Back in the kitchen, as I alluded to last week, our next project is the Maple Mascarpone Cheesecake. My fiancé has been eyeing this recipe for a while, as have I, so once the hangover wore off I got to work.
While you can find all of the ingredients for this dish year round, it's probably, to me, most appropriate to serve this in the early fall. There's something about the smell of warm maple on a cool night that makes fall seem all the more official to me. It's been equally cool here this week so I just couldn't wait to give this a try.
First, I brought the maple syrup to a boil, then reduced to a simmer for roughly 30 minutes or until it was reduced by two-thirds. This really intensified the flavor. It was then finished with heavy cream.
Next, was to butter some ramekins and dust with sugar. I couldn't for the life of me find the exact foil ramekins that Mario mentions in the 'Tools of the Trade' section at the back of the book. My local grocery store only had foil muffin tins, but I used some kitchen shears to separate them and it worked out really well.
Time to fire up the mixer to beat some cream cheese and sugar.
Some eggs and vanilla were added in installments, making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl well. I then added the mascarpone and some of the cooled maple mixture and beat again. Mario noted to not over mix at this stage, as it can lead to the batter breaking.
The batter goes into the ramekins, which are then placed in a water bath before going in the oven. Don't over fill these because they will expand a little. Then wrap in foil.
The recipe calls for roughly 50 minutes of bake time which was spot on. These are done when the center isn't jiggly and is set. Something should be said about our will power to wait until they have chilled over night in the refrigerator before digging into them.
I used a large dinner plate for the final plating, along with the reserved sauce and the roughly chopped walnut shortbread cookies from the last post. As you can see, it made for an elegant looking dessert. It's understandable that Mario says that this is Babbo's most popular one as well.
I actually preferred using the smaller sized ramekins. Anything bigger would have been overkill to me. This would also make a perfectly sized final course should you attempt to put together one of the recommended tasting courses at the back of the book.
I will get into tasting courses a little bit later. In fact, because we love hosting dinner parties, my plan is to create my own tasting menu experience here at home and post about it on this blog. But before I sign off for today, I want to talk about Mario's approach to desserts.
Mario explains that 'in Italy, the dessert is always appropriate to their surroundings. In a fancy ristorante I may be served an exquisite panna cotta scented with a hint of seasonal citrus; a casual trattoria may offer a traditional crumbly cake with a glass of local dessert wine.' Sometimes you might just have ripened seasonal fruit. Whatever it may be, it's fresh, handmade, and tasty, along with being appropriately portioned. Mario wanted to make sure that this was the focus of the Babbo dessert menu, and I think it's important to have these approaches to dessert in your repertoire. As I mentioned before, and of course this is totally a personal preference, I think that it's better to offer a dessert that's smaller than larger to your guests. Especially after having a few other courses before it. I like the dessert to be just big enough that upon finishing it I say, 'ah if I only had one more bite.'
In America, we tend to supersize everything, desserts especially. By doing this, we fail to make anything a special treat. When I can go out at any time of the day or night and get a snack to appease my sweet tooth, then sweet confections merely become a means to an end. And like most addictions, it's never enough nor are you ever really satisfied. Yes, I said addiction, because in 1900 the average yearly consumption of sugar per person in America was 20-30 pounds. Today, it's nearly 120 pounds. Factor in the added unnatural chemicals and preservatives in that crap that we eat and your health becomes a ticking time bomb.
For some in our government, they believe that the solution is to increase taxes on junk food. Instead, I feel that there is a better solution. I suggest we take the Italian approach. I suggest we take some personal responsibility, get rid of all of the processed junk food in our diet, enjoy fresh fruit, but make a special homemade dessert or treat every once in a while. Invite some friends and family over to share it with. Make it with real food and with real ingredients that you can pronounce. It'll be much better for you and you'll feel great knowing that YOU made it and not some food lab thousands of miles away.
Okay rant over. That wraps up this post for now. Next, I want to make a few dishes featuring asparagus. Asparagus season is in full bloom and the chefs at Babbo get really excited for it this time of year because it signals the end of winter's long braised food and cold weather. Until next time...
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