Organic Peanut Butter Ice Cream Profiteroles

Organic Peanut Butter Ice Cream Profiteroles

Tonight is definitely not time to count calories as it is one of the more decadent desserts on the menu. Classical French pate a choux piped out to profiteroles served with home made organic peanut butter ice cream (just the peanut butter is organic), homemade hot fudge sauce, and some chocolate peanut bark for crunch. The idea here is to showcase the organic peanut butter. If you are a peanut butter eater and are not using organic or homemade natural peanut butter I highly urge you to look at your ingredient label and see exactly what you are eating! Next time buy the organic one and you will be able to distinguish the difference in a blindfold tasting.





Strawberry Shortcake

Orange Chiffon Cake, Strawberry Mint Salsa, Chantilly
Light, simple but elegant. This dessert is featured on All American lobster night.
It is always on the menu here at Quisisana but changes year to year depending on the style of the Pastry Chef. Here is my take:

Passion (Fruit)

Passion Fruit, Bread and Wine:

Another day, more desserts, more commentary, yada yada yada…
Monday, 2 days to go before my first day off in 2 and a half weeks. Haven’t minded though as it’s been a pleasure working in the bakery and at Quisisana. Summer has finally arrived in Maine and while the bakery is already a scorcher, I’ve been running on so much adrenaline and excitement that it has not seemed to bother me. (besides, all my excess sweat is the secret ingredient in all the desserts ☺.

Today’s lunch dessert brings us to Passion Fruit. Ahh, yes, Passion Fruit. My first experience with Passion Fruit was a mere 3 years ago in New Zealand and it was instant love. Unfortunately, Passion Fruit is very difficult to find in the states at least on the East Coast and when you do find it the quality is iffy and the price is through the roof. A few months ago I went to Chinatown in NYC searching for Passion Fruit and was offered everything but the one ingredient that I came to buy. NYC Chinatown is incredible- all the best and worst of New York City in one beautiful, rotten, dirty area. I was able to find Durian, Dragon Fruit, Mangosteen, Jackfruit, almost any creature swimming in a tank, hell a Chinese man even tried to pimp out one of his lady friends on me, but no Passion Fruit.

So, here I am in Maine and I find that Passion Fruit is available! Not only is it available but it is grown in the states- Florida to be more specific. This is good because while Florida is certainly not local for Maine, it is more local than California which is where most of the rest of the produce comes from early on in the summer season. So, how do I incorporate fresh Passion Fruit into a dessert? Well, the answer is simple- fresh Passion Fruit is so lovely that absolutely nothing has to be done to it. With that said, serving just a passion fruit on a plate would not exactly cut it for a resort hotel…



The parfait is served cold and partially frozen. Accompanying the main attraction is a passion fruit/mango sauce, raspberry sauce, a small cookie for crunch, and a generous scoop of fresh passion fruit.

Onto bread and wine… I almost forgot to mention that I drove up from North Carolina and brought with me a friend. At the time this “friend” did not have a name but after a couple of days in Maine has been affectionately known as Spanky. Spanky is a sourdough starter, chef, or levain, that will help me over the summer to create unique, naturally risen artisan breads. The story behind Spanky dates back to the South Pole where Francie and I worked in the kitchen with a guy named Will. Now Chef Will had spent a large portion of his youth drinking, drugging and DUIing. To say that Will was burnt out on life would be an understatement. When it came to pronouncing seemingly easy culinary words and phrases Chef Will just could not do it and had to create a language of his own. Words like Puttanesca Sauce became Puta something sauce and Spanikopita became Spanky. Hence, he earned the nickname Spanky.

Spanky (the starter) came to me from the bread bakery that I owe most of my experience with artisan bread and a big shout out goes to a good friend Brian for helping me borrow some Spanky for the greater cause of the folks in Maine. Spanky will be used in 3-4 breads this summer. Here is a bread not made from Spanky:



Lemon Rosemary Bread

Next, we come to wine- another true passion of mine. I spent the last two years working exclusively in the wine industry in NYC. Good wine is a necessity to life! (at least in my opinion.) I brought with me about a case of wine from NYC (thank you Steve for your generosity on pricing and everything else that you did for me) and also that Tuscan Olive Oil that you gave me is amazing and I have being used daily with the bread! So after a lifetime of drinking wine and 2 straight years of doing nothing but everything wine related from 9am to bedtime, I think I'm ready to be buy some wine for the resort.

The guests here are not very familiar with wine and feel a little off put by a non-American wine list so for now the menu will mostly consist of American wine specifically California wine. I will mention a white and a red and then I need to get back to the kitchen for dinner service. The white is the Kali Hart Chardonnay from Talbott. An affordable Chardonnay that is young and vibrant with some oak and butter but not overblown. There is surprising minerality for an inexpensive California Chard and balanced acidity. The red is the Heitz Napa Valley Cabernet 2005. There current release, a wine that certainly can be aged but while young is drinking nice and soft with integrated fruit and as the top wine on the list at $64 a bottle, it is a steal.

First Entry!
Unbelievably enough, 2 weeks have flew by here at Quisisana in Maine and now guests have arrived and the resort is officially opened. A couple of weeks of excitement, new desserts, lots of samples, a new member to the bakery team and things have leveled off and now it’s time to put up or shut up.

My old friend from my days at the South Pole, Francie is the new member that I was referring to and after months of gentle coersion and a little water-boarding, she decided to torture herself and hopefully benefit herself too by joining me for 3 months.

So, just a little more background and then straight to the desserts! This is my 3rd season here at Quisisana., but first as the Pastry Chef. The resort is out in the middle of nowhere in Center Lovell, Maine away from most civilization unless you count moose. For 3 months out of the year, people young and old, musical performers, cooks, opera singers, chipmunks and all, venture to a tiny relatively unknown, uninhabited part of the country to create magic. I will attempt to work my unique wizardry…

Francie and Jake January 2007:


Francie and Jake June 2010:


Here are some of the desserts on the menu for the season. More pictures and notes to follow as the season progresses.

Fig Mascarpone Crostata with Balsamic Reduction:




This fave of ours unfortunately had to be cut due to a surplus of desserts. Rich, creamy, local Vermont artisan mascarpone gently mixed with vanilla bean, lemon zest, sugar and fresh figs wrapped up in a whole wheat, almond crostata dough. Served with a naturally sweet balsamic vinegar reduction.

Chocolate Blackberry Linzertorte, blackberry cabernet and chocolate sorbet:



The idea behind this dessert is to feature chocolate and blackberry three different ways aka trio. Chocolate linzer dough baked with blackberry jam served with a chocolate sauce, blackberry cassis sauce, and chocolate sorbert as well a blackberry cabernet sauce.