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Getting sweet on savoury desserts
By Liana Robberecht
November 8, 2011
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Calgary Petroleum Club's Chocolate Bourbon Cake topped with a crispy carmel bacon filo and sweet corn ice cream.
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Chefs always like to play a little on the wild side of flavour combinations; be it salty and sour or sweet and spicy, we love to experiment. One of the most interesting culinary ventures is the savoury dessert, walking the high wire between sweet and savoury.
Savoury desserts aren’t anything new; in fact it’s an established part of Asian Cuisine. In Japan you will find a Green Tea–Red Bean Paste Chocolate Torte to be very common. And over the past 10 years in North America, a taste and love for savoury desserts has begun to develop, increasing marketable interest and culinary creativity.
Vosges Haut-Chocolat founder and exotic chocolatier trendsetter, Katrina Markoff, has found success in out-of-the-ordinary sweet and savoury chocolate confections that not only sell but taste exceptional as well. One of her best sellers, “Mo’s Bacon Bar,” is made with smoked apple-wood bacon and milk chocolate (all of my regular readers know of my unwavering allegiance to bacon). Additionally, her Exotic Truffle Collection is infused with an amalgam of ingredients from star anise, fennel and paprika to wasabi, sesame seeds and curry powder. Wadda scoop!
Powerhouse team, Dominique and Cindy Duby of DC Wild Sweets are also no strangers to walking the unique savoury/sweet side of chocolates and desserts with their über sought after sweet–savoury collections that includes, among others, milk smoked salted soft caramels. You are finding more and more chefs willing to take cheeky risks with dessert flavours. They are having fun placing interesting savoury/sweet items on their menus.
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Executive Chef/Owner Cam Dobranski of Kensington Wine Bar in Calgary, Alberta showcases his Strawberry–Basil Cheesecake with enormous success from his loyal followers (include me on that fan list!) The balance is perfect, not too sweet and not too much basil; I call it the Goldilocks of cheesecakes…just right. It’s a wonderful disciplined amount of each ingredient, as if it were the perfect tango.
Here at the Calgary Petroleum Club, we also love taking inspiring risks with our savoury/sweet desserts. We host a variety of wine and food events and any chef can tell you that choosing and creating a unique dessert always has the most challenges. The reason for this is the age-old rule: your dessert can never be sweeter than the wine. Keeping that philosophy in mind, we here at the Club have gotten
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creative and found success in savoury/sweet desserts. For example, when we hosted a Napa Valley Vintners wine dinner, the Assistant General Manager, Ted Clouthier and myself came up with the idea of pairing together Grgich Hills Estate, 2006 cabernet sauvignon “Yountville selection” along with a Stags Leap Wine Cellar, 2008 cabernet sauvignon “Artemis” with a clever aged cheddar crème brûlée. We brought this mischievous little challenge to the Club’s amazing Pastry Chef, Otto De Nooij, and within two trials of recipe development it was a stellar success.
There is no doubt in my mind that chefs everywhere will always have a curious obsession with finding the balance between sweet and savoury in their desserts. I, for one, am happy to be a part of that obsessed group of madmen and cannot wait to see what interesting creative desserts have yet to be brought to the plate.
See also:
About the author:
 Liana Robberecht, Executive Chef, Calgary Petroleum Club, began her training with the Professional Cooking Program at Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (Edmonton), passing the Red Seal qualifying examinations in 1995. Chef Liana is passionately committed to regional cuisine, and a farm-to-table philosophy pervades the three kitchens and staff of 45 under her leadership. She has a number of professional memberships under her belt, including the Alberta Apprenticeship and Industry Board and the SAIT Advisory Committee for the Professional Cooking Program.
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