Chef Joseph Hafner’s Breakfast for Dessert dish
At last month’s American Institute of Wine & Food RI Chef Smackdown Chef Joseph Hafner presented Breakfast for Dessert—a cube of waffle-flavored ice cream with Blis maple syrup encapsulated inside, served alongside a piece of waffle, bacon nougatine and crème Anglaise. The finished dish appears above. While I’m writing about Joe I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that everyone should watch NBC’s Today Show on Wednesday, December 23rd. Chef is scheduled to appear at 9:00 a.m. Congratulations, Joe!
I want to note that Hafner came up with this dish months before, but hadn’t completely determined it’s execution until recently, and since these photographs were taken has continued to refine the process. What you’re seeing here was a pretty complex under-taking and from a business perspective, not particularly cost-effective to produce. Hafner’s latest process is restaurant-ready (and tastes even better). The below photographs of Chef’s work-in-progress were made in his restaurant’s kitchen.
Piping waffle-flavored ice cream into silicone cube molds
Filling silicone half-sphere molds with Blis maple syrup
Pouring liquid nitrogen into a high-tech storage container
Freezing the maple syrup half-spheres with liquid nitrogen
Hafner with his Blis
These last three photos show the process of cutting into the ice cream cube and the gorgeous oozing of the maple syrup as it hits room temperature.
