To add on to my earlier post on artisan cheeses, the other noteworthy bites from the Hilton Orchard Estate festive buffet were a couple of their jar desserts.
My favourite was the Eggnog Spiced Apricot. Apart from being extremely visually pleasing and the meaningful use of the jar presentation, it was a very good pairing of tastes. The jar was warranted because as you can see, the dessert wouldn't hold together without it, especially the crumble. I also loved the sprinkling of beautiful violet pea flowers, and that flecks of spices in the eggnog cream gave it visual texture, much like black-flecked vanilla bean ice creams.
The spiced eggnog cream had enough spices for the fragrance to come through clearly, and paired with the tart and fruity apricot compote, it complements the fullness and homey feeling of the cream, giving it the perfect taste balance. Then the crumble adds that sprinkle of crunch to the texture with tinge of savoury notes from the butter.
Next was the Chestnut Marron Spiced Chantilly. The presentation was also excellent, as you can see. Although I felt there was less of a need for the jar, unless they were worried about the moisture in the paste drying up.
The paste was a rich spiced chestnut puree, with some tiny, granulated bits of chestnut, pretty much like the Mont Blanc puree. The glistening transculent morsel is the marron component - a beautifully candied chestnut that was soft and moist. And the base was a generously spiced moist gingerbread. Overall, a wonderful party in the mouth that was also very complementary, albeit a bit sweet.
For the Mont Blanc, I'm not sure if they used any cream in the puree though, despite the word 'Chantilly'. As you can see, the colour seemed like a normal Mont Blanc puree colour, which normally doesn't have any cream in the puree itself, and I didn't notice any creaminess to it.
So I think it would have been improved with a small dollop of light whipped cream, however, for the same reason cream is used in Mont Blanc dessert - the chestnut, ginger and spices are quite intensely earthy/woody and nutty on their own. And both the paste and gingerbread were a tad too sweet IMO, so a bit of cream would probably even out the flavour and bring some balance.
I didn't like the other jar desserts though - they were either soggy or watery, which I suspect is a poor use of the jar mechanism. (Their jar tiramisu had the fingers leaking a pool of brown water, which was a pity since the mascarpone cheese was good.)
Nonetheless, I loved many of their other Christmas desserts, especially their Christmas stollen (although they mischievously tucked it into their bread basket section), fruit cake and matcha yule log. So I would recommend the buffet if you love festive desserts and artisan cheeses. Check out their lovely display in the image below.
For more interesting chestnut desserts, check out these posts on marron pie, chestnut tart, chestnut plum macaron and chestnut lotus mooncake. Muji Cafe also has a spiced-fruit-cream combi this festive season with their Gingerbread Apple Prune Roll. For a home-improvised festive drink, try making eggnog chai tea latte.
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