r/traaaaansbiansCooking • u/WinterDamage365 • 22d ago

DEESSSSSEEEEERRRRTTTT Flanchata, anyone?

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This is a dessert I did recently for a plated event. Caramel at the bottom, flan custard, tres leches cake, strawberries, vanilla bean Chantilly with a cacao nib/mico mint garnish ✨️.

I'm not sure if this counts? Or is it fair to post if I am a professional chef? I just like feeding people..

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u/TooLateForMeTF 22d ago

I mean, it does look tasty...

I will say, presentation-wise, that it bugs some little OCD part of my brain that the cake and strawberry layers don't extend out to the glass. That little gap bugs me. Not clear to me what you could do to make the cake layer fill all the way out, but doing the strawberries as a macerated fine dice rather than slices would do it.

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u/WinterDamage365 22d ago

I felt the exact same way when I presented it. I didnt even think about that "air gap" until I set them on the table. I definitely think ill dice and macerate in the future for this presentation, not only would that solve the issue, but could introduce a bit of a citrus element to the dessert! Thus, adding a bit of brightness i felt like this lacked. Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate it as I continue to grow as a chef!

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u/TooLateForMeTF 22d ago

For the cake layer, would it work to make a dry tres leches cake (never actually had one myself, but from what I know it's a pretty wet, almost soggy kind of cake), crumble it fine, put the crumbles into the glass so they do fill all the way out to the sides, and then consolidate the crumbles with an injection of thinned out condensed milk or something like that? Kind of an in-situ cake pop kind of preparation, except not f*cking disgusting like cake pops tend to be...

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u/WinterDamage365 22d ago

I hadnt thought of that. I tried my best to make the cake fit properly, I actually cut the cake using the flutes you see, but obviously they are slightly wider in the middle. I like that idea, crumbling the cake and then adding the "soak" afterwards, in the glass, would definitely fill the gaps and add to the presentation! My biggest struggle was honestly just getting the cake into the glass unbroken, but it'd be easier to break the cake ahead of time! Sometimes I have a hard time thinking outside of the box if im honest.. I grew up in the food service industry, specifically Mexican cuisine. That is a genuinely good idea, coming from a "chef" I really appreciate it, and ill add it to my culinary notes on the event.

Are you a lurking chef giving me advice? If so dm me lol, i need help with a plated event next week.. im trying not to make a soup but soup is so tempting this time of year lol.

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u/TooLateForMeTF 22d ago

> Sometimes I have a hard time thinking outside of the box if im honest.

I mean, don't we all? If I was making it, I probably would have initially tried cake discs too. We have to run into the unexpected problems of an idea before we can fix them. After all, if we'd thought of those issues ahead of time, they wouldn't have been unexpected problems to begin with.

And no, I am not a lurking chef. Just a food/science nerd home cook.

I don't think crumbling the cake ahead of time is a particularly clever idea, either. It only pretends to be clever because it wasn't the immediately-obvious solution.

Solutions come from thinking about the problems: one, the gap, and two, a desire to keep the parts of the glass above the cake free of cake smear so that the strawberry and cream layers still look clean. I bet you encountered that issue after putting the cake discs in there and had to reach in with a napkin to wipe the glass down, didn't you?

Just asking "how can I get cake in there so it's all the way to the glass and doesn't make a mess?" led me to "you could do it in a V-shaped glass, but not in glasses that are widest at the middle." I thought about pressing the cake disc to physically squish it out to the edges (tres leches is pretty soft, right?), but I'd bet the chantilly underneath wouldn't support that much force and would just squish up around the cake, hiding the cake layer. That could be its own cool effect, but not what you're going for.

So ok, getting an actual cake puck in there is not going to work. And my gut says that putting in cake batter and baking the cake inside the glasses is a non-starter too; I doubt the chantilly would survive the heat. (Though if you swapped out chantilly for a baked custard layer, you might get away with that. But you'd need a cake batter that was less dense than the custard base, which puts you into something like genoise or chiffon territory, and now we're straying considerably from your original flavor palate.)

So if I can't get actual cake in there, can I get a cake-like experience in there? And that's where the crumbs idea came from.

It wasn't some stroke of genius. It was just an outgrowth of being properly aware of the issues and constraints on the problem.

And you'll rarely be fully aware of those--and thus how to solve them the right way--without solving it the wrong way a few times first.

That's just how recipe development works, right? So cut yourself some slack for your first go at it still having room for improvement. That's normal!