Bergamot and Chocolate: A Perfect Flavor Pairing (Brownie Recipe Included)

A person’s first taste of bergamot is typically experienced in a sip of Earl Grey tea. A refreshing and distinctive perfume greets the nose as steam rises from the cup. The tantalizing fruity floral aroma has the same affect on the senses as the invisible aromatic trail left behind by a beautiful perfume; it inspires the desire to encounter the source and merge with it. One sip and the scent is transformed into flavor on the taste buds as bergamot balances the astringent tannins in the tea leaves. Black tea and bergamot is a perfect flavor pairing, one that is easily understood by anyone who finds comfort in a warm drink.

Another flavor pairing that produces an equally sensual effect is that of bergamot and chocolate. Like its lemon, lime and orange cousins, bergamot marries well with chocolate and provides a complementary citrus contrast against chocolate's deep dark earthiness. Like all good flavor pairings, when bergamot is combined with chocolate none of the unique characteristics of the individual ingredients are lost. The edge between their differences blurs in harmonious transformation.













Bergamot has floral and citrus notes, both of which can be found in single origin chocolate. Spicy, nutty, winey and caramel-like aspects can make these delicate notes of bergamot harder to detect, but they are there. The contrasting notes have common ground in a specific medium. The trick is to find the space where they meet and consciously refrain from being distracted by the ambiguous fringes. This is difficult for many as ambiguity is irksome because it defies black and white distinctions. When it comes to ambiguity in flavors, notions of certainty disparate and give way to shades of gray that disrupt the senses. It is in this locus that new flavors are born.












Flavor pairing is an art and a science. Home cooks regularly build on flavor pairings that are particular to their culture (tomato and basil, garlic and ginger, shallots and tarragon, etcetera). Though it is true that one can taste harmony in an ordinary dish without donning a lab coat, innovative flavor pairings are evolving as a result of collaborations between chefs (artists) and flavorists (scientists).

Flavor pairing research has yielded an interesting though hotly contested result; when aromatic properties of ingredients are compared and analyzed for common molecules, chefs and flavorists are able to build bridges that result in flavor pairings between ingredients that appear to have nothing in common. "Whilst this [flavor pairing] is still just a theory it is a great tool for creativity," says Heston Blumenthal, chef at The Fat Duck.

Blue Cheese and chocolate. Bananas and parsley. Mango and pine. These are just a few of the flavor pairings that Heston Blumenthal has discovered and applied in his kitchen. His experiments involve cross-pollinating reference material from perfumery and gastronomy (this approach developed when Blumenthal consulted with scientist François Benzi of Firmenich). Blumenthal tests and applies innovative flavor pairings using Steffen Arctander’s Perfume and Flavor Materials of Natural Origin (known as the "perfumer's bible" in the industry) and Leffingwell’s flavor database. The approach is intelligent and intuitive.

Flavor extracts sold in supermarkets are the equivalent of food grade eau de colognes. This may sound odd but essential oils used in perfumery are the same ingredients used to make food grade extracts, with one caveat: essential oils used to create flavors are subject to stricter safety standards as end product is ingested. A growing trend in the use of food grade essential oils continues to influence chefs and mixologists (something White House pastry chef Bill Yosses and I evangelized at a flavor and fragrance event at the James Beard Foundation in May of 2006).

You don't have to be a professional chef to use food grade essential oils. With products like Aftelier's Chef's Essences home cooks can add unique flavor facets to their culinary creations. Glass Petal Smoke’s Bergamot Brownies utilize a bergamot and chocolate flavor pairing in a flourless pastry base that is gluten-free. The recipe is the result of a complete reworking of the Gluten-Free Goddess’ “Dark Chocolate Brownies”.*

Bergamot Brownies 
Recipe by Michelle Krell Kydd 
Serves 9-12 

Ingredients: 
·      5 ounces 72% dark chocolate (chips or broken up bar)
·      ½  cup Unsalted Butter
·      2 large organic eggs
·      1 cup Dark Muscovado Sugar
·      ½  cup almond meal
·      ¼ cup Brown Rice Flour
·      ¼ cup Flaxseed Meal
·      ½  teaspoon non-iodized sea salt
·      ¼  teaspoon baking soda
·      4 teaspoons Mexican Vanilla Extract
·      8-10 drops Aftelier's Bergamot Chef's Essence

