Dolce at the Ritz-Carlton whips up some of the capital’s best desserts. Caitlyn Davey headed over for a visit and spoke to chef Laurent about gelato, ice cream and that all important sugar rush.
We’d heard that some of Abu Dhabi’s most luxurious flavours can be found in the Ritz-Carlton’s Dolce outlet, which in turn meant we felt compelled to get down there learn a little more about gelato and everyone’s favourite childhood dessert, ice cream.
The pastry chef at Dolce is Laurent, a man who knows about his frozen treats. He has worked as a pastry chef for 14 years, so what he doesn’t know about gelato isn’t worth knowing.
‘We do sorbet, sherbet and gelato. Everything is done with my recipes, so it is homemade ice cream,’ Laurent explains. ‘We create the halva ice cream for the region, people really like it. We have the traditional ice creams, and stracciatella, it’s an Italian flavour [a milk or vanilla base with chocolate shavings] which is popular too.’
Ice cream originated from a kind of sorbet – people would eat crushed ice mixed with fruits and rosewater around 3000 BC, before evolving into the much-varied creamy favourite we see in front of us today. It is believed that Marco Polo brought the dessert to Italy from China, where it was adapted and eventually became gelato.
To make ice-cream at home, chef Laurent says that it’s important to make sure you have the simpler flavours nailed first, and then progress to something creative. ‘You know, as long as you have a nice basic recipe, you can play around. Because gelato is very smooth, you can add something crunchy like roasted nuts, chocolate chips, or nougat, which will add another dimension to your dish. It’s the basic flavours, and then the crunch, which makes it special.’
There are a variety of iced sweets – chef Laurent explains the differences between them. ‘With the sherbet, the difference is that you have at least three percent of milk fat whereas sorbet is with the pure fruit puree, sugar and water. Sherbet is fruit puree, sugar, water and milk. And French ice cream contains more fat than Italian. For example, French ice cream has 300g milk, 500g cream. Gelato has 500g milk, 300g cream. The freezing temperature is much lower for ice cream because it’s much heavier – if you go past the freezing point for gelato; it will get too hard.’
The basic message is as long as you are using good products, with a good recipe, it’s going to be delicious. So don’t stress yourself out if you’re making it at home.
Chef Laurent says the best ice cream he has had, [apart from his own of course] was a vanilla ice cream in France that had butter. ‘More than 15 years ago, the ice cream maker was making vanilla ice cream that had butter in it. We used to put 12 vanilla beans per litre, normally it’s two or three – twelve vanilla beans and butter… that was amazing.’
So no matter what your flavour, with ice cream there’s something to suit everyone’s taste.
Dolce, Ritz-Carlton Abu Dhabi, Grand Canal, Khor Al Maqta’a (02 818 8282).
Make your own
Try chef Laurent’s recipe
Ingredients:
900g full fat milk
200g 35 percent fat cream
240g refined caster sugar
3 vanilla pods from Madagascar or Tahiti, split in half lengthwise
Method:
Warm the milk, sugar and vanilla pods in a saucepan over low heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
Bring to a boil, cover with a lid, immediately turn off the heat and let steep for 20 minutes.
Remove vanilla pods and add cream. Stir.
Process in your ice cream maker until ready.
Finished ice cream can be kept in a freezer at -18°C in an airtight plastic container for three months.
More ice cream
Baskin Robbins
This international chain has far far more than its trademark 31 flavours, including some of the heaviest and sweetest desserts around.
Various locations including Abu Dhabi Mall, Tourist Club Area (02 644 0103).
Morelli’s Gelato
Try this authentic, albeit mass-produced Italian dessert at Khalidiya Mall.
Khalidiya Mall, Al Khalidiya (02 635 4398).
