State Dinner Desserts

Gallery

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Dinner in Honor of His Excellency Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel
April 15, 1980
"All food preparation was supervised by a rabbi who had been sent to us specially for the task. The dinner was to be kosher and dairy-free, including my dessert, and orange sorbet cake. There was no problem with the genoise layers, which I baked at the White House. [The rabbi] also approved the dairy-free whipped topping that was to frost the cake and the caramel-dipped orange segments that were to decorate it. But since my ice cream machine had churned many batches of dairy-rich ice cream and couldn't be boiled or cleansed with the torch, the rabbi insisted that I make the sorbet—just orange juice and sugar—in a brand-new machine. I knew from a friend that Jean-Louis, a restaurant at the Watergate Hotel, had just unpacked a new ice cream freezer and hadn't yet used it, so I high-tailed it over there to make my sorbet, packed it in ice, and rushed back to the White House."
Collection of Roland Mesnier
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Dinner Honoring His Excellency the Premier of The State Council of the People's Republic of China
January 10, 1984
"It seemed that aside from melon and a few simple custards, the Chinese didn't really enjoy desserts at all! I reminded myself of all of the pictures of exotic fruits I had seen not only in the cookbooks but in the art books I had paged through. Pomegranates and lychees were all represented, so I decided to focus on these fruits. I'd made a pomegranate sorbet with fresh lychees, mixing in some raspberries for color and garnishing the dessert with sabayon, a French sauce that could add richness to the fruit.Once I determined the components of the dessert, I had to come up with a beautiful and original way to present them. Two images from my research—the phoenix and the small boat known as a junk—had captured my imagination. I'd make a junk out of sugar to hold the dessert, and a phoenix to garnish it."
Collection of Roland Mesnier
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Dinner Honoring His Excellency the President of Mexico Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado And Mrs. Paloma de la Madrid
May 15, 1984
"A tequila mousse accompanied by kiwi and coconut sorbet would be just right, I thought . . . As for the presentation, I molded the sorbet into hollow cactus shapes (I had chosen the kiwi not only for its acidity, but because I thought its color would be great for this purpose), filled the cacti with the tequila mousse, and garnished them with pulled-sugar cactus flowers and pulled-sugar spines. Each platter was decorated with some long-stemmed strawberries and shredded coconut."
Collection of Roland Mesnier
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Dinner Honoring Her Majesty Sirikit, Queen of Thailand
March 11, 1985
"Queen Sirikit of Thailand made several visits to the White House over the years, . . . One memorable visit she was honored at a small black-tie dinner hosted by President and Mrs. Reagan. For dessert, I made pulled-sugar baskets woven in a characteristic Thai shape and filled each one with an assortment of fruit sorbets. This is one of my favorite White House photos because it shows President Reagan digging in with enthusiasm as the queen looks on with a big smile."
Collection of Roland Mesnier
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Dinner Honoring His Excellency the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Mrs. Gorbachev
December 8, 1987
"I designed the dessert to exhibit some Russian flair, starting with the chocolate base, which had a pattern borrowed from the parquet floor in the Kremlin. Two sugar baskets with white and green pulled-sugar ribbons held fresh raspberries, a delicacy in Russia . . . In the center of the platter was a sphere of honey vanilla ice cream filled with a tea parfait, honey and tea being two very popular flavors in Russia. I molded the small chocolate candies that you can see in front of the ice cream to resemble the onion domes of the Kremlin. Acorn-shaped meringue cookies filled with vodka jam completed the presentation."
Collection of Roland Mesnier
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Dinner Honoring The Right Honorable The Prime Minister of Canada and Mrs. Mulroney
April 27, 1988
"Our neighbor to the North, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney of Canada, dined at the White House on several occasions in the 1980s. Each time a visit was scheduled, I tried to use Canadian colors and symbols while creating a new dessert. For a dinner on April 27, 1988, I made this pineapple Champagne sorbet, served in a meringue shell and garnished with maple leaf-shaped cookies and deep red long-stemmed strawberries. I placed a red and white sugar ribbon, to match the color of the Canadian flag, on top of the dessert. It was served on the Reagan china, which is, not coincidentally, red and white."
Courtesy of Roland Mesnier
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Dinner Honoring Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and His Royal Highness Prince Henrik of Denmark
February 20, 1991
"I planned to produce twenty-two large raspberry souffles. . . . So I knew I'd have to have them in the oven before the guests had even entered the dining room . . . I had tested and retested my recipe, watching the clock every time. All of my ingredients were premeasured, and at just the right moment I began to whip my egg whites, eighty at a time. But something was wrong: they weren't coming up the way they should have . . . I cleaned the bowl and beaters and started again. Again, my whites refused to cooperate.
While I was cleaning the bowl for the third time, I overheard the executive chef and the sous chef discussing the mayonnaise they had made earlier in the day. They must have prepared it in this machine! If even a trace of oil remained behind in the openings where the beaters were inserted into the machine, it would drip back into the bowl when they were reinserted after cleaning. Now I clean these spots, too, and was finally on my way . . . I was able to make up the time. They started coming out of the oven looking great. And just as the first ones were ready, I heard the first of twenty-two calls of, "Pick up!" "Let's rock and roll!" I was able to reply."