Instructions: 
·    Position rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Grease an 8x8-inch square baking pan with cooking oil spray and set aside.
·   Microwave butter in a glass bowl. Start with 20 seconds, adding 15 second increments until the butter is melted. The butter should be melted, not hot. Set aside.
·   Microwave chopped chocolate in a glass bowl. Start with 30 seconds, adding 10 second increments, stirring every time you add more time to the melting process. (Do not over melt as chocolate will crystallize and won’t be good for baking.) Using a dropper add essential oil of Bergamot to the melted chocolate and mix thoroughly. Set aside.
·   In another bowl, beat eggs by hand until combined. Add sugar and vanilla, making sure to smooth out any lumps. Fold the egg and sugar mixture into the chocolate and butter mixture. Blend until smooth and glossy.
·   In a separate bowl combine almond meal, rice flour, sea salt and baking soda. Mix together with a silicone spatula until well incorporated. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add the chocolate mixture. Combine thoroughly.
·   Fill baking pan with brownie mixture, using a spatula to even out the batter. Bake for 30-35 minutes. Test for doneness by sticking a toothpick in the center of the pan; there should be no crumbs sticking to the toothpick. The brownies will be slightly moist. Do not overbake.
·   Allow pan to cool on a wire rack. Refrigerate the brownies until ready to serve. If you don’t plan on serving all of the brownies at once you can wrap individual pieces in foil and store them in an airtight bag in the freezer. Thaw or microwave to soften when the craving for a brownie strikes. 

*Flavor modifications include: use of chocolate at percentages higher than 70%, substitution of dark muscovado sugar in place of light brown sugar, use of butter in place of coconut oil (very important if you don't want coconut to be part of the flavor profile), substitution of brown rice flour in place of sorghum flour, the addition of flaxseed meal to improve texture, and use of Mexican vanilla in place of Madagascar vanilla for a creamy woody caramelized tone. Food grade essential oil of bergamot is utilized to complete flavor pairing synergies. 

Notes:

Food grade essential oils are highly concentrated and should be dosed with a very light hand. A primer on baking with food grade essential oils can be found here.

LorAnn sells food grade essential oil of bergamot. Click here for more information.

Bergamot is a top note in perfumery which means it evaporates more quickly than middle and base notes. If a middle or base note was used in this recipe the amount of essential oil would be cut by at least 50% as middle and base notes evaporate more slowly and evoke stronger flavor effects. 

Blood orange, Ginger, Jasmine, Neroli, Rose, and Ylang Ylang would work nicely in the brownie recipe should you choose to experiment in a chocolate flavor pairing using food grade essential oils.

Glass Petal Smoke predicts that national brands like McCormick will produce gourmet flavor extracts inspired by materials used in fine fragrance. The materials will have acceptance in existing cultures and expose consumers to new flavor combinations that will balance the exotic and the familiar. Growth in local food movements across the U.S. will increase the chances of palatable flavor pairings rooted in authentic foodways (e.g. Midwest). 

Images by Michelle Krell Kydd are marked as such (all rights reserved). 

Image of flourless chocolate pastry is taken by Karen Neoh (some rights reserved).  

Using Food Grade Essential Oils in Baking

When it comes to baking with food grade essential oils there is little in the way of guidance for the uninitiated. Food grade essential oils are highly concentrated. Though used sparingly they are capable of producing deeply nuanced effects that are as memorable as they are delicious. Food grade absolutes are also available to bakers, but these are even more concentrated than food grade essential oils. Confused? Glass Petal Smoke will clear things up so you can expand your flavor horizons in time for the holidays.

Food grade essential oils are not new to the market. Boyajian and LorAnn meet traditional flavor needs, which include nature-identical flavors. Williams Sonoma offers a curated selection of Mandy Aftel's "Chef's Essences" which include; nutmeg, basil, black pepper, ginger, and yuzu food grade essential oils. Aftel, who single-handedly started the trend in natural perfumery, was selling food grade essential oils to chefs before flavor materials were available for purchase on Aftelier.com. Once she added these flavor materials to her palette of offerings molecular gastronomists and mixologists couldn't resist using them. The effect on consumers familiar with these types of flavorants was no different.

Food grade essential oils and absolutes are highly concentrated. If they aren't properly diluted they can erode the lining of the esophagus and damage tooth enamel. Understanding how to use them in a recipe is both an exercise in flavor creation and safety. How can something safely used in dilution be problematic at full strength? Concentrated essential oils are capable of behaving as solvents—which is why perfume and flavor extracts are diluted in alcohol or food grade glycerin. Want a more tangible example? Consider orange oil cleaners sold in supermarkets and health food stores. They don't cut through grease because they are "natural"; concentrated essential oil of orange cuts through grease because solvents break things down. This is not meant to engender fear of using food grade essential oils; it is meant to inform a common sense approach to proper dosing of flavorants while instilling a healthy respect for chemistry. 

