Sweet Signatures
Photography: Courtesy of Deer Valley Resort
How do you top off a picture-perfect ski day in Park City? By diving into one of several decadent desserts made famous by local chefs.
While Park City is world renown-ed for its ski runs, many local restaurants have garnered similar attention for their signature desserts.
Chocoholics rejoice over the menu at Deer Valley’s Mariposa, where the Chocolate Snowball has been a centerpiece since 1981. The Snowball—a fitting moniker for a dessert served at a ski resort—is a combination of rich, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate, coffee and whipped cream. The flourless chocolate cake, also known as Boule De Neige, or—ball of snow—was created from a recipe shared by Anne Wilson, founder and president of La Varenne, the prestigious French cooking school. Deer Valley’s Food and Beverage Director Julie Wilson is a graduate of La Varenne and brought the recipe to Park City.
Letty Flat, Deer Valley’s executive pastry chef, says guests are continually wowed by the novelty of the Snowball, which is served in guilt-free-size individual portions. The dessert is also surprisingly easy to make at home. Flatt shares the recipe in her cookbook, “Chocolate Snowball” (Three Forks, 1999).
Speaking of chocolate, Barb Hill, co-owner and chef at Heber City’s Snake Creek Grill, has made it the highlight of her infamous Black Bottom Banana Cream Pie.
The dish begins with a chocolate crumb crust, topped with a layer of chocolate Grenache, blanketed by a layer of pastry cream and sliced bananas and then topped with fresh whipped cream and shaved chocolate. Hill’s twist on the classic banana cream pie was created out of her fondness for the combination of flavors.
The Black Bottom Banana Cream Pie has been a specialty of the house for eight years and is a favorite of guests as well as Hill’s husband Michael, Snake Creek’s manager and co-owner. “He likes the pie so much he would eat a piece for breakfast every day if he could,” Barb says.
Penny Lehman-Kinsey, chef and co-owner of the Blind Dog Restaurant, uses pumpkin to create a scrumptious seasonal variation of her restaurant’s signature Bread Pudding. She and her husband Derrick created the recipe when they were dating in Delaware. It includes brioche, pumpkin purée and heavy cream. “We came up with different recipes, but the pumpkin seems to be Park City’s favorite,” she says.
At Wahso, the star of the dessert menu is the Coconut Crème Brûlée. While the actual origin of coconuts is said to be a mystery, the same can be said of how Executive Chef John Murcko created the now-famous Coconut Crème Brûlée. “Often, guests will arrive later in the evening with a sweet tooth, and order only this delicacy,” explains Wahso’s spokesman, Jeff Jones. “This dessert perfectly reflects the Asian Fusion concept in which Wahso was conceived. Coconuts are rumored to have originated in Southeast Asia, and the “brûlée” fashions after the French influence.”
To add to the season of warm and wonderful desserts, Pastry Chef Kris Dumas offers her Gingerbread Soufflé on the menu at Sai-Sommet. With encouragement from her husband James, Sai-Sommet’s owner and chef, Dumas set out to whip up a new soufflé for the restaurant’s menu. She pored over numerous recipes and found the inspiration for the now popular Gingerbread Soufflé, which has been among the winter specials for the last two years. The light soufflé is served warm with side servings of vanilla sauce and whipped cream, which can be added once the soufflé top is cracked open at the table. Big enough to share, many guests often find the soufflé so delicious, they opt to keep it to themselves.
Linda Jager is a freelance writer, editor and amateur baker. Her signature dessert is chocolate chip coconut cookies.
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