Pistachio Glass

I recently made another version of panna cotta. This time it was yogurt based, and I swirled it with caramel pudding- like whoa. As a garnish I made a pistachio brittle of sorts. Not the kind that is like a toffee style brittle with butter and corn syrup, but more of a glass candy style. It was absurdly simple and made a beautiful garnish.

Pistachio Glass
adapted from Bon Appetit

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/3 cup unsalted pistachios
1/2 teaspoon salt

Spray a baking sheet with nonstick spray or grease with a bit of vegetable oil. Combine sugar, salt and water in a sauce pan and turn the heat up to medium high. Do not stir the sugar while it comes to a boil, and allow it to turn a deep amber color (12 minutes or so). It transitions to amber quickly- make sure you are keeping a close eye on it so it does not burn. You do want to let it go as long and dark as you can stand though, because the flavor base comes from the caramelization of the sugar. When it gets to the perfect deep gold, pull the pan off the heat and stir in the nuts quickly. Immediately pour the mixture onto the pan and spread the edges out by pulling them with the tip of a knife. Allow to cool completely before breaking it into pieces. I sprinkled it with salt one last time for the thrill of it.

Sweet and Salty Cake

The salty caramel:




The Ganache:


The Cake:









The recipe for this cake is from the Baked bakery in Brooklyn. They call it the Sweet and Salty Cake, and I'll call it The Cake That Dirties Every Dish, and also A Cake I Actually Like. Admittedly, I don't like cake very much. It's usually dry, usually has dreadful buttercream frosting, and often commits sins like putting chocolate with raspberry or lemon with raspberry or anything with raspberry. Give me a well made red velvet cake and you know I'll be happy. And every so often a really good chocolate cake is really good. Heck- I love angel food! But those are all exceptions to the rule.

Anyway, the sweet and salty cake is not like other cakes. It's dark and chocolaty, moist and somehow light (light only referring to texture of course- this little number includes a pound of butter and a pound of chocolate just in the frosting. Then there are the 3 layers of salted caramel and the cake itself... It's really intense and I recommend eating it for a breakfast of regret).

You can read the recipe here because I am not going to retype it. The S&S already took one (be it really fun) day of my life, but I'm not giving it another hour of my life by typing up it's memoirs. Ok- honestly I'm making it again today. I just don't want to copy the recipe when it's all over the internets already.

Make it on a day that you have literally all day. I so often make things that don't have recipes- or I just ignore the recipes and do it my way- that I really enjoyed such a complicated and specific task. The one ingredient that I changed up was exchanging vegetable shortening for lard. I can't help myself- vegetable shortening gives me the creeps! Plus, why not put a little pork in your cake? It only compliments the nature of this sweet and salty creation.