Bubble tea powder a surprise ingredient
Bubble tea powder.
It’s an unexpected ingredient coming from Michaela Hapak, the 25-year-old corporate pastry chef of the Icon Legacy Hospitality group, who oversees the sweets at restaurants such as La Société, where the beautiful people of Yorkville down seafood towers and clink glasses of French 75.
This is especially unexpected in light of Hapak’s fine-dining resumé: first starting at Canoe, then the now-closed Splendido and followed by two years at the three-Michelin starred Grace in Chicago.
But for Hapak, powdered drink crystals are an effective way to quickly and evenly dissolve subtle flavours into her desserts. It’s a tip she learned from her mentor Elia Herrera (currently chef at Los Colibris) when the both of them were at Canoe and Herrera was adding powders in a semifreddo.
“It’s so simple but adds an element of surprise and anyone can do this,” she says. “Any drink powder will work. I once used Tang and it was perfect. Add raspberry drink powder and make a raspberry-chocolate s’more.”
Imagine roasting a marshmallow flavoured with strawberry, vanilla or even banana over a fire before sandwiching it between graham crackers and chocolate.
“If you want to impress people, make this,” she says. “(Compared to store-bought) the marshmallow is light, has much better flavour and it just melts in your mouth.”
Most pastry chefs — including Hapak — prefer gelatin sheets over powdered, unflavoured gelatins as the former tends to result in a less cloudy dessert. Sheets only need to be softened, not dissolved in water, resulting in a dessert with less water content.
But since marshmallows are fairly forgiving, I used the easier-to-find (and cheaper) powder. If you want to use gelatin sheets, you can get them at places such as Lively Life International Fine Food in the lower level of the St. Lawrence Market. The conversion is four gelatin sheets for every tablespoon of powdered gelatin.
The one essential tool is a candy thermometer to accurately measure when the syrup created hits the “softball stage” (hot enough to cool into a soft, flexible ball).
A candy thermometer is a useful and inexpensive gadget required for all confections and can be used to measure oil temperatures when frying.
This recipe can be done without a stand mixer (I used pure muscle power for a batch) but get ready for a really sore arm.
Hapak stresses that the key to making marshmallows is not stirring the pot — not even when pouring the sugar into the water.
Doing so crystallizes the sugar, resulting in chunky shards that cannot be salvaged and a sugar-caked pot needing plenty of steel wool.
I also wasted half a bag of sugar when I stupidly stirred the pot during the first two — needless to say — failed batches.
Most recipes call for corn syrup to help stop crystallization, but as long as you move quickly and don’t stir, it’s not necessary.
Lastly, getting boiling sugar on the skin sucks. It adheres to the skin as it keeps burning, so despite this being a kid-friendly dessert, hold off the little ones until it’s time to cut the marshmallows into fun shapes using cookie cutters.
Keep a bowl of lukewarm water handy (never iced) to treat burns. Also, do not use glass bowls as the hot sugar could crack the glass (memo to self: buy a new glass bowl).
Despite all this, making gourmet marshmallows is easy, I swear.