13 September 2007

White Chocolate Lasagna with Double Dutch Ice Cream and Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache

When I was a kid, I would be so bored visiting my aunt's house (who is the owner of an art gallery and some kind of magazine collector) that I would just leaf through her magazines to pass the time. Somewhere along the road, I learned to love Food & Wine Magazine. Her issues were from 1988 or some ancient year (yup, I was only single-digits then), but I marveled about how any of these "restaurant" dishes could be done at home.

On issue of Food & Wine was all about chocolate. I fantasized about manipulating the sweet candy (which I was allergic to at the time, and ate very little of) into all sorts of mouth-watering creations. One recipe there was for White Chocolate Lasagna with Peanut Ice Cream. The original called for sheets of hard white chocolate, but to make the "pasta" seem more like pasta, I used white chocolate plastic. Unfortunately, the white chocolate I bought (and really, isn't all white chocolate?) was too sweet and really needed to be taken down a notch. Nevertheless, this recipe can be replicated with bittersweet chocolate lasagna and any less sweet, more elegant ice cream, or maybe raspberry sorbet. (Instructions follow)
White Chocolate Lasagna with Double Dutch Ice Cream and Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache
Mix together 4 ounces of melted chocolate and 3 tablespoons corn syrup with a rubber spatula. At first it'll be thin and shiny but it soon becomes firm and dull. Set aside for 20-30 minutes to firm it up some more. I found that in our climate it was still quite soft, so it can stand to have less corn syrup. In cooler countries, don't refrigerate or it will become unworkable. If it becomes too firm, knead until malleable.

Form into a ball and dust the surface with powdered sugar. Run through the rollers of a pasta machine until it is the desired thickness. I tried crimping the edges so it would look like lasagna, but my chocolate plastic was too soft to retain the crimps, even after refrigeration. I just spread softened double dutch ice cream in between sheets of the chocolate, but if you want to be neat about it, beat the ice cream using a chilled paddle for 30 seconds on a stand mixer. Spread on a baking sheet about 1/2" thick and freeze until firm. Cut into rectangles and sandwich in between the chocolate.

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