CHEF CONFECTION PROJECT Chef # 2 Johnathan Sundstrom

FEATURING: Johnathan Sundstrom, chef and owner of Lark and Licorous,  James Beard award winner in 2007 and Food and Wine Best New Chef '01.

This, our second collaboration, (read about our first one here) convinced us that we are definitely onto something! We’ll be sharing more from the chefs, more pictures, and more about the goal of this project—over the next few months, so stay tuned!

Our collective curiosities were piqued when we received the list of flavors Johnathan wanted to explore. The flavors ranged from sweet cajeta (goat's milk dulce de leche), to intriguing pine resin, to downright illegal (tonka beans).

The flavors seemed to say ‘ganache’ (cream + chocolate) so we narrowed ideas down to four possibilities:
Johnathan and Theonistas Nathan and Suzanne discuss ingredients:
Johnathan brought hoshi gaki, a traditional Japanese preparation of persimmons that are peeled, air dried and hand massaged over several weeks! The flavor is subtle yet bright, with an almost apricot-like finish:

No confection is complete without decoration:

Cajeta ganache in the back, is like a luxurious smoky fudge. In the foreground, garnished with actual candied pine, is pine resin ganache. This small rectangular ganache captures the northwest in one sweet and resinous bite:
 
 The team displays the collective 'fruits' of our labor:

View the full set on Flickr!