If you are going to add "food grade" essential oils to your recipes use them in the same dilution as store bought flavor extracts, which are dosed between one and three percent. A one percent dilution is one drop of "food grade" essential oil to 100 drops of grain alcohol. A three percent dilution is three drops of "food grade" essential oil to 100 drops of grain alcohol. Once you prepare a diluted form of the food grade essential oil you can use it in your recipe as you would any store bought extract; by the teaspoonful. Be patient with yourself and your recipes as you will be learning to add flavor in a whole new way.

Food grade essential oils can also be directly added to fats in a recipe. This method can be applied once you have a handle on working with food grade essential oils diluted in alcohol. Butter is an ideal medium for food grade essential oils as creaming butter allows for the even distribution of flavor. A good range for adding food grade essential oils to butter is 1-3 drops of food grade essential oil to recipes calling for one quarter to one cup of butter (4 tablespoons - 2 sticks). Some essential oils, like lime and bergamot, can be used with a heavier hand (4 - 8 drops) because they are more volatile, (which is why they are categorized as top notes in perfumery). Anything more than these prescribed amounts and you might wind up with pastry that tastes like air freshener.

Notice the repeated specification of "food grade" essential oils in this post? Essential oils that are generally recognized as safe (GRAS) by the FDA (section 582.20 of the FDA code) are not essential oils sold in health food stores for aromatherapy and scenting the skin, (even if they are labeled as "natural"). If you are going to use "food grade" essential oils check the FDA list regularly and make sure that the food grade essential oil you plan on purchasing is on the GRAS list. Organic "food grade" essential oils are highly recommended. Concentrated absolutes (stronger than essential oils) sold as essences for flavor application may contain trace amounts of hexane, a solvent used in the aroma extraction process that is a known neurotoxin. CO₂ extracted absolutes (made using Supercritical carbon dioxide) are a better choice for flavor application as the extraction process allows the character of the raw material to come though in all its subtleties. Supercritical carbon dioxide is safe and kind to the environment so your purchasing choice respects the planet and palates of those who eat your pastry.

Feel like expanding your flavor horizons using food grade essential oils? Glass Petal Smoke has three cookie recipes that are perfect for the holiday season; Frankincense Shortbread, Orange Blossom Crumiri, and Bergamot Crumiri. The dough base in all of these cookie recipes can be tweaked to accommodate flavors that inspire your imagination. All you have to do is make adjustments where existing citrus zest, extracts and food grade essential oils are used. P.S. If you prefer to go gluten-free you can use the pastry base in Glass Petal Smoke's Persian Shortbread recipe and tweak for flavor.

Notes:
When you work with food grade essential oils make sure to purchase disposable plastic pipettes. Bottles with built-in droppers can get clogged and don't allow you to measure with precision. Some food grade essential oils don't come in dropper bottles so you'll need disposable pipettes. Glass droppers can be used if they are dedicated to a single flavor material only and are cleaned thoroughly after use. 

Visit Aftelier.com for exclusive Chef's Essences that aren't available on the Williams Sonoma website. 

Aroma: The Magic of Essential Oils, a cookbook by Mandy Aftel and Daniel Patterson, is out of print. The book contains sweet and savory recipes that include food grade essential oils. Glass Petal Smoke recommends buying a used copy for reference as it is co-authored by a perfumer and a chef.

Painting of Laboratorio by Remedios Varo. 

Creating tinctures is another way to add flavor to food. Herbalists have used this type of essence creation for centuries as alcohol extracts the aromatic and medicinal aspects of tinctured material. If you've made vanilla extract you have dabbled in tincturing. Want to know more about tincturing? Stay tuned. That's a future flavor post on Glass Petal Smoke. 

Orange Spice Cookies: A Fragrant Recipe

Sweet Spice is an aromatic spice blend sold at Super Green Land, (a supermarket in Dearborn Michigan that is part of a small chain of Middle Eastern supermarkets in the United States). The mixture is similar to anise seed laden Lebanese“cake spice” (ka’ak), but relies on fennel seed for its licorice-like quality. Fennel has a rooty vegetal aroma in comparison to anise, and is less assertive in pastry application when combined with warm spices like cinnamon.

