| Dessert |
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Excerpt:
Premium chocolate launches have received considerable attention, and
the flavor notes of premium chocolate have ranged from basics like
dark, milk, caramel, and coffee, to more exotic flavors including honey
and chai. Chocolatiers' imaginations can run wild as premium chocolate
consumers seem up to just about any challenge: exotic flavors that have
come to market include ice wine, goat cheese, and olive oil. Other
trends include single origin (chocolate made with cacao exclusively
from one region), organic, Fair Trade and sustainable. Chocolate with
high cacao content (ranging from about 45% to about 72%) now has the
cacao percentage printed on the label so consumers seeking high-cacao
chocolate (for health or taste reasons) can easily find products that
suit their needs. Since chocolate has become the subject of extensive
medical research, it is not surprising that new "functional" chocolate
is on store shelves. Products promise to be rich in antioxidants and to
help with a number of health issues. Also, in an attempt to make
chocolate healthier, an increasing variety of sugar-free premium
chocolate is coming to market.
---------------------------------------------------------- Excerpt: The cupcake trend sweeping retail and in-store bakeries has extended its reach to supermarket shelves. Cupcakes' popularity grew with help from the show Sex and the City where the lead characters ate cupcakes at Manhattan's upscale Magnolia Bakery. Before long, cupcake towers began replacing traditional wedding cakes. But it was the desire for portion control and on-the-go snacks that helped solidify cupcakes' spot in the limelight. Surprisingly, cupcakes' popularity has not been stymied by schools banning cupcakes for birthday celebrations in an effort to combat childhood obesity and to protect children with food allergies… Consumers also are open to new and different forms and flavors in their cupcakes. “Standard vanilla and chocolate are still popular, but I think you're starting to see a trend of thinking out of the box,” Brooke notes. Carrot and pumpkin flavors and cupcakes with different combinations of colorings and icings are appearing on supermarket shelves. Fitting with these trends, Hostess is offering strawberry cupcakes, a favorite with families, as well as carrot cupcakes. Flowers Foods is introducing banana pudding cupcakes in the first half of 2009 under its Mrs. Freshley's and Blue Bird brands. The cupcakes include yellow cake and natural banana-flavored crème and icing and are topped with vanilla wafer crumbles. “Cupcakes can be versatile,” Bradshaw says, “For example, you can change the color of the cake, icing and sprinkles to create exciting and fun seasonal-themed items.” Source: http://baking-management.com/ingredients/crazy-cupcakes-0109/ --------------------------------------------------------- Excerpt: Chocolatiers and chocoholics contend chocolate is entering into the same realm as fine wines and cheeses, indulgences connoisseurs treasure for their subtleties. "There's more romance with dark chocolate," said Ken Cotich, vice president of corporate sales for Barry Callebaut, a chocolate-maker. "When you change from milk to dark, it's not about price. It's about the fact that your tastes have changed." Dark chocolate sales jumped 35 percent, to $829 million between February 2007 and February 2008, while all other chocolate sales inched up 1.5 percent, to $5.8 billion, according to Nielsen Co. And because dark chocolate contains a higher concentration of cocoa, the increased demand for it has sent cocoa bean prices surging by 46 percent since October, to $2,787 a ton, according to the Intercontinental Exchange. But Nielsen data also show that the popularity of dark chocolate could be stalling in the recession, with sales off by 2.2 percent through February 2009. Some even expect American tastes to swing back to milk chocolate. "It's a bubble that's going to burst," predicts Judith Ganes-Chase, a commodities analyst. "You have a combination of recession plus high prices. I just don't see how consumption can't drop sharply." Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-sun-chocolate-dark-apr05,0,3193159.story ---------------------------------------------------------- Excerpt: At some point in history, we decided to keep meat out of our dessert. Maybe it was to distinguish dessert from the rest of the meal, or maybe it's because beef-flavored birthday cake tends to make kids cry. But suddenly menus everywhere have deemed bacon an acceptable crossover. The landmark Brown Hotel in Louisville, Ky., does a bacon baklava. More, a cupcake shop in Chicago, sells three bacon flavors. Animal in Los Angeles serves a deeply satisfying bacon chocolate crunch bar. At New York City's Dovetail, the bread pudding with bacon brittle is so popular it can't be rotated off the menu. And the bacon-for-dessert trend isn't limited to high-end, experimental restaurants. In 2008 you could buy bacon-covered chocolate at the Minnesota State Fair or watch bacon get dipped in chocolate on the Food Network's Dinner: Impossible. "I bet other meats would work" in sugary fare, says chef Jerome Chang, whose itinerant Dessert Truck serves New Yorkers a $5 chocolate bread pudding with bacon crème anglaise. "Bacon is just more sellable because people mix it up with their pancakes and their syrup and they're used to that. Plus, people like bacon a lot." … Bacon works in dessert for the same reason peanut butter works with chocolate, or sea salt with caramel. Salt brings out the depth of flavor in desserts (try eating a salt-free brownie), and fatty foods are often cut by sweetness, like foie gras with Sauternes or fried chicken with honey. As more famous pastry chefs get their own restaurants, ingredients that had been on one side of the menu are showing up on the other. And some chefs are starting to branch out from bacon and put other meats in sweets. José Andrés of Washington's Minibar and Los Angeles' Bazaar serves foie gras surrounded by cotton candy. Ramon Perez, the pastry chef at L.A.'s Sona, added shrimp to his salted caramels for a sweet brininess--and a fear-factor thrill. Source: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1870492,00.html?iid=digg_share ---------------------------------------------------------- Excerpt: Pudding is very trendy now, said Susan Geul, pastry chef for Blue Canyon Kitchen & Tavern in Twinsburg, Ohio. Butterscotch pudding is on the top of the dessert menu she recently finished. "People are bringing back very old school, very homey, more mother's type of recipes. They're now showing up in restaurants, but made a little fancier," she said. Geul's pudding is bolstered by butterscotch schnapps, which takes it well beyond the instant boxed variety that many have come to think of as real pudding… Geul said customers are looking for that type of slow-cooked comfort food when they eat out. "People don't feel as guilty if they're eating something that Mom would have made. It's OK, because it brings back a memory," she said. "They want those comfort things again." Source: http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/mar/26/creamy-desserts-stir-up-memories/?feedback=1 |
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