Verrine

Verrine is French for pretty glass. This essentially means a dessert that is built in a glass. When you do this you have to keep in mind layering and air bubbles that might form while layering. You also have to keep in mind that all the layers are going to be exposed. And to have the design play with the shape of the glass, something like a flower might flow on the inside of your glass if its a circle and has that organic shape to play with but might not work with the sharp edges of a square. The dessert usually has many components including, but does not have to include, a crunch layer to break up the space and also provide a different mouth feel.

Below is an example of a verrine that we did in class:

A play on a mojito: yields aproximately 14 verrines
Components:
Rum infused mousse: pâte à bomb method (adapted from Saus, 745)
100%, 35% Cream, 7 1/8 oz.
100%, 64% Couverture, 7 1/8 oz.
30% Egg yolks, 2 1/8 oz.
30% Sugar, 2 1/8 oz.
10% Water, 3/4 oz.
100%, 40% Cream,  7 1/8 oz.
80% Rum, 6 oz.

Rum Gelée:
8 oz. Rum
8 oz. Simple syrup
4 sheets gelatin*
*use approximately 3 oz. of gelatin per cup of liquid

Lime Mousse: anglaise method (adapted from Saus, 741)

27% Lime juice, 1 7/8 oz.
46% Sugar, split, 3 1/8 oz
33% Egg yolks, 2 1/4 oz.
26% Butter, 1 3/4 oz.
Lime Zest, 1 each
100% Whipped cream, 6 7/8 oz.

Mint Gelée: puree
4 oz. mint
6 oz. simple syrup
3 sheets gelatin

Entremet

Entremet traditionally a term that refers to a composed cake of a small size. This word also is used to described the dish that is served between courses at a fine dining establishment. In modern usage it sometimes is used to describe any mousse cake.

Other books that we looked at, aside from the Saus book were:
Stephane Galcier's Verrines et Petits - Gâteaux

Carole Bloom's Bite Sized Desserts

Flo Braker's The Art of Making Bit-Sized Desserts

Entremets usually have several layers of mousses in them. A review of what is in a mousse: base + stabilizer + lightener. Below are some flavour combinations that you can use for en entremet and then some examples of what we did.

Base: anglaise, ganache, puree, chocolate fortified with butter/hot water/cream/coffee/puree/liquors. (Chocolate needs to be fortified so that it doesn't seize with the temperature shock; so that it stabilizes.)

Stabilizer: gelatin, pate a bomb, Italian meringue, cocoa butter/mykreso (natural brand of cocoa butter), agar agar (vegan option)

Lightener: pate a bomb, Italian meringue, whip cream, common meringue, babayon (egg yolks + sugar + liquor heated over double boiler to nappé)

An unfinished entremet: chocolate fuietine base, joconde sponge, filled with chocolate mousse and raspberry mousse (mousses not shown in picture)

Chocolate Profile

When accenting a small thing like a petits four or especially a tartlet with a garnish you need to be more aware of the flavour profile for each item you are putting into the small dessert. Chocolate has a very different profile depending on the percentage of cocoa butter in the commercial product. We did a slight taste comparison so I am going to give a few notes on a few different kind of chocolate to help illustrate this idea.

58% cocoa nibs - have a slight bitter taste, but is mostly sweet and creamy. Very reminiscent of what we think of as "good" chocolate.
64% Manjari - From the Valrhona chocolate company, this chocolate is a single origin product. Single origin means it is all harvested from one terroir. This chocolate had a complex fruity taste that started with a deep berry taste and then finished with a citrusy finish. This chocolate would be a good pairing with a fruit dessert to bring out or mimic that flavour without infusing.
72% Araguani - This is also from the Valrhona company. It has a bitter, dry, reminiscent of coffee, tannic flavour. This is what we are more accustomed to call bakers chocolate or unsweetened chocolate. But because of the single origin quality you can pull on more earthy flavours then is usually present in commercial unsweetened chocolates.

http://www.valrhona.com/