Desserts by Invitation

Okay, so it’s not a public establishment, yet. But I think Kat Ochoa’s new Dessert by Invitation venue is more than a good concept, it’s a good time. We showed up at the Glendale Hilton Presidential Suite and it was all set up nice and pretty and ready. So we ate some savory; a turkey, goat cheese, arugula, and caramelized pecans sandwich on a delicious loaf cut to right size portions. There was coffee, beer, wine, champagne, soft drinks, and water available throughout. The heating element slowed us down a little so we were forced (ho hum) to sample desserts, what a lucky break! Kat’s fantastic homemade desserts were worth every indulgence and when you said to yourself ‘this is too good,’ you’d pick up something else that also made you slap yourself on the forehead and say, ‘now, this is too good.’ The panna cotta, the pumpkin cup topped with a crunchy pie crust wafer, the chocolate dipped macaroon, the peanut butter chocolate flower, the red velvet pop — yes, a ball of red velvet cake on a lollypop stick dipped in French white chocolate and dotted with raspberry sequins, a mini carrot cupcake, chocolate ganache cupcake, coconut cream cup topped with mango gelee, and then the cookies were all amazing. Before making our own chocolates we sampled her home made ingredients and she laid out the difference between the American made chocolates and the French and other imported chocolates she uses for the various recipes. We got to sample milk chocolate, white chocolate, dark chocolate, and the actual coco buds in their raw form as used when making the actual chocolate. (The French is better.) After sampling all of these we started the next phase. Pick a mold, opt or not to dust it with some decorative color powders that looked like eye shadow colors. Kat had prepared a fresh vat of her chocolate mix for the day, a combo or 56% and 64% chocolates. Then we poured hot delicious melted chocolate into the mold, dumped off the excess and let it set for ten minutes. Next we added fillings; there was a coconut/​pineapple paste and you could opt to drop in a macadamia nut, there was strawberry vinaigrette filling, and there was a sea-​salt flavored caramel. After filling we poured on the last layer of chocolate to seal in the filling and form the bottom of the candy, the candy you just made. We allowed it to set again, another 10 minutes, and then we tapped them out of the molds, fully formed and beautiful and we boxed them to take home. OMG! Chef Kat Ochoa presents a great sampling of her desserts, a great demo of her skills, combined with the empowering fun of learning how to make a high end dessert yourself. This is a great way to host a gathering of people at your house and have Kat helm the ship as she guides you thru the tasting, making and presentation of gourmet desserts. This was a delicious foray into a world of sweets that not many of us know of. You leave feeling like, I can do that. And you leave completed sated by what you tasted while you were there. I give her a 5 star review and hope to see this service which is part education, part entertainment, and most of all lots of fun — become a popular venue. I will do this again and highly recommend you try it.