Conference turris::cooks

  Exotic, to me, means anything out of the ordinary. It can be unusual
  in appearance or presentation (almost anything flambe is exotic), or
  ingredients (hard-to-find or unusual things), or in flavors (unusual
  or unexpected combinations).

  There are lots of flaming desserts which are fun, easy, and tasty. 
  One of the easiest and best is Bananas Foster, which is basically
  bananas sauteed in butter with vanilla and brown sugar, and rum added
  and flamed at the end. Then serve over vanilla ice cream.

  Another easy and dramatic flamed dessert is crepes suzettes, which is
  thin french pancakes sauteed in butter, orange juice and zest, and
  sugar, with cognac and Grand Marnier added and flamed at the end.
  Serve with or without ice cream (traditionally it's served without).

  There are plenty of exotic or unusual ingredients you can use:
  home-made ice creams (mint, various herbs or unusual fruits) with
  unusual sauces (based on nut, fruit, or other liquors). And
  unexpectedly good flavor combinations, such as fresh berries with
  ground black pepper, and all sorts of poached fruits with herbs and/or
  spices sprinkled on top.

  Also, anything with an elegant presentation is nice. The multi-layer
  cinnamon whipped cream torte served at the Italian restaurant Ciao in
  Acton is quite good. It's made with very thin sheets of a cinnamon
  flavored cake, with whipped cream between the layers. My wife invented
  a modification of this, where the cake sheets were chocolate/cherry
  flavored, with kirsch-soaked cherried embedded in the whipped cream.

  A couple of excellent cookbooks to take a look at are the Silver
  Palate series. These have some of the most original (and guaranteed to
  work) recipes I've seen.

  And many ethnic cuisines (especially Asian, Eastern European, and
  Middle Eastern) have traditional desserts which we Americans (of
  mainly English cooking tradition) would consider exotic.

    
    I agree with .1, you could use any of the Mediterranean or Mid-East
    desserts that are sweet and syrupie; such as baklava.  There are 
    several versions in this notesfile.  You can use walnuts or almonds
    and make the syrup with honey or without, etc.  If you want to get
    carried away you can add Halva and Loukom to the selection of sweets.
    
    Now that's exotic!
    

back to our program:

exotic fruits, like papaya halves or mango slices, served with sweetened,
flavored cream cheese as a dip or piped decoratively on the fruit.  You
can also make a "tropical fruit" trifle:

use "luxury" fresh fruit and canned pineapple chunks...I suggest mango
and papaya chunks (fresh or canned), bananna slices, dark sweet cherries
(canned - drained well, frozen - defrosted and drained) - mix fruit together
and sweeten with some pineapple juice - pineapple juice mixtures (tropical)
can be added to the fruit.  Refrigerate for a few hours.
Bake a pound cake or 2, adding shredded coconut...a cake mix is fine for this.  
Make coconut cream pudding.  You can make vanilla pudding and stir in coconut
or you can make coconut cream pudding if you find the mix.  Cut the cake
into cubes.  Layer in an attractive glass bowl like this:

	1/3 cake cubes
	1/3 fruit chunks - use a slotted spoon to keep liquid down to a minimum
	1/3 pudding mixture

repeat until you are finished using all the ingredients.  Top with toasted,
flaked coconut.  Store in fridge a few hours before serving...up to all day
or more.  Sprinkle the coconut on at the last minute.  Serve with some
whipped cream if you feel totally decadent.  I have no idea how many you
need to feed, so you will have to decide if you need 3 packages pudding and
two pound cakes or what.  Rest assured, people will pig out on this - and
you will love any leftovers you have.

    
    If so, you might want to check out October's Gourmet.  There's a
    papaya/vanilla cake, a chocolate and chestnut torte and several other
    difficult, but very fancy recipes. 
    
    Mike.

    Any nut-based torte would be great.  These are the delicious cakes
    that use finely ground nuts in place of most of the flour.  They
    end up only a few inches tall, but are soooooo delicious!  I've
    made one with pecans - mmmmm.
    
    --Louise

    
    It's easy, I use a chocolate crepes, cut into ribbons like fettucini.
    (Roll the crepes and cut to 1/4 inch widths, or feed through pasta 
    machine if you're lucky enough to have one!) 
    Figure 2-3 crepes per person.  
    
    Toss with chocolate or sweet cream sauce (I offer both), shaved
    chocolate, cinnamon, cocoa powder, confectionier's sugar, etc...
    
    And let people go to town with it.  It's really quite easy (I make
    crepes ahead of time and freeze them so I have them when I need 
    them) and it tastes great.  

    I just heard a suggestion to use rasberry sauce with a little 
    Chambourd ..... There you have it ... something even more
    different!!!
    
    
    /gail

    Re: the chocolate crepes & fettucini - do you cook the crepes as usual,
    then cut them?  Do you serve them warm with warm sauce, or do you make
    this ahead of time and chill?  Do you make individual servings and pass
    the sauces, etc.?  I think I had pictured something like a soft fudge
    cut into ribbons, but that would be tooooo rich!
    
    This sounds like something I want to try, since I think I'll be able to
    use cocoa instead of chocolate - do you just add cocoa or melted
    chocolate to a basic crepe recipe?
    
    Thanks,
    
    Terry