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jaybee2003
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| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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| Posts: | 272 |
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Posted: 16 Sep 2007 07:11 am |
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A friend rang today looking for a recipe of mine for a dinner party she's planning next weekend. "Ohh," she said, "It's rather expensive isn't it...all that cream, two blocks of chocolate...."
"Yes it is," I agreed, then laughing "but did you hear about the $14,500.00 dessert ? "
On offer (and to be ordered in advance) at The Fortress, a luxury resort in Sri Lanka, is the exclusive "The Fortress Aquamarine" dessert. Price per serve: US$14,500 (NZ$24,983). Currently rated as the World's Most Expensive Dessert.
It consists of a few mouthfuls of cassata served in a shaped sugar dish, a few trails of chocolate formed into stilts and a stilt fisherman, all perfectly created to balance an 80-carat aquamarine "gift".
Having splashed out a small fortune, add a slightly smaller fortune to the bill and one can eat this concoction off handmade glass cutlery. Apparently, so far in the few months this offering has been available on the menu, none have been sold.Attached Image (viewed 154 times):
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jaybee2003
Member
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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| Posts: | 272 |
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Posted: 16 Sep 2007 07:29 am |
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Rated in the Guinness Book Of Records as the Most Expensive Sundae in the World is the Golden Opulence Sundae to be found at Serendipity 3, New York. Price for one serve: US$1000 (NZ$1723).
Vanilla ice cream - containing ingredients we all may well stock in our pantry - cream, eggs, sugar, flour - all churned together and infused with Madagascar vanilla. Add some chocolate and truffle pieces, candied fruits, coat the ice cream with a layer of edible 24 carat gold leaf. Serve topped with a mini dish of sweetened golden caviar, sweetened and infused with passion fruit, orange and Armagnac - and you have it.
It is served in a Baccarat Harcourt crystal goblet (Which costs approx US$275 - NZ$474 to buy online). It is eaten with an 18 carat gold spoon and a mother or pearl spoon is provided to devour the caviar. One does to keep the crystal goblet though.
Apparently, the golf leaf "leaves a ring of golf dust around people's mouths." Over 100 of these desserts have been sold in a three year period.
Which makes my decadent chocolate mud cake recipe seem very economical by comparison.
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David Harcourt
Administrator
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 16 Sep 2007 08:15 am |
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jaybee2003 wrote: ...coat the ice cream with a layer of edible 24 carat gold leaf...Apparently, the golf leaf "leaves a ring of golf dust around people's mouths."
Lytton Strachey tells (in Eminent Victorians) the story of Hong-siu-tseun, or Hong Xiuquan, as he is referred to in Wikipedia. Hong believed himself to be "the prophet of God...the Son of God; the Celestial King; the younger brother of Jesus". In the 1840s and 1850s Hong led a military campaign - the "Taiping Rebellion" - against the rule of the Manchus and the Mandarins. His goal was to establish Taiping, the reign of eternal peace. Once the campaign was underway, Strachey writes:
"...retiring into the depths of his palace, Hong left the conduct of earthly operations to his lieutenants while he himself, surrounded by thirty wives and one hundred concubines, devoted his energies to the spiritual side of his mission."
According to Wikipedia:
Within the land that they controlled, the Taiping Heavenly Army established a theocratic and highly militarised rule:
*The subject of study for the examinations for officials (formerly civil service exams) changed from the Confucian classics to the Christian Bible.
* Private property ownership was abolished and all land was held and distributed by the state.
* A solar calendar replaced the lunar calendar.
* The society was declared classless and the sexes were declared equal. It was the first Chinese regime ever to admit women into examinations.
* Foot binding was banned.
* Monogamy was promoted.
* Other new laws were promulgated including the prohibition of opium, gambling, tobacco, alcohol, polygamy (including concubinage), slavery, and prostitution.
In 1864, led by General "Chinese" Gordon (as he came to be called), the Imperial forces closed around Hong's heavily-fortified capital of Nanjing (what Strachey calls "Nankin"):
"...In the recesses of his seraglio, the Celestial King, judging that the time had come for the conclusion of his mission, swallowed gold leaf until he ascended to Heaven."
Hong was another who consumed gold leaf:
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jaybee2003
Member
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 272 |
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Posted: 16 Sep 2007 10:27 am |
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David Harcourt wrote: "...In the recesses of his seraglio, the Celestial King, judging that the time had come for the conclusion of his mission, swallowed gold leaf until he ascended to Heaven."
.."ascended to Heaven..." Prompted thoughts of the origins of another dessert - tiramisu. (One of many origin/definitions I have read and there are a number).
tira (to pick/draw) - mi (me) - su (up) [Heavenwards]
Other proposed origins from memory, related to energies required for sexual prowess, and another to energy for soldiers.
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giraffeinfall
Member
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
| Location: | Australia |
| Posts: | 191 |
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Posted: 18 Sep 2007 12:15 am |
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We went to the Lido for dinner and show earlier this year and ate from the 'middle of the range' menu of a choice of 3 or 4 menus ranging up to the wildly extravagent.
Dessert was a choice of two and my choice was accepted without comment.
However my spouse chose the other one, a choccie mud cake sort of affair, at which point (but not before) the elegant French waiter admitted sadly that zis choice was not available ce soir, hence Sir could choose any dessert he liked from any of ze other menus...
You got it, I was shortly treated to the vison of Sir eating a rather more souped-up choccie mud cake with gold leaf on top... though not, sadly, with the use of a gold or even runcible spoon.
Curses that I chose the other dessert...
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jaybee2003
Member
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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| Posts: | 272 |
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Posted: 18 Sep 2007 01:05 am |
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giraffeinfall wrote: with gold leaf on top... though not, sadly, with the use of a gold or even runcible spoon.
Curses that I chose the other dessert...
Hi Giraffe - curses indeed!
Curiousity got the better of me a few minutes ago and I rang a local cake decorating supplies shop. No, they don't stock edible gold leaf, but can get it in. Off the top of her head she thought it was around $30 a sheet - and said the sheets are very small.
She sells a lot of edible gold powder ($11.50 a bottle). Apparently it is best mixed with gin and painted on - her recommendation for gold on chocolate. I think my budget could cope with that!
Shame I didn't know about edible gold leaf for my parents golden wedding anniv dinner a few years back. Then again, considering the contented silence during dessert courses at most dinner parties and the speed at with desserts are usually devoured - perhaps it an unnecessary extravagance that wouldn't be appreciated.
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