What's for dessert?

by Tim Gelston
(Denver, Colorado, USA)

Hello Suzele,

Thanks for putting this site together. Its very interesting.

I am a culinary arts student here in Denver with an upcoming research project about Alsace.

For my project I need to come up with dinner menu and have found many dishes that sound delicious. I wonder about dessert, though.

What sort of course is traditional after the plat principal? Are fruit and cheese courses popular?

What about sweets? My though is that apples and tree fruit may play a role, but I'm not too sure.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

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Traditional Alsatian Desserts
by: Suzele

Hi Tim,

If you want something traditional...

Blueberry tarts (heavy on the blueberries...almost like blueberry preserves in an open pie crust)

Sorbets mixed with eaux de vie (Alsatian fruit brandies...very strong stuff!!)

Alsatian bredele or Christmas cookies (usually in the winter)

Kougelhopf could be considered a dessert although it isn't very sweet. It tastes a lot like a coffee cake...

Fruit that you often find in Alsace are...

Black cherries
Mirabelles (small yellow plums)
Large purple plums
Red plums
Every berry known to man (and some of them I'm not even sure what the English translation is...)

If you're having a formal dinner, cheese usually comes after the main dish and before the dessert.

Alsace only has one or two local cheeses...which they absolutely love. Munster is quite pungent but it goes well with a number of Alsatian wines...

And yes...at a formal dinner, you would have a different wine with each course...even the cheese course!

With an Eaux de Vie at the end...before the coffee...gotta...gotta...gotta have coffee at the very end...always ; )

Of course Alsace has some excellent one, two, and three star restaurants and they get very creative with the traditional cuisine. So there's a lot of room to play with the different ingredients...

Let us know what you've cooked up!

Suzele

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