FLAVORS
Breakfast ingredients make an easy transition to dessert preparations.
By Rob Benes
Desser t?
BREAKFAST
for
BREAKFAST foods and ingredients
have a new home on the menu: desserts.
But many breakfast-enamored chefs
admit their interpretations of familiarity
and nostalgia are sometimes first met
with bewilderment.
“People expect to find overly sweet treats
on the dessert menu,” says Bernard Guillas,
executive chef at The Marine Room, La Jolla
Beach & Tennis Club, La Jolla, Calif. “But if
you take the time to prepare a healthy and
flavorful dessert using breakfast ingredients
that people are familiar with, present it in an
elegant manner and have the dessert satisfy
their end-of-the-meal sweet craving, people
will be receptive.”
Hedy Goldsmith, executive pastry chef at
Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink, Miami,
says another key element in preparing
breakfast-inspired desserts—and any
dessert, for that matter—is to not over-
think the recipe. “Keep desserts fun and
playful using familiar food along with new
or current ingredients,” she says. “Don’t be
too serious about what you’re making, and
try to invent a dessert that makes guests
ask themselves what they’re eating.”
MANAGEABLE DESSERTS
Goldsmith menus two breakfast-inspired
desserts: a tangerine creamsicle pot de
crème with hot buttermilk donuts and
blackberry tarragon marmalade, and a
French toast panini. “A pot de crème is
delicious on its own, but I believe the donuts
are why people are ordering the dessert,”
she says. “The donuts give a contrasting
texture and flavor to the pot de crème.”
She says the impetus for the dessert was
just to be playful and fun. “Donuts are
traditionally a breakfast item, but why can’t
they be an anytime-of-the-day thing, and
especially served for dessert?” Goldsmith
says. “It’s one of our biggest sellers.”
Bernard Guillas reinterprets the classic
crème brûlée with this Irish steel-cut
oatmeal crème brûlée with apple/fig salad
at The Marine Room.
