Chocolate Marquise on Torched Meringue with Tequila Caramel - Daring Bakers May 2011

The Daring Baker's challenge this month totally blew me away. The first thought I had after reading it was 'WOW!!! That looks totally amazing!!'. My second thought was 'how in the heck am I going to get all this done?' While I love cooking in pretty much any form and enjoy trying new things, there are a lot of steps in this dessert that needed to come together. Its taken me what feels like -ages- to figure out how to get all the components of a roast dinner to all finish at the same time, so the meat, veggies and potatoes are all warm. There was a lot of cold Brussels sprouts, lukewarm potatoes and carrots served with meat hot out of the oven. Timing is not my forte.

One fantastic thing about Daring Bakers is that there are some people that go mad into trying out the recipe the minute it has been posted, so they come back with tips and suggestions to make the challenge run more smoothly. Which is awesome for someone like me.

The suggested modus operandi was to start with the marquise, which needs to freeze, preferably overnight, then make the meringue, finishing with the tequila caramel. So I followed that instruction, and it worked perfectly.

Let me just say, this was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!!! Nicest dessert I have ever had. Period. And I'm a sweet tooth kinda gal, so I've done the research. The marquise, once thawed, is like a chocolate mousse. I used ginger chocolate to make it so there was the sweet heat off the ginger against the hit of the cayenne chili pepper and the sweetness of the chocolate. The meringue was as light as air and totally fabulous. It was a little sweet, but it was set off by the bitterness and heat of the marquise. They went together well. And the tequila caramel, well it was the best caramel I have ever tried. All together, they combined to produce a magnificient delight. I couldn't believe I had made this and it was relatively easy, once I got organized. This will be the dessert to impress guests with. So if you come over and I feed you this, know you are a valued visitor. If I don't, you're still a valued visitor. I probably just wasn't organized enough :)

Try it sometime! Here's the link to the recipe.

Hope you had a wonderful Tuesday :)

Peace,
Jenn x