The ingredients in Green Land Sweet Spice include anise, cinnamon, fennel and “spices”, the later of which sounds like a shopkeeper’s secret. When Green Land Sweet Spice is tasted neat, one can detect mahlab (seed of the St. Lucie Cherry which is fragrant and has the taste of bitter almonds), nutmeg and a souring agent that hits the taste buds like salt before turning tart.

The combination of fennel seed with orange peel imparts a delicate caramel-like effect that is nothing short of sublime. It is an excellent example of a synergistic flavor pairing that works brilliantly in a cookie recipe. Glass Petal Smoke decided to use the master dough from December's Lebanese Cake Spice Cookie recipe as a base for Green Land Sweet Spice blend.

If you have access to food grade essential oil of neroli two drops will add a delicate touch of floralcy to the overall flavor of the cookies. Note to perfumistas: this flavor suggestion creates a Guerlainade effect in the raw dough that disappears once the cookies have been baked. The woody, amber-like quality of Shalimar is instantly recognizable.

Glass Petal Smoke suggests allowing the cookies to rest in a sealed container a day before serving. This allows the orange zest to mellow so the other flavors can shine through. The addictive crunch of this cookie makes it impossible to east "just one" when accompanied by a good cup of coffee or tea. 

Orange Spice Cookies

Recipe by Michelle Krell Kydd

Yield: 60 cookies

Ingredients:

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour (sifted)

¼ teaspoon sea salt

1 ½ teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder

4 ounces (one stick) unsalted butter (softened at room temperature)

1 tablespoon Mexican vanilla extract

⅔ cup organic granulated sugar

1 organic egg (room temperature)

2 tablespoon Green Land Sweet Spice (a blend)

Grated zest of one small organic orange

Directions:

·      Cut a 20 inch piece of wax paper and set aside. This will be used to chill the cookie dough.

·      Sift flour, salt, baking powder and sweet spice mixture in a large bowl. Set aside

·      In a small bowl grate orange peel using a zester.

·      Add egg to the orange zest and incorporate.

·      Blend vanilla extract into the egg and zest mixture.

·      In another small glass bowl microwave the butter for 15 seconds (or enough time to liquefy without heating it).

·      Add sugar to butter and incorporate.

·      Mix butter mixture with the egg mixture.

·      Add liquid ingredients to dry ingredients, stirring gently with a silicone spatula.

·      Mix the dough thoroughly with your hands. It will have a soft consistency.

·      Using a tablespoon, spoon out dough onto the middle third of a sheet of wax paper and form a 12 inch oblong roll. The dough should be one inch thick and 2 ½ inches wide.

·      Fold the bottom third of the wax paper over the dough, taking care to keep the shape of the dough to the specified measurements. Use your hands to smooth the paper over the dough.

·      Fold the top third of the wax paper over the dough and seal the dough at the ends.

·      Put the wax paper covered dough in the freezer for 1 ½ to 2 hours (or until it is firm). It should be chilled so you can slice through it (not rock hard).

·      Divide oven rack into thirds.

·      Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

·      Line two cookie trays with parchment paper.

·      Unwrap the dough on a cutting board. Using a sharp knife cut ¼ inch slices of dough and place cookies 1 inch apart on each cookie sheet.

·      Bake for 8-10 minutes, reversing trays from top to bottom and front and back to ensure even baking.

·      These cookies will be a light golden color when they are done. The edges will be a soft brown.

·      Allow cookies to cool. Transfer to a wire cooling rack when they are no longer hot.

·      Store in an airtight container.

Notes:

The website for Green Land Food is limited. Glass Petal Smoke recommends using Yelp to see if there is a Green Land market in your area. The company is based in Atlanta, Georgia.

If you live near or plan to visit southeast Michigan make sure to visit Super Green Land in Dearborn. It is located on Warren Avenue where many other flavor adventures await those with a curious palate and a desire to learn more about Middle Eastern food culture.

Image of Orange Blossom by Meejanski via Creative Commons.

Image of Fennel Seeds by Jeeheon Cho via Creative Commons.

Frankincense Shortbread Cookies

Frankincense flavor is no stranger to pastry. Thailand is famous for Kanom Kleeb Lumdual, an ornate shortbread cookie flavored with a variety of aromatics traditionally associated with incense (including frankincense). The pastry is perfumed with fragrant smoke produced by a u-shaped culinary candle called a Tian Op. It's a poetic process, but it isn't the best way to add flavor if you want to taste what's perfuming the smoke. Incorporating a touch of food grade essential oil of frankincense will add a palatable nuance that is nothing short of divine.

