Bacon and Eggs for Dessert?

This weekend, while my school holiday baking was in full swing I decided to try out a new recipe from the cookbook 'Sweet Studio' by Darren Purchese. Darren is an amazing pastry chef who lives in Melbourne and owns Burch and Purchese Sweet Studio. While I haven't yet had the opportunity to visit his patisserie in Melbourne, I am lucky enough to own his cookbook. The recipe which I decided to attempt was a sweet version of the classic breakfast of Bacon and Eggs on Toast.

I had a lot of fun attempting this recipe and while my finished product wasn't quite up to the same standard, however I'll just have to keep trying it!
For this dessert, there are four components:

     1. The Toast

The toast for this dessert is a vanilla sponge cake, cooked in a loaf tin to look similar to a loaf of bread. Each slice of bread was soaked with some earl grey tea syrup then toasted under a grill. I found it easier to use a blow torch to toast the bread. One side of the toast was also sprinkled with vanilla sugar and toasted to give a hard slightly caramel top, similar to a creme brûlée. 

      2. Maple Cured Bacon
This component of the dish was definitely the easiest to make and did not require much skill to complete. This bacon was crispy and delicious, I personally don't really like bacon however this bacon is absolutely delicious.

     3. Tomato and Raspberry Ketchup

This was also quite an easy element to create and only used 3 ingredients. I was not a huge fan of the ketchup and would probably leave it out next time I make this recipe, although this may have been because I over thickened it and ruined the texture and mouth feel.

     4. Reverse Fried Eggs

This was the most complex part of the recipe and took me between 2 and 3 hours to complete. The yolk of the egg was mango flavoured and the white was coconut and lime. The mixtures were simple and straight forward however when it came to putting them together and executing these 'eggs' I did struggle. Patience was definitely my friend when it came to making these and I would love to try making them again and executing them even better.

When served, these eggs had a runny 'yolk' which gave the dish added theatre!

After all of the components were ready, it came time to assemble the dish. Starting with the golden, slightly caramelised toast.

 Next came the egg.

 And finally the bacon. (I left the ketchup off the plate in these photos but it is in the last photos)

This dish tasted amazing but more importantly it had theatre which I absolutely loved! It kind of messes with your brain when you think you are eating Bacon and Eggs but what actually goes into your mouth tastes completely different. This was a unique experience in both creating the dish but also eating it and I can't wait to do it all over again. 

Blueberry Pancake Choux-Macas

Before I claim this as my own, I'd like to credit this recipe to Adriano Zumbo. I found it in his latest book 'The Zumbo Files'. I decided to make this dessert to kick off my holiday cooking. This dessert both looks and tastes good and I would recommend that anyone who has this cookbook should definitely give this recipe a go! 

This small dessert contains 6 different elements which create flavour and texture. I completed this dish over 3 half days however it could easily be done in 1 day.
The first part I made was the purple macaron shells. As this recipe only uses a few of the macaron shells, I made a redskin ganache to fill the spare ones with.

The next components I made were the vanilla crumble, blueberry gel and the pancake creme. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of these.
After that I made the most important part of this dessert - the choux buns. I piped mine into 4-5cm rounds.

 Once the choux mixture was piped, I topped each one with a thin disk of sable that was cut to the same size as the choux mixture.

When cooked, the sable forms a cracked surface on top of the choux puff and helps to keep them perfectly round while cooking.

 The last component that needed to made before assembling the dessert was the creme fraiche chantilly cream.

To assemble this dessert, first a small hole needed to be cut into the top of the choux puff. Then using a piping bag, I filled the puff 1/3 full with the pancake creme. This element established the pancake flavour in the dessert. Next was the blueberry gel, I also added a fresh blueberry into each one to add more texture as well as the base blueberry flavour. This component adds sweetness and freshness to the dessert and adds a slightly tangy flavour. The last component that filled the choux puff was the vanilla crumble, this added crunch to the dessert which balanced against all of the smooth fillings.
The bun was then topped with the creme fraiche chantilly. This was piped on top using a star tip and it added height to the dish. The sourness from the creme fraiche helped to lighten the dessert and cut through some of the sweetness. Lastly it was topped with the purple macaron shell for decoration.
Here are the images of the final product!