n. the measure of the warmth or coldness of an object or substance with reference to some standard value
—THE RANDOM HOUSE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Key question: Are all of the elements being served at their optimal temperature?
Temperature, as it applies to the different elements of a dessert—from the filling to the plating to the topping sauce—may be manipulated to stunning effect. Think of a just-baked chocolate chip cookie or how different a hot chocolate sauce tastes on ice cream, compared with a room-temperature or cold sauce. To be sure, each of the sauces has its place in the canon of dessert making.
