Presentation vs. Flavor Explosion

Living in Michigan has it's up and down sides.  There is fantastic produce, the people are kind, and hiking is great here.  Also there are few jobs, a strange obsession with cars, and a higher-than-normal occurrence of allergies.  For boyfriend and I, however, Michigan also means great distance between us and our families.  This is both a positive and a negative.  While we get to have our run of the place without worrying what our mothers will think of the state of our bathroom, we also have to travel for at least a day to see our families.  In 2009 we went to Minnesota and spent Christmas there.  It was lovely, but extremely busy with running around the Twin Cities seeing everyone we ever possibly knew while living there.  In 2010, we went to Nova Scotia to spend Christmas with my dad and step-mom.  It was much more relaxed and while we had a great time, taking an entire day to fly there and another day to fly back was a bit much.  So for 2011, we decided to stay in Michigan for the holiday.  Knowing that I would have an entire week off, my only option was to go batshit crazy and bake something really out of hand.  So I decided to make this.

You see those layers?  That spike of caramel?  See how perfect it is?  I wanted to do that.  I wanted a challenge, something that would help bring my baking to the next level.

Looking at the recipe, I knew I would have to spread this out over a couple of days.  On day one, I started with the sables.  The recipe is very easy, but the dough was very crumbly.  This concerned me as I rolled it out and then as I baked the cookies.  They turned out wonderfully though.  Buttery and delicious, definitely worth eating on their own.  I was off to a great start and feeling confident, I looked at boyfriend and declared that all I had to do was "two things" on Christmas day.  Ha.

Back tracking just a little, I was unable to find cranberries anywhere.  Apparently the only time of year when you can get them is Thanksgiving and so if you want anything cranberry for Christmas, buy early and store them.  This was little issue in the end as raspberries were on sale and sounded great with maple and walnut.

On Christmas day, I began making the raspberry gelee.  I had started out thinking that reducing the berries down would only take 20-30 minutes.  Again, ha.  Not only did the raspberries take over an hour, but I had to strain them twice to get all the berries out.  More importantly, the gelee would not thicken enough.  I doubled the gelatin in the god damn thing and still it was runny.  I reached my 'fuck it' stage and put it in the fridge to cool.

With the sables and gelee finished, all that was left was for me to make the mousse.  Sounds easy enough, right?  Well I had never made mousse before and had no fucking idea what I was doing.  My first try resulted in scrambled maple eggs, leaving me without enough maple syrup for the finishing glaze.  My second try took over an hour (again) and seemed very runny.  Looking at the recipe, I was to halve the mousse and incorporate some of the gelee into one half of it.  I did this and it destroyed any hopes I had of achieving a presentation even remotely close to what is seen in the recipe.

After letting everything cool, I started assembling.  First the maple mousse (which turned out great), then the gelee (which was runny), then the mousse/gelee mix (which was a terrible consistency), and then topped with the sables that were not resting on top of the other ingredients like I had hoped.  I put the little bastards in the freezer and dipped some walnuts in caramel to give the semblance of a fine dining dessert.

After chilling in the freezer, I removed the monstrosities and ran a knife around the edges.  I then inverted and...nothing.  I ran the knife again and...nothing.  I slapped the dish a few times to loosen the dessert out of the molds and...nothing.  My presentation was officially ruined.  I served them to boyfriend and myself in their cooling dishes with the sables on top and the caramel walnuts on the side.  The dessert was delicious.  I mean really phenomenal, but I couldn't get the presentation right and that is the story of my baking.

I can bake just about anything.  I don't mean that to sound arrogant or conceited.  I mean that I have a love and a skill to make delicious baked goods, BUT I am terrible with my presentation.  I'm not a visually artistic person.  I'm a writer by trade and so while I would love nothing more than to be able to make beautiful baked goods, I am left making ones that taste wonderful but look like Sloth from The Goonies made them.

It doesn't matter though, because people will still eat and love what I make.  Now if only I could incorporate a pirate ship...