Pop quiz: When was the last time you had fresh fig for dessert? (And nope, Fig Newtons don't count.)
Or had matcha in a sweet treat? Or tried cloudberries, an orange-ish berry that grows in Alaska and tastes like a cross between a blackberry-raspberry? Or gotten a little adventurous trying blue cheese in a dessert?
The Wine & Dessert Soirées hosted under the dome on select Fridays at West Baden Springs Hotel not only appeals to the little kid and rebellious adult in all of us — skipping past the rest of the meal and straight to the good stuff — but it's a chance to branch out. To a different twist on date night. To trying sweet creations you've never heard of, or flavor combinations you'd never expect.
How does this medley of sweets and spirits come together? West Baden's pastry team let us take a peek behind the curtain for their most recent soiree last Friday.
The five members of the pastry team essentially take turns heading up each soiree — and this one was Hadli Anthony's show. She started planning the lineup of sweets nearly two months ago, keeping in mind three things you always want with plated desserts: height, texture and crunch.
After a little experimenting and a little creativity, the dessert lineup was born. Honey lavender sponge cake with honey simple syrup, lemon Chantilly cream and fresh fig. Autumn galette pastry with sweet potato, butternut squash and blue cheese pumpkin seed gelato. Sweet matcha biscuit with vanilla bean Bavarian cream and cloudberry jam.
"I am the youngest in the pastry department, so I’m very social
media forward. I get a lot of my inspirations from a lot of other chefs, seeing a flavor combo they do and thinking, 'What different flavor combo can I do making that dessert? What flavors could I do that’s different?' I saw somebody do a pistachio raspberry sweet biscuit, which is how I thought of doing the matcha sweet biscuit," Hadli says.
"And a lot of inspiration I got for this menu was the
season. We wanted to try something completely different, something savory. Everyone always thinks dessert is
sweet. So we did an autumn galette. Fall time, squash is in season,
and you can never go wrong with sweet potatoes. Who doesn’t love sweet potato casserole? I kind of
got my inspiration there."
And full disclosure: Hadli usually doesn't care for blue cheese, "but," she says, "it goes well with
the squash and sweet potatoes" as the gelato gives you a sweet hint initially before the blue cheese boldness kicks in.
Gelato was the first item knocked off the to-do list on Tuesday, three days before the soirée. Pastry prep day came on Wednesday. Thursday is bake test day. Aka taste test day. Aka the best day of the whole process for the pastry chefs when it's time to sample the work.
Who doesn't want to take a spoon to a humongous bowl of vanilla bean Bavarian cream?
No detail gets overlooked, which is why Hadli roasts the squash and sweet potatoes a couple extra minutes since the vegetables are a bit too firm on the initial bake test. And before going in the oven, the matcha biscuits get a spray of water instead of a typical egg wash, to keep the biscuit's bright green hue intact.
Even the garnish — the pumpkin seed brittle that goes atop the autumn galette — is made completely from scratch. (And to be honest, a slab of this airy, buttery brittle would be a phenomenal dessert all by itself.)
Every soiree has a little taste of interaction, too. Some of the desserts are assembled or garnished by the chef right in front of you, like the lavender sponge cake that gets brushed with honey simple syrup, piped with Bavarian cream, topped with edible marigolds and accented with halved figs.
Wine & Dessert Soirée season starts back again in January at West Baden, and while advance RSVPs are always best, limited openings are available up to the day of the event. It's an ideal holiday present to think outside the usual gift box and give a unique experience. You can't beat spending a Friday night under the West Baden dome and having dessert first.
"With the soirée," Hadli says, "not only is it our time to shine as pastry chefs, but it’s also a
time to give the guests something they aren’t usually going to get."
