A Chocolate Crescendo Tasting

You may have read my occasional commentary on the temptations available at the Finale desserterie chain. All my earlier Finale visits involved siting down in their Cambridge or Boston restaurants and ordering a plated dessert off the menu - the typical Finale experience, I'm sure. I was lucky enough to have an atypical yet equally delicious Finale visit earlier this week, thanks to a chocolate tasting at their Brookline location that was hosted by their executive pastry chef!

 

The Chocolate Crescendo plate is the newest sharable dessert on Finale's menu. The plate holds a combination of classic Finale desserts and adventurous accents. Nicole Coady, the aforementioned pastry chef, eagerly discussed her two inspirations for the contents of the plate: chocolate, of course, and the flavors of Thailand. Thai flavors, really? Yes! I hope that anyone who is apprehensive of such tastes entering the dessert realm will reconsider their position by the end of this post.

Each taster was presented with a plate of 5 miniature desserts, along with pours of 5 sweet wines paired specially to each dessert.

• Peanut Butter Lime Truffle - this truffle was the most unusual dessert on the plate! A rich filling of peanut butter mixed with white chocolate, lime juice, and honey is enrobed in lime-tinged white chocolate and dusted with cayenne pepper. The smooth, peanutty center melded perfectly with the creamy white chocolate. The lime and pepper provided surprisingly welcome kicks, and their flavors worked perfectly with that of the peanut to create a unique savory/tangy/sweet experience. As my friend Jill exclaimed, "it's like pad Thai, in a dessert!"
• White Chocolate Panna Cotta - (A disclaimer: I've never liked panna cotta.) White chocolate is added to the usual cream/gelatin mixture to create a slightly sweeter, more solidified cream dessert. The panna cotta square sits upon a forgettable biscuit "crust" that is supposed to be ginger-flavored, though I couldn't taste the ginger. The best part of this dessert is the spice-infused apricot slice sitting on top! You can't go wrong with spicy-sweet fruit, and I wish I could have had a dessert's worth of these slices in place of the panna cotta.
• Creamy Coconut Truffle - this stellar truffle has a center of intensely sweet white chocolate and coconut cream. That sweet center is covered in rich but not bitter dark chocolate, which in turn is tufted with chopped coconut flakes. I love coconut's flavor, though not its flaky texture and questionable moisture (dried-out flakes are the worst!) - so, this truffle's coconut cream may be the best way I have ever experienced coconut! If this little treat had been available for individual purchase, I probably would have left the restaurant with several.
• Chocolate Symphony - ah, the Symphony cake. So many desserts in one! Finale's version has layers of light, spongy chocolate cake at the center, with mousses of different Valrhona chocolates separating them. The mousses are spread beyond the edges of the cake layers, so that the exterior of the Symphony looks like mousse alone. We have bittersweet chocolate at the bottom, followed by white and then milk chocolates. A chocolate wafer imprinted with Finale's logo sticks jauntily out of the cake's surface, and a confection of crisped rice tossed with dark chocolate and crystallized ginger takes up the remaining area. The cake itself and mousses were tasty, though fairly typical. The chocolate-ginger-rice treat, however, was memorable for its airy lightness and tongue-tingling pungency.
• Noisette Cupcake - Nutella is the best bread spread, hot chocolate additive, ice-cream topper, and...cupcake/frosting mix-in? Okay, the last one may be a bit of a stretch, but I still loved the miniature hazelnut cupcake! The cake base is moist and chocolaty, with chocolate pieces mixed in. The "noisette" addition cut through the chocolate and was very nutty, which makes me think that actual roasted and powdered nuts, rather than the aforementioned spread, may have been used to flavor it. The light buttercream frosting is smooth, creamy, and spiked with Nutella. The applied frosting is then dipped in a chocolate glaze, which gives the cupcake a smooth, polished appearance. The dramatic garnish extending off the top right of the image is a hazelnut dipped in cooked sugar, which is left to drip off the nut and solidify into a sticky-sweet prong. It sure looked pretty, but did not have much taste.

The dessert wines and ice wines paired with the first three desserts were exceptional, though I did not like the raisin-y sherries poured for the last two.

Overall, I think Nicole's inspiration really added to the overall dessert experience, even though I'm never one to be dissatisfied with chocolate alone. Carefully yet effectively executed spiciness, fruitiness, and nuttiness expand chocolate's appeal, to great effects! This tasting gets me thinking about what other cuisines could leave a footprint on an elaborate chocolate plate. Any ideas?