The Final Battle

The previous two dessert battles I had to skip due to my chemotherapy sessions, but last week I found myself fit enough to be part again of the lucky few in what's supposed to be already the seventh dessert battle from my fellow food blogger Hot cuisine de Pierre. The previous battle being in my hometown was definitely one I didn't want to miss, but sadly enough my body decided otherwise. But nevertheless I'm more then happy to put my feet under the table on this cloudy summer day in the beautiful city of Bruges, where I spend seven years of my youth in culinary school. Location, the beautiful dining room of restaurant Kok Au Vin in the city centre. While me and Pieter still need to set a date for our battle, he went back into time for this seventh battle and chose for a rematch against the chef it al started with, if I'm correct about a year ago, with battle number one, Sven Coryn. Back then it was the first battle for both, so it will be interesting to see the development of both gentleman one year down the line. Being the 21st of July, our national Holliday, they decided the theme of the afternoon will be "Belgium".

Starting of with round one, both chefs came with a little "vegetable based" appetiser. First I got Pieter his little dish, an interesting combination of fennel, carrot, ginger and peanut. To my surprise and I believe to many others, the appetiser tasted as it looked. It was pretty amazing, flavours were really well balanced and knowing something that brilliant came from his hands even made it more surprising. Sven on the other hand went a different direction with his appetiser by going the savoury way. In my eyes not a smart move if you are in a dessert battle, but nevertheless it was a good combination of sunflower seeds and tomato . The little slice of sunflower seed bread with a pickled cherry tomato and some basil was great, it really was and if I would be having lunch at home with my fiancé on the terrace, then I could definitely go for a bigger version of Sven his appetiser but in a dessert battle, I believe sven could have come up with something better. To bad for him but this round goes to Pieter.

Next up is a round of fruits. Both of them chose for strawberry combinations. First up is Pieter with to our surprise another good looking dessert. We get some strawberry, cucumber, curd cheese and lemon balm, but this time there are a few things that bothered me. I thought the dessert in general was a bit blend and boring. It looked good but the curd cheese could have used a bit of sugar and some lemon juice or zeste to give it some life and the fresh strawberries on the plate could have definitely been of better quality. Overall a good idea that could have had a better execution. Sven came with a combination of strawberry, lemon and verbena. A good looking plate with this time very tasty strawberries and nice and flavoursome verbena jus which made all the components fall into place. For me the choice was easy, and this time my vote went to Sven.

Third and final dessert of the afternoon would be chocolate based and both chefs wanted to make it there round. It may start to sound boring but again Pieter gave us a good looking dessert. His combination of chocolate, malt, blueberries and whisky was again good for some raised eyebrows left and right. And for me it was a strong dessert, I thought the combination chocolate, malt and whisky with the blueberries was so good that I was disappointed that there wasn't enough blueberry on the plate to make every bite memorable. Sven answered with an "as stated on the menu" Chocolate moelleux" with beetroot. A well known combination that has already proven to work in the past, and also here it does work wonderfully. But there is one thing that bothered me quite a lot as a chef and that's when I read moelleux then I expect a moelleux on the plate. Instead we got little half spheres of baked moelleux mixture. So small that it's impossible to be nice moelleux on the inside after its baked it for 2min. I'm classically trained and expected a nice looking moelleux on the plate, with a runny centre and surrounded by beetroot textures of some description, so yeah, long story short, I was a bit disappointed and even though it was tasty and Sven is a good buddy of mine, I'm afraid that for me this one was for Pieter.

For the final round both chefs made three little petit-fours for with the coffee. Pieter gave us a little lemon tart, crispy chocolate lollipop with raspberry and a pecan madeleine while Sven gave us a cherry praline, almond lace cookies with pear and a white chocolate melo-cake with blueberry. Although Pieter his little lemon tart was great, I thought overall Sven his petit fours were a bit better. That brings my votes to 2-2 which happens to be the final result as well. With a full belly of sweets we can all conclude that this is a fair result and that once again Pieter has hosted another great afternoon between foodies. Even though it was the last planned battle, I believe there are many more to come!