Coffee dessert with caramel star anise, sablé buckwheat, and ice cream by Tom Coll

The biggest challenge Tom Coll faces on a daily basis as pastry chef of the luxurious Burj Al Arab in Dubai is “to be able to personally control the quality we are executing every day. Forty-two bakers and pastry chefs are a lot to manage”. And the most exciting thing is that every day is different because “each guest has different expectations,” he says.

Coll reflects his personality in the desserts, achieving dishes full of flavor, emotion, and elegance. As an example is this recipe in which coffee is the absolute protagonist, worked on in different ways, from cremeux to mousse to ice cream.

Coffee

Coffee filtre

2.180 g water
90 g coffee filtre

Heat water to 85ºC and add coffee powder. Mix off of the induction 30 second and strain.

Gavotte coffee

1.580 g coffee filtre
150 g butter
12 g salt
300 g icing sugar
170 g buckwheat flour
360 g egg white

Boil the coffee filtre, salt, and butter. Add egg white, buckwheat, and icing sugar. Mix with bamix. Put 325g appareil per tray. Cook at 160º C for 11 minutes, turn, and 11 minutes more.

Coffee Cremeux

450 g creme (550 g for the loose creme)
30 g milk
90 g coffee beans
20 g cassonade
150 g yolk
35 g gelatin mass

Boil the cream and add roasted coffee for ten minutes at 160ºC mix and infuse for 40 minutes. Strain, rescale again to get 900 g of creme. Cook like ‘anglaise’ at 85ºC. Add gelatin mass, mix, and stock.

Infusion sphere

1.200 g creme
180 g coffee beans

Roast coffee beans at 160ºC for ten minutes. Add to the cold cream infused for one night

Sphere coffee

1.200 g infusion coffee
200 g mascarpone
60 g gelatin mass

Boil 1/3 infusion and add gelatin mass. Mix 2/3 infusion with mascarpone. Add the first mix and mix and keep at the chiller. Put on the mold the next day.

Coffee mousse

90 g expresso
5 g coffee nescafé
5 g sugar
22,5 g gelatin mass
100 g mascarpone
600 g cream

Heat sugar and nescafe and gelatin mass with expresso. Mix mascarpone and cream. Add to the mix expresso and mix again. Keep in the chiller and whip in stand mixer with the cream.

Caramel star anise

800 g glucose
800 g sugar
1.200 g cream
80 g star anise
320 g salted butter
120 g pastis

Cook the caramel with sugar and glucose. Make infusion (10min) with star anise and cream. Stop the caramel with infusion. Add the pastis. Keep cold at 40ºC and add the softened butter.

Sablé buckwheat

850 g buckwheat
900 g butter
800 g icing sugar
1.200 g almond powder
200 g yolk
10 g salt
10 g maldon salt

Mix all the ingredients together until you get a homogeneous mix. Add the yolk. Spread to 2.5 mm. Cook 150ºC for eight minutes each side.

Coffee ice cream

5.180 g milk
1.000 g coffee beans(milk)
1.750 g cream
300 g coffee beans(cream)
300 g yolk
1.000 g cassonnade
450 g milk powder
700 g glucose powder
40 g stabilizer

Boil the milk and add the roasted coffee beans at 160ºC for ten minutes (infused overnight). Boil the cream and add the roasted coffee beans at 160ºC for ten minutes (infused overnight). Next day, strain milk and rescale again complete with fresh milk. Strain cream and rescale again complete with fresh cream. Mix ½ cassonade with yolk. Mix ½ cassonade with glucose powder, milk powder, stab, and infused cream. Mix the two mixtures together. Cook like ‘anglaise’ at 85ºC. Strain, mix, and turn the next day.

Other ingredients

Coffee powder
Coffee beans