Plated Dessert!

this was my first plated dessert i did on Monday. Its a banded chocolate mousse cake i was talking about. Its made out of the layered cut out devils food cake with chocolate mousse, I froze it and then made a band of chocolate (with, as you can see, very girly designs). We had to present it with two sauces a creme angalise (which is the white one, made with milk, cream, vanilla sugar, and egg yolks) and a cooked fruit sauce of our choice. I like that theres not real recipe for the other sauce because it really gave me creative control. I could have gone a little nuts and made like a ginger orange or infused it with cinnamon. but it was my first plated dessert and our chef said less is more. plus i wanted a nice, not too overpowering flavor to go with the chocolate cake, which is really rhe focal point of the dish, not the sauce. The creme anglaise it sweet and vanilla-y, so i went with a raspberry cooked fruit sauce with a little lemon as my acid. I have a quiz on Monday on the components of a fine dining plated desserts and as you may be able to tell from this plate what they are:

1)Main item (the mousse cake)
2) chocolate (pretty obvious)
3)cream (the creme anglaise)
4) Crunch (the banded chocolate and the chocolate garnish)
5) sauce (the creme anglaise and the raspberry)

for a well BALANCED dessert, i need to know these 5 components:
1) flavor (sweet, tart, nutty, etc you want them to complement, sweet on sweet is a bit of an over kill)
2) texture (like the creaminess of the sauces, the airiness of the mousse, the crunch of the chocolate, etc)
3) color (i wanted the band color to match my sauce, i could have used an orange decoration with a orange type sauce)
4) design (you want to design your plate nicely, make portions small because our chef said "this isn't sizzler or claim jumper" and you don't want people to share because it means everyone can order their own which = more $, also you want to create a height and a real "wow" factor. Haven't you ever been to a restaurant and a server walks by with someones tray and your like "WOW! I WANT THAT!", that what your going for, but you also want to keep it simple. Luckily, she told me mine was good in that it was still dramatic but not too busy, simplicity is always good).
5) temp (like the hot souffle I made last night which is served hot from the oven immediately or it will deflate, but its served with a cute small pitch of the creme anglaise which is cold, you poke a hole in the middle of the souffle and the coolness of the cream and the hot chocolate souffle make a great balance!)

so there you have it, a semi-brief 101 on fine dining desserts. I really suggest you indulge in them every once in a while. Don't spend a fortune at at the four seasons for a fillet minion (although if you have the spare $, by all means). go to a really nice fine dining establishment and just order one other their desserts. Yes its not super healthy, but potions are sensible, prices are not crazy because its not like lamb or caviar, and you'll get a really fabulous taste adventure, you'll look at oreos and think, "hmm....thats kinda pathetic...".