Favorites from Dessert First 2011

My long over due post on this year’s Dessert First event in San Francisco!

Thanks to Project Open Hand and their Facebook dessert photo contest, I got to attend Dessert First in August. San Francisco’s pastry chefs come together to for what I call the ultimate dessert tasting. All the proceeds go toward Project Open Hand’s efforts to provide healthy meals for those in need in the Bay Area. What better way to help out than by eating desserts?

There seemed to be a couple of recurring themes, not sure if it was an intentional or not, but peanut butter was a common ingredient and anything cream/yogurt-like was the dessert of choice. Here are my highlights from the event.

Upon first walking in, there was this gorgeous dessert display from Daniel Corey at the Intercontinental Hotel where the event was held.

Favorite Dessert of the Night: Starting off my post with the best. Yellow peach and yogurt parfait with basil gelee and basil meringue. It was a burst of summer in a glass. The yogurt was refreshing and the tangyness was balanced by the lovely basil flavor. The bits of fresh fruit on top were a nice contrast in texture. Extra points for the generous serving size. It’s hard to see from the photo but the glasses were approximately 3″ in diameter or a good restaurant dessert portion.

Next stop was Elizabeth Falkner of Citizen Cake. I love the golden pig on the table.

Most Creative Dessert: Chef Falkner is known for some pretty inventive desserts and this did not disappoint. She served a creamy vanilla ice cream with caramel, popcorn and Corn Nuts. It sounds crazy but it all worked! It was like a sophisticated ball park dessert. The popcorn and corn nuts were so fun to crunch into and tasted fantastic with the ice cream. The caramel drizzle rounded out the whole creation.

A dessert party is not complete without cupcakes. American Cupcake was on hand with a colorful assortment of their creations.

Most Playful Dessert: My eye went immediately to the neon-tinted snowballs. I don’t see it on their menu, so that’s the name I’m giving them. I’m usually hesitant of things dyed in crazy colors but these were too cute to resist. Each snowball was a dense, incredibly moist and flavorful cake covered in coconut flakes. I love that the cake flavors were surprises when you bite into them because you really can’t tell with the covering of coconut. Both the vanilla and red velvet were fantastic.

Humphry Slocombe brought out peanut butter ice cream with peanuts and chocolate sauce. While Elizabeth Falkner’s ice cream was more refined and delicate, this was rich and intensely peanut buttery, the ultimate dessert for a peanut butter lover.

All the chefs really impressed with their dessert plates but sometimes you just need a little bit of home and I loved the simplicity of this table by Dynamo Donuts. Simple clear stands with stacks of donuts and sunflowers for a pop of color.

Dynamo’s banana and peanut butter donut was tasty. I could have used a little more banana flavor, but all in all good.

Most Inventive Display: Janine Fong of Meritage Restaurant cleverly used TCHO chocolate bars to create an eye-catching table. The dessert on top was a TCHO chocolate beet cake with goat cheese panna cotta.

Chef Francis Ang of Fifth Floor presented this black tea panna cotta with calamansi sorbet. After doing a check on wiki, calamansi is from the Philippines and of the orange family. If it were not for the yogurt parfait I had earlier, this would have been my favorite. I loved the sweet black tea with the tart citrus topping.

Best Use of Savory in Dessert: Suzanne LaFleur of Perbacco restaurant created this beautiful sweet corn bonet with blackberry sauce and toasted amaretti crumbs. I could have used a bit more the blackberry sauce to contrast the sweetness of the corn but it was overall an impressive dessert.

CHEESE. Way in the back corner of the room but it saved the night. I couldn’t have eaten as much dessert without this. I wish I could give credit to the vendor but I definitely helped myself to several samplings of the delicious brie.