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Award-winning chef, author and forager Alan Bergo. Food is all around you.

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Candy Cap Bavarian Cream

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Candy cap mushroom bavarian cream

Candy cap bavarian cream was one that I enjoyed teaching my pastry chef to make recently. 

I’m not a pastry chef, but I’ve been through enough rough spots (pastry chef giving notice and moving back to Naples Italy, pastry chef being neurotic and flaky, pastry chef being unskilled and needing guidance, did I say pastry chefs being neurotic and flaky?) that I can hold down the program if necessary until a restaurant finds another person to fill the position. 

A great standby I rely on is basic custards made out of the classic pastry mother sauce creme anglaise. They’re fairly straight forward once you’ve made the simple custard base, from there all you have to do is decide how it will be flavored. The Bavarian cream to me is kind of a forgotten pastry technique, I don’t really see them on menus too often. It’s a cousin of panna cotta, mousse, and creme brulee, just with a bit more whisking involved.

Candy cap mushroom bavarian cream
Whisking gelatinzed batter before folding in egg white and whipped cream
Candy cap mushroom bavarian cream
Spooning the custard into a mold
Candy cap mushroom bavarian cream
The custard base will set in the mold overnight.

Candy cap mushroom bavarian cream
After unmolding you just have to garnish, but these are good enough to just eat as is.

What you end up with is like a soft, gently set mousse that literally melts in your mouth, fluffy, airy, delicate and rich all at the same time. Citrus is a classic flavor of Bavarian creams, but I wanted to find another way to highlight candy caps, as well as cost out a recipe with them to see if I can afford to put them on the menu. (If you don’t have candy caps, you can order small amounts here).

With the market price of candy caps at roughly 250$ wholesale, knowing how far the dried mushrooms can be stretched and how much the finished product can be sold for is the financial part of being a chef I am always trying to get better at, the better I am with numbers, the more I can justify having the interesting products I want on the menu. Thankfully high school math word problems prepared me for situations like this.

If candy caps cost 250$/lb and I can sell desserts for 7-10$/portion, how do I make it work shooting for an overall foodcost of 30% or lower on the dish?

Well, I know can buy packets of dried candy caps that are 1/2 ounce or 14 grams for 20$ +shipping. Looking at the cost of the mushrooms is initially scary from a food cost viewpoint, but candy caps are so powerful, you just need to know much it takes to flavor something, and not go overboard.

I’ve made this recipe a couple different times, and each time I ratchet down the amount of candy caps. I started with an ounce of them. At first the flavor was very strong and maple tasting, but the more candy caps are in something, the more bitter it can be, which is due to the amount of physical mushroom in finished product.

Candy cap mushroom bavarian cream

Once the batter is made, you can spoon it into whatever vessel you like. This one is topped with black walnuts praline.

Just like a truffle, the key to using these intelligently is to use their scent to flavor things, not the physical pieces of mushroom. I found that a single gram or roughly 1.79$ of mushroom (including shipping costs) will flavor 8.5 orders, and you can probably make bigger batches with varying percentages to cut cost even further, since the scent of the candy caps is what flavors the dish.

A fun food cost equation with candy caps 

8.5 orders X 7$ per order =59.5 net profit

Total cost of the dish is 1.79 (mushrooms) + 10.50 (est. labor+other ingredients)

12.29/59.5=.20655462 or roughly 21% overall food cost, which is under the 30% margin we’re shooting for. Yay.

Wasn’t that exciting?!

Candy cap mushroom bavarian cream

I like to serve these with something crunchy, like a tuile cookie.

Candy cap mushroom bavarian cream
Print Recipe
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Candy Cap Bavarian Cream

Yield: 4.5 cups of custard, roughly 8 ½ cup ramekins
Prep Time45 mins
Cook Time4 mins
Setting Time6 hrs
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: French
Keyword: Bavarian Cream, Bavarois, Candy Cap Mushrooms
Servings: 8

Ingredients

  • ½ cup heavy cream + 1 cup
  • 3 leaves of gelatin or one packet of prepared gelatin
  • ½ cup of sugar divided into two ¼ cups
  • 5 egg yolks
  • 3 egg whites
  • 1 tablespoon ground candy cap mushrooms

Instructions

  • Soak the leaf gelatin in ice water for 2 minutes or until just softened. Whisk the egg yolks with ¼ cup of the sugar, the ground candy caps, and reserve.
  • Heat the 1/2 cream with the gelatin until steaming, then whisk half into the egg yolks thoroughly, then add the other half.
  • Return the egg mixture to the pan, heat on low and whisk until the mixture thickens slightly and lightly coats the back of a spoon, do not over heat or the mixture will curdle.
  • Transfer the mixture to a bowl to cool, whisking occasionally to help chill it, then whisk the egg whites with the remaining ¼ cup sugar until stiff peaks form.
  • Meanwhile whisk the full cup of cream to stiff peaks. Fold the egg whites and cream into the yolk mixture, then spoon into ramekins, cover with plastic, and refrigerate overnight to set.

