HOW I WOULD EAT AHN SEONGMIN

 

firstly, it must be established that he is clearly a piece of baked dessert, anyone can tell just by looking at him. now, would he be type of puff pastry, chou à la crème, cannoncino? or would he be a piece of cake? cheesecake? angel cake? would he be light, airy, and acidic, like madeleine? brittle like a meringue or macaron? i would have to break down his ingredients to decide what dessert would be the best outcome. if i went to touch his marzipan skin, powdered sugar would come off on my fingers, and underneath his puff pastry skin would be cream and condensed milk, or perhaps vanilla milk. 

i think seongmin could be prepared in many ways, but the most glaringly obvious way to me, would be a prinsesstårta more commonly known as swedish princess cake. a spongecake with raspberry jam, milky vanilla custard and whipped cream layers, with a whipped cream dome on top, with a marzipan outer layer and rose on top. a few adjustments i would make to the standard swedish princess cake recipe, would be enhancing it with lemon either by using raspberry *lemon* jam or  using lemon juice and zest in the marzipan dough. the standard pale mint coloured marzipan is classic, but i may consider the baby pink marzipan sometimes used instead.

he may also be baked into a batch of madeleines, using browned butter with vanilla bean and heavy on the lemon zest, otherwise i wouldn’t do much else to alter the recipe. for the topping, i would either coat it in melted white chocolate, which would harden into a thin delicate layer, or i would dust powdered sugar on top. and since madeleines are tea cakes, i would pair him with lady grey tea latte and vanilla to create a london fog.

lastly, he could be baked into cream puffs-profiteroles this is the most exciting to me due to all the filling possibilities. besides the most standard cream puff with vanilla pastry filling (maybe with lemon zest and lemon juice for some tang) or crème chantilly, there are several other fillings i would get adventurous with. firstly, mascarpone whipped cream. mascarpone is the same italian cream cheese filling often used in cannoli and tiramisu. a red berry glaze would be most ideal for a cheese filling. rose chai infused cream puffs would be nicely topped with white chocolate and cinnamon, unless i use pistachio in the cream filling. it’s also possible to make lemon strawberry cream puffs with lemon curd, lemon cream cheese and strawberry jam. but this may be a flavour overload for a creampuff, and i would skip toppings, or settle for just powdered sugar. a simpler filling would be creampuffs with vanilla ice cream, which would give me the graces to be generous with chocolate glaze topping.