Collection of Roland Mesnier
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Dinner Honoring Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and His Royal Highness Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
May 14, 1991
"When the dinner was planned, Laurie Firestone, Mrs. Bush's social secretary, gave us the order to "Go all out." . . . I decided to fashion something out of a fairy tale, a chocolate carriage sitting on a marzipan "cobblestone" street. The carriage would be filled with pistachio marquise, a dense mousse, layered with crunchy meringue and nougat. I'd cover the marquise with raspberries so it would look like the carriage was filled with them . . . The coach shows how it was designed to remain standing even if the diners snapped off and ate all four wheels."
Collection of Roland Mesnier
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Dinner Honoring Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress of Japan
June 13, 1994
"For my part, I wanted to make a dessert like nothing I had ever made before. I thought about the friendship between Japan and the United States that is symbolized by the famous cherry trees in the Tidal Basin of Washington . . . I blew some big red sugar balls, each one the size of a football. After I cut them in half using a special Dremel saw, I fixed the open balls, which resembled open cherries, onto white chocolate bases. Each cherry was decorated with some sugar cherry blossoms on a stem. White almond ice cream balls filled with red cherry sorbet were placed inside each opened cherry . . . The base of the big cherry was garnished with hand-pitted fresh cherries . . . Poached kumquat tartlets were served on the side with a wild strawberry sauce."
Collection of Roland Mesnier
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Dinner Honoring His Excellency Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany
February 9, 1995
"For this time of year, I chose deep and comforting flavor of hazelnuts, coffee, and rum. . . . So I made a hazelnut ice cream mold filled with coffee rummousse and crunchy meringue. I decorated each one with nougat triangles and red polka-dotted meringue mushrooms. The petit four tray I am displaying holds rich goodies just right for the season: Parisian macaroons, chocolate almond drops, and butter cookies dipped in chocolate."
Collection of Roland Mesnier
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Dinner Honoring His Excellency the President of the French Republic and Mrs. Chirac
February 1, 1996
"I had been busy preparing that evening's croquembouche, a traditional French dessert with an American twist. Instead of making the pyramid of caramel-coated cream puffs familiar to every French citizen, I planned to alternate caramel puffs with rows of apple and cherry sorbet shaped like lady apples. The puffs and sorbet balls were all to be attached to a cone of green apple sorbet. Because the sorbet had to be ice cold and the cream puffs had to be at room temperature, the dessert had to be assembled just before serving... We set cream-puff swans to swim in a pool of raspberry sauce around the bases and placed spun-sugar decorations that looked like the panache of the helmets of the Republican guards at the Elysee Palace on top of each cone."
Collection of Roland Mesnier
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Dinner Honoring the Honorable Professor Romano Prodi, President of the Council of Ministers of The Republic of Italy, and Mrs. Prodi
May 6, 1998
"When I visited the Italian Embassy in preparation for this dinner, I discovered that Professor Romano Prodi was originally from Bologna, where there are two well-known medieval towers. A little more research revealed to me that peaches and chestnuts are popular in that region of Italy. From my own travels, I knew that Italians are very fond of rich cakes soaked in liqueur and filled with custard cream.
That's all the information I needed to create this dessert, a brioche cake soaked in Amaretto syrup, filled with vanilla custard and fresh peach slices, and covered in a honey meringue... The piece de resistance was a replica of one of the Bolognese towers, made of chestnut ice cream and decorated with nougat pieces."
Collection of Roland Mesnier
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Dinner Honoring His Excellency Carlos Saul Menem, President of the Argentine Nation
January 11, 1999
"It took quite a few days of thumbing through books and pamphlets until I spotted a small picture of some graceful tango dancers. That was it. I made a small prototype that I brought to the first lady for approval, explaining that the dessert itself, a frozen dulce de leche served with roasted pineapple, coconut snowballs, and caramel walnuts, would focus on Argentine flavors. She was delighted with the ideas, since it complemented the evening's entertainment: the actor Robert Duvall and his beautiful Argentine wife, Luciana Pedraza, performing a tango!"
Collection of Roland Mesnier
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Dinner in Honor of Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, The President of the Republic of The Philippines, and Attorney Jose Miguel T. Arroyo
May 19, 2003
"I wanted to create a dessert representing the friendship between the two countries. The lei as a symbol came to mind right away. To execute this idea, I made some very colorful sugar flowers and glued them to the chocolate base. Just before serving, the leis were draped over mango ice cream and coconut mousse molds, which were displayed on caramel and almond nougat stands."
Collection of Roland Mesnier

About this Gallery

"Early in my tenure at the White House, I realized that while it was a good idea to make desserts that very clearly honored the foods and flavors of the particular country, I had to design dishes that were my own rather than trying to reproduce a beloved standard from a particular place."

Former White House Pastry Chef Roland Mesnier shares the State Dinner desserts he created over 25 years—and the stories behind each delicious creation—in excerpts from his book "A Sweet World of White House Desserts"