Oven Roast

Previously, in Fractured Amy's kitchen ...

I discovered when roasting white chocolate a la Eric Ripert and Michael Laiskonis that the unwary novice may easily come under the impression that disaster has struck and feel the need to implement a Backup Plan to ensure there will be dessert for hungry diners.

Following my fraught but ultimately successful fabrication of Caramelized White Chocolate Panna Cotta. I did some experimentation to discover where I (or indeed, the recipe) might have gone wrong. I discovered that there was nothing amiss with my oven thermostat or my white chocolate, but that the fault lay with my baking vessel (the material for which was unspecified in the recipe); the recipe's stipulated timing (which was completely off); and Chef's silence about the dismaying things that happen to white chocolate when you roast it.

Well, I can reveal this last secret now - and it makes total sense if you think about what is happening in the oven. I have written of the glories of the Maillard reaction before and foolishly did not consider its implications for the caramelization of my chocolate. For any browning of the milk solids to take place, it was of course first necessary to evaporate all the moisture - hence the chocolate's alarming transmogrification from creamy dreaminess to grainy goop. What appeared to be the same sort of seizing that betokens ruination for most chocolate applications was, in this rare case, necessary and desirable. While it's true that with a certain amount of logical deduction I might have realized this on the day, I was too caught up in anxiety to think clearly at the time. A bit of explanation and/or warning in the recipe would have saved me a good deal of trauma.

During my experiments I tested different sorts of baking vessels to see if they made any difference to the final result. The answer was an unequivocal yes. When I first made the dessert I had used a Pyrex baking dish, which resulted in a cooking time of just over an hour (more than twice the time stipulated in the original recipe). I found I could most closely approximate Eric's estimates by using an enamelled cast iron gratin dish, but even then elapsed oven time was 40% longer than promised. A note to that effect in Avec Eric might have proved comforting.

In addition to these obvious difficulties, I was unable to duplicate the recipe in the book exactly due to limitations beyond my control: the ingredients list called for sheet gelatin (like most home cooks, I had only packets of powder on hand) and whole milk (which I never have in the house). I therefore had to adapt the recipe somewhat to suit the ingredients available. It is this modified recipe that I present, below.

The original recipe called for a garnish of blood orange marmalade. While this sounded like a delicious addition to the dessert, I decided to challenge conventional wisdom and make use of items I already had in the house, viz. amarena cherries left over from Christmas dessert. I heated them in a pan with butter and brandy and poured them on top of the panna cotta just before serving. I also scattered on some sugared pistachios for crunch and color. The result was heaven.

I hereby present readers with (dare I say it?) a new, improved, and foolproof recipe (including warnings, provisos, and issues arising) for ...

Caramelized White Chocolate Panna Cotta (after Eric Ripert)

• 6 oz very good white chocolate, in small pieces
• 1.25 teaspoons powdered gelatin (approx. half an envelope)
• 1 cup heavy cream, in a microwavable pitcher
• one-quarter cup 2% milk, in a small bowl

Heat your oven to 300 deg F. Place your chocolate in a heavy baking dish and roast for fifteen minutes. Give it a good stir. Keep roasting, stirring every ten minutes or so, until it's grainy, lumpy, brown, and unappetizing (picture). It will become very stiff - make sure when you stir it you scrape every bit off the bottom and sides of the baking dish, or it will burn. In my experience, cooking time is anywhere from 35 minutes (enamelled cast iron) to one hour (Pyrex). Different baking dish materials may render even more variable results.

When it seems that the chocolate is almost ready, sprinkle the gelatin onto the milk to soften.

Heat the cream in your microwave. As soon as it boils, remove it and let it cool just until it stops bubbling. If it's still boiling when you pour in the milk/gelatin, you will have unfortunate results.

Slowly dribble the cold milk/gelatin into the hot cream, whisking madly all the while. Quickly retrieve your white chocolate from the oven and transfer it to a mixing bowl. Carefully add the cream mixture, very slowly at first, so that the white chocolate dissolves utterly and there are no lumps. Some vigorous work with a spatula is required to burst the granular particles and achieve smoothness.

When the mixture is cream-like again, pour it into dessert ramekins and cool on the counter. When it achieves room temperature, cover tightly with plastic wrap and store in the fridge to set, three to five hours.

The recipe says it will make four desserts, but we found the panna cotta to be very rich and will henceforward be dividing it among six dishes.

Next up: I reveal the Backup Plan