined sheet pan and spread it into a 3/4" layer. I covered it with foil and put it in the freezer for a few hours to harden.







When the ice cream had hardened, I cut out six disks (2" in diameter) and returned those to the freezer until I was ready to plate:




Next up? The cookies. They don't get any billing in the dish's title, but they were instrumental in pulling this dish together and were actually quite tasty.

In a bowl, I whisked together regular all-purpose and pastry flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.




In my mixing bowl (using the paddle attachment), I beat together butter, sugar, brown sugar, and honey.




When they had combined, I slowly added in the dry ingredients and kept mixing it until everything was incorporated.

Then, I put the cookie dough onto a Silpat. The dough was kind of crumbly, so I smushed it together as best I could.



I covered it with a piece of parchment paper and rolled the dough into a 1/8" thick layer.




I put the Silpat -- with the dough still on it -- onto a baking sheet and put that in the freezer for an hour. After the hour was up (during which time I got a TON of work done... and by work, I mean Twittering, natch), I took the dough out of the freezer, removed the parchment, and placed the mat o' dough onto a baking sheet and baked it at 350 degrees for 8 minutes.

At the 8-minute mark, I used a 2" round cutter to cut out disks...



... then returned the pan to the oven to bake another 3 minutes. When they were done, they looked like this:



I let the cookies cool for a few minutes, lifted them off the mat with an offset spatula, and stored them in a container until it was time to plate.

The last thing I had to do before finishing the dish and plating it was to make the chocolate sauce. Witness, my bittersweet chocolate:


I chopped it:




Then, poured some warm cream over it:




Then, after a minute or two, stirred it:



I don't know why the hell anyone would buy that nasty-ass ready-made chocolate sauce at the grocery store when you can make something this good so easily.

Just before my friends were due to arrive (okay, walk 30 feet from their front door to mine), I baked les veloutés. I put the cookies on a baking sheet, then gently pressed out the frozen chocolate veloutés from their ring molds, placed one atop each cookie, and baked them in a 400-degree oven for 12 minutes.







In the final plating shot, you'll see what they looked like when they were done baking.

To plate, I poured a small pool of the chocolate sauce into the dish, then centered an ice cream disk, which I topped with a baked velouté... and dusted the whole shebang with some powdered sugar:



Doesn't that look like if someone served it to you, you might actually say, "Holy $(%#$(%, people; I do NOT want this dessert to end. Mother$(%*#$(%&$."?????? Thought so.

So, how did it taste?

Let's refer to the photographic evidence:



That's my neighbor kid, "C," who finished this dish in record time.






He loved it. I loved it. We all loved it. And, I wish I had made more. It was rich and creamy, and we all could've had seconds and then fallen asleep from the massive sugar rush that would've ensued.

The velouté was hot and creamy inside... the ice cream was cold and the cinnamon with the chocolate was so fantastic... and the chocolate sauce? Alone, it's worth the cost of buying this book. I mean it.

The hot-cold combo is especially fantastic when the ingredients are this good. I remember, as a kid, going to Bob's Big Boy after a band concert or other elementary school parental torture device, and ordering the hot fudge cake with the ice cream layer inside, drenched in chocolate sauce. When I was nine years old, I used to dream about that cake (and mashed potatoes with succotash mixed in, but that's a story for another blog) -- the warm chocolate cake, the cold vanilla ice cream, the hot fudge sauce oozing down the sides of the dessert... and now, I've figured out how to not only bring back that glorious dessert memory, but make it a kabillion times better.

And you know what? It's not hard to make. AT ALL. Nothing was troubling, puzzling, or made me feel like I was about to experience a big, fat, colossal FAIL. It was incredibly straightforward, and without a doubt, one of the best things I've ever put in my mouth.

But there were five other people at the table. Did they all love it as much as I did?

Well, imagine this, times six.


I think you have your answer.


Up Next: "Cornets" -- Salmon Tartare with Sweet Red Onion Crème Fraîche

Resources:
Eggs from Smith Meadows Farm
Domino sugar, confectioners' sugar, and brown sugar
Organic Valley milk and cream
Ghirardelli cocoa
King Arthur flour and gelatin sheet
Noi Sirius bittersweet chocolate
Cinnamon from TPSS Co-op
Savannah Bee Company sourwood honey


Music to Cook By: Heart; Greatest Hits. Because I needed to sing "Magic Man" and "Barracuda" at the top of my lungs. It was just one of those weeks.


Read My Previous Post: Baby Lamb: Five Cuts Served with Provençal Vegetables, Braised Cipollini Onions, and Thyme Oil (Part 2)