Frankincense, like mastic, possesses minty, evergreen, and citrus notes; aspects are sublimated when frankincense is burned as incense. These fleeting qualities blossom in shortbread cookie formulas and are subtly detected in the finish. There is an art to dosing essential oils to create this effect, one that is counter intuitive. Less is more as there is a fine line between eliciting "this is so delicious" and "what the heck did you put in my food" when using food grade essential oils.

 If you've added the right amount of frankincense the effect will be delicately transcendent. Glass Petal Smoke's recipe for Frankincense Shortbread Cookies does not include vanilla and that is intentional. The only flavoring agents are food grade essential oil of frankincense and a Jordanian liquor flavored with mastic, anise and herbs.

Frankincense Shortbread Cookies

Recipe by Michelle Krell Kydd

Yield: 70 cookies

Ingredients:

2 ¼ cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 cup powdered sugar

¼ tsp sea salt
1 cup unsalted butter (two sticks, room temperature)
2 tbsp plus 1 tsp Arak Haddad Mastic (a Middle Eastern liquor)

1-2 drops Aftelier Organic Frankincense Chef's Essence (a food grade essential oil)

Directions:

·      Divide the oven rack into thirds and preheat to 325 degrees.

·      Prep two cookie trays by lining them with parchment paper. Set aside.

·      Sift flour, powdered sugar and salt into a large mixing bowl.

·      Soften butter in a small glass bowl in the microwave so it is creamy in consistency (not warm or transparent). Use a fork to smooth it out.

·      Add Arak Haddad Mastic and food grade essential oil of frankincense to the butter and mix thoroughly. If you would like to use more frankincense do it one drop at a time, tasting the butter with each additional drop. The essence should be slightly noticeable; not intense or overbearing.

·      Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and incorporate with a spatula. Once everything is roughly combined use your hands to mix the dough. Work the dough gently. When coarse crumbs begin to form work the dough thoroughly with your hands. Form a large bowl of dough when you are finished.

·      Roll teaspoon sized balls of dough by hand and place them on a cookie sheet in rows of five (there will be seven rows per sheet). Gently press each cookie with the end of a drinking glass so the oval formed by hand rolling at the center of the cookie is flat. Each ball of dough should be no bigger than one inch on the cookie sheet.

·      The baking time for these cookies is 20-25 minutes and includes turning the trays from top to bottom every 6 minutes as this shortbread formulas isn’t leavened and doesn’t include eggs. The cookies will be faintly tan around the edges when they are ready, and you will smell the butter just before it starts to brown.

·      Remove cookie trays from the oven and allow the cookies to cool down before placing them on wire racks to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Notes:

The dough used to make this shortbread can be flavored many ways and is especially suitable for baking with food grade essential oils as the fat content is high (great for even distribution of flavor, acts as a carrier) and the oven temperature is under 350 degrees (discourages evaporation of highly volatile molecules in essential oils that are responsible for flavor).

Aftelier's Frankincense Chef's Essence costs $12 for 5ml; a great price and just the right amount for a few rounds of baking.

Food grade essential oils that are "generally recognized as safe" by the FDA (section 582.20 of the FDA code) are not the essential oils sold in health food stores intended to be worn as perfume. If you are going to use food grade essential oils check the FDA GRAS list regularly and buy essential oils that are designated for baking and cooking. These materials are typically diluted between 1-3 % to make alcohol-based flavor extracts in the flavor industry, which is why one to three drops of food grade essential oil in a recipe will suffice.

FDA CFR Title 21, Part 172, Section 172.510: Food Additives Permitted for Direct Addition to Food for Human Consumption shows the genus and species of an ingredient which can be consumed and includes a limitations column for prohibitions based on particular constituents. Frankincense is also known as olibanum and can be found in this section of the FDA code with this nomenclature.

*Arak is an anise-based digestif common in the Middle East. Arak Haddad Mastic (distributed by Eagle Distillery) is made in Jordan and has a well rounded flavor as the anise is supported by mastic and herbs. If you cannot find this type of arak at your local liquor store a regular one will do, but you might want to use 2 tablespoons only and/or play with the balance of frankincense to tone the anisic quality that defines arak. If you like digestifs you can purchase Skinos MastihaSpirit (mastic liquor) and add a teaspoon of it to any basic arak and voila; you can duplicate the results had you been able to find a bottle of Arak Haddad Mastic. You can also tincture mastic resin in 190 proof alcohol and use a few drops of the mother tincture (at least 30 days old) in this recipe.