The Sweet Life

I will admit that I don't like a lot of citrus desserts.  I like my lemons sour-I eat them with salt-and I'm not too keen on key lime pies, though my mother loves them.  Making lemon curd is torture to me.  To stand over the pot, stirring the mix of yolks, lemon juice and sugar while smelling the proteins in the yolks coagulate is not a thing of pleasure.  I honestly think it stinks myself, but to each his/her own.  This doesn't mean I don't make the things I don't like very well.  In the world of pastry, you have to cook for your guests and customers, even if that means making something you don't eat. When changing jobs, going into a new kitchen and executing the previous chef's menu, you're torn between keeping their style, and asserting your own (these events are often booked months in advance, and some have tastings where the expectations are established).  So when I read Deconstructed Key Lime Pie on the menu, like a flip book, the ideas flicker...

This is not what I wanted.  When I set the full-sheet entremet tiramisu for the party, I'd planned on piping the remaining mascarpone mousse on top with a St. Honore tip to give give it texture and sprinkle the cocoa powder over it to create depth (I can see it clearly in my head).  Cut into rectangular bars, with a coffee fluid gel and cocoa nib tuiles, it would be really pretty for the lunch party.  But, when I went in to work, the mousse that I'd left in the cooler for piping wasn't set.  It wasn't liquid either, rather, it moved slowly from the center of the container to the side when tilted.  This meant that the set frame in the freezer would just ooze out into a gooey mess when thawed.  That's when the panic set in.  I needed 38 desserts in 3 hours and I had to start from scratch.  Luckily I had some sponge cake in the freezer, but I needed to make a mascarpone cream from scratch.  My mascarpone mousse recipe would have taken too long...