Notes

If you use prepared gelatin in a packet, add it to the warm cream directly from the packet, and whisk until combined, then proceed per usual.

Related

Previous Post: « Midwestern Vignarola, 2017
Next Post: French Morel Mushroom Salad »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Dotty bacon

    May 20, 2017 at 7:30 pm

    Intriguing: mushrooms in a desert. I would surely try it to eat, not to make. Great meal at Lucias today, blessings and thanks! dotty

    Reply
  2. Ronald Fan

    May 21, 2017 at 12:09 pm

    Great post. Beautiful pictures (as usual) and intriguing ingredient for the everyday reader. Some inside baseball math and solid recipe for the professional.

    I’m assuming gelatin leaf is gold bloom?

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      May 25, 2017 at 10:06 am

      Thanks. And yes, gold bloom.

      Reply
  3. Vicky McKay

    October 1, 2018 at 1:09 pm

    Regarding the tuile cookies – would almond work with the flavor profile?

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      October 1, 2018 at 1:48 pm

      Almond would be great.

      Reply

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FORAGER | CHEF®
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Author: The Forager Chef’s Book of Flora
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Alan Bergo
HALP! I’ve been keeping an eye on two loaded mul HALP! I’ve been keeping an eye on two loaded mulberry trees and both got a bunch of fruit knocked down by the storms and wind. 

If anyone in West WI or around the Twin Cities knows of some trees, (ideally on private property but beggars can’t be choosers) that I could climb and shake with a tarp underneath, shoot me a DM and let’s pick some! 🤙😄

TIA

#throwadogabone #mansquirrel #beattlefruit #mulberries #shakintrees
Lampascioni, or edible hyacinth bulbs are one of t Lampascioni, or edible hyacinth bulbs are one of the more interesting things I’ve eaten. 

These are an ancient wild food traditionally harvested in Southern Italy, especially in Puglia and the Salentine Peninsula, as well as Greece and Crete. I’ve seen at least 6-7 different names for them. 

A couple different species are eaten, but Leopoldia comosa is probably the one I see mentioned the most. They also grow wild in North America. 

The bulbs are toxic raw, but edible after an extended boil. Traditionally they’re preserved in vinegar and oil, pickled, or preserves in other methods using acid and served as antipasti. (Two versions in pic 3). 

They’re one of the most heavily documented traditional wild foods I’ve seen. There’s a few shots of book excerpts here.

The Oxford companion to Italian Food says you can eat them raw-don’t do that. 

Even after pickling, the bulbs are aggressively extremely bitter. Definitely an acquired taste, but one that’s grown on me. 

#traditionalfoods #vampagioli #lampascione #cucinapovera #lampascioni #leopoldiacomosa #foraging
Went to some new spots yesterday looking for poke Went to some new spots yesterday looking for poke sallet and didn’t do too well (I’m at the tip of its range). I did see some feral horseradish though which I don’t see very often. 

Just like wild parsnip, this is the exact same plant you see in the store and garden-just escaped. 

During the growing season the leaves can be good when young. 

They have an aggressive taste bitter enough to scare your loved ones. Excellent in a blend of greens cooked until extra soft, preferably with bacon or similar. 

For reference, you don’t harvest the root while the plant is growing as they’ll be soft and unappealing-do that in the spring or fall. This is essentially the same as when people tell you to harvest in months that have an R in them. 

#amoraciarusticana #foraging #horseradishleaves #horseradish #bittergreens
In Italy chicken of the woods is known as “fungo In Italy chicken of the woods is known as “fungo del carrubo” (carob tree mushroom) as it’s one of the common tree hosts there. 

My favorite, and really the only traditional recipe I’ve found for them so far is simmered in a spicy tomato sauce with hot chile and capers, served with grilled bread. 

Here I add herbs too: fresh leaves of bee balm that are perfect for harvesting right now and have a flavor similar to oregano and thyme. 

Makes a really good side dish or app, especially if you shower it with a handful of pecorino before scooping it up with the bread. 

#chickenofthewoods #fungodelcarrubo #allthemushroomtags #traditionalfoods #beebalm
First of the year 😁. White-pored chicken of t First of the year 😁. 

White-pored chicken of the woods (Laetiporus cincinnatus) are my favorite chicken. 

Superior bug resistance, slightly better flavor + texture. They also stay tender longer compared to their more common yellow-pored cousins. Not a single bug in this guy. 

#treemeat #ifoundfood #foraging #laetiporuscincinnatus #chickenofthewoods
TBT brisket face 💦. Staff meal with @jesseroes TBT brisket face 💦. Staff meal with 
@jesseroesler and crew @campwandawega
📸 @misterberndt 

#staffmeal #brisket #meatsweats #naptime
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