Everyone has that one treat that they could easily make a meal out of. For me, it’s Oreos. I will honestly sit with a glass of milk and eat a third of a sleeve without thinking about. My mom would be very proud of my dinner choice. While he did not serve up store-bought cookies, Robert Toland designed an entire menu around the concept of dessert for dinner when he visited last week. Having sharpened his knives in an eclectic series of restaurant kitchens, Robert has been conceptualizing pastries for a long time. Visit Terrain and you will see one such offering in the form of their chocolate terrarium dessert, where they incorporate an actual rock into the presentation. Suffice to say, these won’t be your grandma’s cupcakes.

To get things started, guests were given a pair of savory bites: chicken yakitori and spicy tuna hand roll. Drawing from times he spent with his Japanese grandmother who would prepare such snacks, Robert doesn’t simply do desserts but enjoys preparing foods from various cultures. The yakitori is traditionally made with marinated chicken thighs and then grilled. Similarly, the tuna hand roll is a basic preparation that uses only the fish, kewpie, sushi rice, and a nori wrap.

Moving on to the first “dinner” course, Robert also incorporated sushi rice but in the form of pudding. While you can use many strains of rice, Robert likes using sushi rice because it generates a fair amount of starchy material to create a naturally creamy pudding – kind of like risotto. Topping it off with horchata caramel and a miniature cinnamon toast, the breakfast cereal-inspired dish was only the start to a night filled with the right amount of sweet and tart.

Speaking of tart, Robert’s third offering brought together refreshing citrus elements like lime, pomelo, grapefruit, and yuzu with Meyer lemon sorbet and yogurt meringue for a dessert salad of sorts. The final touches of pine nuts and olive oil completed a dessert that would be perfect following a particularly heavy meal or enjoyable during the warm summer months.

The next course played with varying degrees of sweetness and textures. Macerating sweet corn to produce a creamy gelato, Terrain’s pastry genius combined it with golden watermelon granita, resulting in a monochromatic yet surprisingly contrasting dish. Granita is a simple treat if you want to take a shot at it. Find your favorite fruit (about 4 cups) along with the juice from a lemon or lime. Process the fruit, the juice, a quarter cup of sugar and two tablespoons of water. Pour it into a roasting/cake pan and place it into the freezer. After about 30 minutes, take a fork and scrape it. Do this two or three more times as it continues to freeze.

A class about sweets and dessert cannot possibly be complete without chocolate. In this instance, a dark chocolate cake satisfied that requirement. In case one chocolate ingredient wasn’t enough, Robert topped it with milk chocolate mousse, chocolate oat streusel, and chocolate hazelnut aioli. And the crowning detail? Seasonal pomegranate jewels.

Mignardises are bite-sized morsels intended to close out meals. This night was finished with one in the form of a raspberry lime macaroon. Bonus: a sherry pairing of Emilio Lustau East India Solera.