The World Table

An interactive culinary compendium: recipes, lexicon and study

Colorado · Dessert

Colorado Avalanche Bark

  • Easy
  • 40 min
  • roughly 1 of 4 for cost
  • Vegetarian
  • Vegan

nutty-toasted Leads with toasted, nutty warmth throughout.

Ingredients

  • 400g white chocolate
  • 200g dark chocolate
  • 100g pretzels, broken
  • 100g toasted almonds
  • 50g dried cranberries
  • Flaky salt

Equipment

Sheet pan

The skills inside

Chilling to firm: the fridge as binder

Allergen screen

Found: gluten · nuts

Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.

Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.

Method

  1. Melt the white chocolate gently and spread on a lined tray.
  2. Melt the dark chocolate and drizzle over, swirling with a skewer for a marbled effect.
  3. While still wet, scatter the pretzels, almonds, and cranberries over.
  4. Sprinkle with flaky salt.
  5. Chill until firm, then break into shards.

How to tell it is going right

This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.

Chilling to firm: the fridge as binder 48 recipes

  • It went cold before it was handled any further, and it went in spread flat and covered rather than as a warm mass that insulates its own centre.
  • It is cold through rather than cold at the edge: tested at the middle it is as firm as it is at the rim.
  • It holds its shape unsupported; it can be cut, portioned, rolled or lifted without slumping, tearing, or sticking to the hands.
  • The fat in it has gone solid: it feels firm and waxy to the fingers rather than greasy and yielding.
  • It survives the step it was chilled for, going into heat or a coating or a mould still holding its form rather than collapsing the moment it is touched.

Where it goes wrong It was given twenty minutes instead of the hours it needed, so it is firm at the rim and soft at the core: it slumps out of shape as it is portioned, and everything made from it spreads or breaks apart in the pan.

At the Table

The Pour
Banyuls or Ruby Port
Also Right
PX Sherry
From the Taps
Imperial stout
Zero-Proof
Espresso

Chocolate wants fortified sweetness or roast-bitter contrast: the wine must out-sweet the plate, or oppose it entirely.

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Film school

This dish, cooked on camera Search films of Colorado Avalanche Bark Search YouTube: J. Kenji López-Alt on Colorado Avalanche Bark A YouTube search for J. Kenji López-Alt and this dish. No affiliation.