Refining the Dessert

Refining is taking a basic home-style dessert and applying a few more finishing techniques to up the "wow factor."  This could include something as simple as straining liquids once or twice to get them ultra-smooth to refining every element one at a time. 

Consider this example:  The trifle.  One of my favorite desserts.  Here's one I made for a Christmas party a couple of years back.  Store-bought pound cake soaked with cream sherry, layered with store-bought raspberry jam.  It's topped with vanilla pudding and then whipped cream.  Slice and eat.  Pure joy.

Here's how I refined it for the restaurant:  Lemon sponge cake soaked in sherried simple syrup, house-made raspberry jam, vanilla pastry cream, sweetened creme fraiche and croquant.  The sauces are lemon sabayon and raspberry jus.  It could have been further refined by cutting out the cakes in circles then placing them in slightly larger ring molds and pouring the custard in.  That way, all you'd see would be the custard. You could even ice each individual piece with the creme fraiche, rather than making a quenelle. Then, you could put a glazed raspberry on top. Really, there are a ton of possibilities.

So, go ahead and refine away!  It's really not that hard.  Take any "home" dessert you like, think about the components and how to refine the presentation for a dinner party.