A Study In Dessert: Chevre Cheesecake

Inspiration: I wanted to create a dessert for people who would normally finish their meal with a cheese course.

Elements: Chevre cheesecake, hazelnut brittle,  Concord grape sorbet, picholine olive-citrus cake, olive-oil emulsion, fresh figs, micro basil and apple-celery paper.

Technique: After the cheesecake is baked, it is lightened with pate a bombe, whipped cream, and creme fraiche. (This approach was inspired by “the molten shortbread” technique in which shortbread is pureed and reset, typically to encase a filling, as illustrated by Alex Stupak and pastry chef Mark Welker at The Nomad) The cheesecake’s finished texture resembles a cross between a mousse and a panna cotta. This sounds like a lot of trouble for a cheesecake but the texture is flawlessly creamy, a texture that is difficult to achieve with goat cheese as it tends to be dry and cloying.  The cake includes chopped green olives and is embedded into the base of the cheesecake. I used picholine olives because they offer a subtle olive flavor with floral, fruity notes that pair well with the salty, pungent goat cheese. The olive oil emulsion is essentially dessert “mayonnaise”: egg yolks and glucose are blended and spun in a Robot Coupe while  olive oil is drizzled in. I added lemon juice for some much-needed acidity and recommend using a high-quality, acidic finishing olive oil in order to avoid an eggy, flat-tasting sauce. For the apple-celery paper, the celery is cooked with glucose and syrup, pureed in a Vita-Prep with green apple puree and xanthan gum, dried in a slow oven and shaped while warm. The paper can also be baked as a large sheet and broken into shards when cool. The baked paper, while fragile, resists humidity.

Flavor Pairings: goat cheese-grape-hazelnut-green olive

Comments: As is the case with most savory-influenced desserts, this has been my most polarizing dessert.  Those who loved it, loved it. But criticisms from the close-minded ranged from “too complex” to “too savory”. By far, the biggest criticism was my choice of cheese. I opted to use chevre precisely because it is pungent and salty—in other words, a perfect pairing for a winy Concord grape and buttery hazelnuts. In retrospect, I would omit the figs from this dessert composition. While figs pair well with goat cheese, their flavor became lost in translation when eaten with the pungent, Concord grape sorbet.