Chocolate Pots de Crème Recipe

Chocolate Pots de Crème Recipe Divya Gugnani: It’s rare that I meet someone with a sweet tooth as big as mine. I’m Divya Gugnani here at TRU in Chicago about to explore the sweet side of the windy city. So, let’s go behind the burner and meet the pastry chef. So, I'm here with pastry chef Gale Gand and Gale, we have chocolate in front of us, so there’s got to be something good coming up. Gale Gand: Don’t you always need a little chocolate in front of you? Isn’t that the way you want to live your life? Divya Gugnani: I need it everyday. Gale Gand: What we’re going to make with this wonderful chocolate though, which is 70% Guanaja Valrhona chocolate, the best in the world, is we’re going to do a Chocolate Pots de Crème. So basically, a really fancy chocolate pudding but we’re doing chocolate with salt and pepper, so Chocolate Pots de Crème with a salted caramel sauce, a little bit of fleur de sel on there and black pepper whipped cream. Chocolate Pots de Crème is fairly easy to make. You can do it in the oven or do it stovetop but we’re going to do stovetop today. So, I’ve got some chocolate measured out here as you know and I'm going to heat up four cups of cream. Now, we’re going to use the cream to melt the chocolate as opposed to putting the chocolate in a microwave or over a water bath. I’m going to use the hot cream to melt it gently. Now, while the cream is heating, we’re going to get our yolks ready and sugar. I'm actually going to have you help me a little bit on this. Can you pour that six yolks going in? So, we separated the whites. We’re going to use that for the angel fruitcake. And then sugar going in, half a cup of sugar. Divya Gugnani: This whole thing? Gale Gand: Yeah, dump it right in. Divya Gugnani: So, we got the nice pale color going a little bit. Gale Gand: Yeah, you don’t need to take it all the way to lemon because we’re not looking for air, we’re just looking to kind of dissolve the sugar a little bit, take the edges off of the crystals there while it heat things up. And then, I’ve got a little pinch of salt that I'm actually just going to add in there. Chocolate always tastes better and sort of sweeter with a touch of salt. Divya Gugnani: I agree. Gale Gand: And if you’ve ever had brownies with no salt in them, you’ll know exactly what I mean. So, this is ready now and you can see there’s a lot of steam coming off, super hot. I’m going to pour it over the chocolate. Chocolate, get ready for some heat. Just give it like a couple of seconds to start melting it. Divya Gugnani: I need to be patient. Pastry is about patience. Gale Gand: Some pastry chefs won’t even let you touch it for like three minutes. They make you sort of walk away. Now, this is a lesson I know I’ve taught you a million times and you know, we’re going to temper our yolks by adding a little bit of the hot liquid to the yolks. Divya Gugnani: So, the whole idea here is that you don’t want to actually cook the yolks and if you add all the hot liquid right away, it’s going to cook them, so you’re going to temper. Gale Gand: You don’t want to cook them yet. Divya Gugnani: Yes, correct. You want to cook them later. Gale Gand: Right. Divya Gugnani: So, this is the hot liquid, add a little bit, incorporate it into the yolks. Gale Gand: And I always feel like I'm sort of talking to the yolks saying, “Okay, there’s something coming, some heat. It’s okay” and you’re sort of easing them into it. Now, this is pretty used to the hot temp, so now it can actually go back to the hot bath. Divya Gugnani: Tempering is a very important technique to know for pastry. So Gale, we know this is ready because? Gale Gand: This looks ready. Well, it’s kind of nice and thickened, you can tell and I also saw that one little boiled bubble in the middle of it. Divya Gugnani: And that’s what you’re looking for. Gale Gand: Yeah. Now, my stove runs really hot compared to a domestic stove at home. So, when I’m cooking this at home, it takes a lot longer. Divya Gugnani: That’s a great tip. So, you basically take this out, you run your finger through here and if it doesn’t come back into that white area, you know that it’s ready to go. Gale Gand: It’s ready to go. Now, if for some reason you took it a little too far and it was too ready to go, it broke which means it’s going to look kind of piecey and grainy. My trick for salvaging anything that’s broken is -- I don’t know if you have one of these at home. This is the industrial model but there’s also a domestic Bermixer. It’s basically a blender on a stick and you would place it in there, whiz it and turn it on. It just blends everything into a smooth, lovely, sexy, wonderful -- Divya Gugnani: So that’s how you salvage broken mixtures. Gale Gand: These we’re just going to chill overnight if you’ve got the time. It lasts up to two to three days in the fridge, so that’s kind of nice. Divya Gugnani: That’s great! You can make it ahead. Gale Gand: So, we’re going to make some black pepper whipped cream just to go with it. So, I'm just pouring some heavy cream into the mixer. So, we’re basically just whipping this up until it’s stiff and then we’re going to actually just grind in fresh ground pepper. Now, you could use white pepper, too. Divya Gugnani: So, it’s time to plate and we have all these beautiful things in front of us. Gale Gand: We’ve got the Pots de Crème, we have our black pepper whipped cream and the salted caramel that I made just by combining some sugar and water in a saucepot. Cook that until it’s amber-colored and then added a little bit of cream slowly because it bubbles up and boils and then added a little fleur de sel at the end but we’ll add a little more. Divya Gugnani: Which gives you that nice salty caramel taste. Gale Gand: All right, we’re going to put a little bit of the salted caramel on there. Divya Gugnani: Look at that beautiful color! It’s really gorgeous. Gale Gand: Isn’t it? It’s shiny. And then place it on there. Divya Gugnani: And I’ve learned a new tip from you about putting it on a white surface. It’s like when you buy pearls, you always put them on a white piece of paper so you can see the true color. Same thing with caramel, when you’re making it in a pot, it appears to be darker than it actually is. So, if you put it on a white surface and drop a dot, you can see what the exact color of the caramel is. Gale Gand: It’s almost like backlighting it. Divya Gugnani: It’s like backlighting. Gale Gand: All right, we’re just going to do a quinnell of whip cream. You can do a dollop or you can do a quinnell, which means I’m just going to dip a metal spoon into some hot water and we’ll just give it a little back and forward and then we’re going to do a little extra salt on top just to kind of speak to what the ingredients are and give a little hint of what’s inside and what’s in store for them. Divya Gugnani: I love that. That’s a great tip. You put the stuff that’s on the inside on the outside, so you get a preview. So Gale, I’m ready to taste. Gale Gand: Are you ready to eat? Divya Gugnani: I’m ready. Gale Gand: I can’t believe you waited this long. Divya Gugnani: I know, neither can I. I’ve been very patient. Gale Gand: We’ll go to the dining room. Divya Gugnani: So Gale, time to dig in. Gale Gand: Our favorite moment. Divya Gugnani: Yup, so I’m going to get a little bit of the caramel and the whipped cream, so I can get all the flavors together. Gale Gand: All the elements and a little bit of that salt. Divya Gugnani: Amazing! Gale Gand: Isn’t that luscious and silky? Divya Gugnani: Super silky. Gale Gand: And then you get that sharp salt ever so often. It’s not bitter. It’s not too dark, even though we used bittersweet chocolate for it, a pretty intense chocolate. I’m very happy with how this came out. And you could do this at home, right? Divya Gugnani: You could! It’s very easy. I would love to make it for a party and make it ahead. But Gale, you give me my very own sweet dream. Gale Gand: Thank you! Divya Gugnani: Thank you so much for having me. Gale Gand: Thank you! Divya Gugnani: Stay tuned to Behind the Burner where we give you the tips, tricks and techniques that are lighting the culinary world on fire. For the recipe, Q&A, photos and more, visit behindtheburner.com.