First Dessert after my hospitalisation leave
22 September 2024
Dear Diary,
So! It’s been a month and three days since I’m back to work and honestly I thought I would have my work life balance balanced out but it turns out everything is pretty much the same as before my surgery. I still have the bad habit of going back to work on my days off. Be it to help with event prep or service or just to do my R&D because I am that itchy to bake.
Lo Quay closed on the 20th of July, not sure if I mentioned it and my perfect team is no more. 4 of us got retrenched, I was one of the lucky one that got saved even tho I was at risk of being let go as I was still recovering from my leg surgery. I am now working with the remaining 3 chefs of LQ at The Prince serving modern arabic cuisine. I used ‘bai ka’ time doing research on arabic desserts and honestly its revolves around knuafeh, rosewater and orange blossom. all things sweet. I had to dig deep and crack my brains on thinking up my desserts this time, in a new kitchen with 1/2 new faces that I never worked with. out of my comfort zone.
The kitchen in The Prince is much much smaller than in LQ. I no longer have my own space for pastry, no more blast freezer and walk in chiller luxury. I have now a 2 door freezer that is jammed packed to the brim, with the internal fan leaking. I spend the first 2 weeks back at work trying to figure out the flow of prep. (What are done fresh and how much to do per batch, how much to order) Space is really an issue here. I can no longer have my stacks of purees in the freezer, my pumps of ice cream ready to use. I have to plan my prep strategically. If I wanted to make ice cream, I have to HAVE TO remember to find space, freeze the churning bowl overnight and churn first thing in the morning before all the exhuast hood and grill is turned on or else my ice cream will forever be anglaise spinning. It’s another set of challenge here. I dread but look forward to the new cuisine and what I can create under the theme of ‘Modern Arabic’
I learned that Saffron is brought down to the Middle East from India and it is widely used in their cuisine. I decided i’ll try to make a parfait with it. First, I will not have to headache of the ice cream not churning. basically the art of ‘how to make my life not so difficult’ is being put to the test. Well, challenge accepted. Saffron parfait with brown sugar sable. I wanted the dessert to come in a pair. I decided to go with the fun shape of a 6 side star for the parfait. Then it got me thinking it kinda look like a sandwich! Why not make a 2 sandwiches. saffron was just saffron I need to up my game to compliment it with something else. I ended up with burnt orange and honey mousse cake sandwiched between almond joconde sponges. They complimented each other really well surprisingly.
Saffron parfait | Brown Sugar sable
Burnt Honey | Orange blossom | Almond Joconde
The design is stencilled from latte art stencil designs I got off Shopee HAHAHAH. Snow powder and you get a really simple and actually beautiful and presentable plating.
The feedback of the this dessert was actually really well received but for some reasons I feel that it is incomplete in one way or another. Maybe it is too plain? or just to simple. Maybe some pistachios on the side? or a sauce? Simple is supposedly ‘less is more’ yes I get it, but…. is it toooo simple? might put it on the next menu when I figure it out then..
