Nourished

Thermomix

Baking

Coconut Milk Creme Patisserie

231d6-p1010309I use the standard Creme Patisserie recipe on the blog a lot, but in a recent recipe (which contained a coconut curd), I thought I might make a coconut milk variation – after all the fat content of coconut milk is quite high, and the consistency can be similar to milk.  I altered the recipe slightly, but that was because I included 30ml of Malibu, and an increased quantity of flour – I wanted to be able to pipe the creme pat into quite stiff peaks on the plate, for a specific dessert.
Ingredients:

300g coconut milk 60g unrefined caster sugar
30g unsalted good quality butter
30 ml Malibu 45g plain flour
3 free range egg yolks
the seeds from 1 vanilla pod
pinch of salt

Method:

Put all the ingredients into the Thermomix bowl and cook for 7 minutes at 90C, speed 4.

Give it a quick whizz at the end to ensure it’s smooth, then pour into a bowl and cover with cling film until it’s cool.
 
Yes – that’s it!  Keep it in your fridge until you require it.

Oh. And if you’re stupid enough to stick in a block of quite cool butter, do put the lid on properly and start the machine quite slowly.

Baking

Swiss Meringue Buttercream Icing [Thermomix]

I’ve been making a lot of macarons lately, and when I’m completely happy with the process, I’ll put a post up.  But in the meantime I’ve come to realise that whilst a perfect macaron shell is lovely, actually what the majority of people remember are the fillings.  Macarons are vehicles for flavour, and I guarantee most people won’t know if your ‘feet’ have separated, or your shells are hollow.  What they will remember is the texture! 


So far I’ve played with freshly made jam (meh), buttercream (meh – too buttery), Italian meringue buttercream (still a bit buttery) and agar gels (lots of potential here).

But then I stumbled across a recipe by Karen Scott on the Australian thermomix forum for Italian meringue buttercream, and I had to give it a go.  The idea that you can get on with making your macaron whilst the Thermo is making the filling is just too tempting!

I followed the recipe exactly as it stated, and oh my word!  I’m really not a buttercream icing kind of girl, it’s always a bit to rich in my experience – but this is absolutely exceptional.  Perhaps I should elaborate?  It’s still incredibly buttery and creamy, but the quality of the meringue lifts it beyond anything I’ve seen made at home before.  I’m not a massive cake eater, but when I’ve had them forced on me the overwhelming taste of the icing is either icing sugar, or butter (or worse still, both).  In this there is an instant melt-in-the-mouth affect, with no one thing dominating – this allows the actual flavour to completely sing!  I made passionfruit puree, then salted caramel – they taste nothing like each other – each tastes of its own component.  This makes a large batch of this the perfect vehicle for flavouring several batches of macarons or cupcakes.

The meringue produced by the Thermo was way beyond my expectations, and I’m seriously considering using it to make macaron…  In the meantime, I will never make buttercream any other way!  Clearly you need a Thermomix to make the magic happen, but if you do have one – you just have to try this!

Ingredients
Swiss Meringue Buttercream
100 g egg whites
200 g Sugar (white or raw)
300 g unsalted butter cubed

Preparation

  • Place egg whites and sugar into the TM Bowl. Mix for 5 minutes at 70c Speed 2.
  • Check that all the sugar has dissolved by rubbing a bit between your fingertips. You should not be able to feel any sugar crystals. if you can, beat for 2-3 more minutes and check again.
  • Place the butterfly into the bowl and mix for 10 minutes at speed 4. At this stage the mixture should be smooth and glossy and form stiff peaks.
  • If the mix has not yet cooled to room temperature, keep beating until the bowl is no longer warm to touch. This could take another 10-20 minutes. If you are short on time, transfer the mix to a stainless steel or glass bowl and sit in a basin of cold water. Once the bowl is cool to touch, tranfer the mix back to your TM bowl and continue.
  • Mix for 3-4 minutes at speed 4, slowly adding the butter bit by bit through the lid. Don’t worry if it looks a little curdly along the way, it should all come back together.
  • At this stage you can add colour or flavour of your choice. Suggestions are; vanilla extract (1 tsp), chocolate (100g melted and cooled), orange oil, lemon oil etc. I split my bacth in half and added chocolate to one half.
  • Pipe or spread onto your cake or cupcakes and enjoy.  You can put it in the fridge if you are not going to use it straight away but bring it back to room temperature and whip it again before using.
  • You can increase the quantities to whatever you need, just keep the egg whites, sugar and butter in the ratio of 1:2:3. An 8 inch cake will take about 150g egg whites depending on the type of piping you use.

This is the first stage of the meringue, you can see the dense meringue consistency

Following the addition of the butter, the meringue icing is a much richer colour and density

I’ve now made several batches of this and it really is the best icing.  One thing I have noticed is that if you keep beating the meringue until it’s completely cold, it does seem to re-liquify slightly.  I’d be tempted to remove the jug and the lid to speed up the cooling process, but without over-whipping.  I’ve also now made this with equal quantities of the buttercream and melted chocolate, and it’s ridiculously good.  The kids have been flavouring it with all kinds of flavourings – great fun!

Liquorice

Tribute Dish – Verveine’s Deconstructed Sherbet Dab

Last week I went to a fish restaurant locally called Verveine, in Milford-on-Sea. Verveine is run buy Chef Patron David Wykes, with a fishmonger at the front and a restaurant at the back.  David and his team cook a variety of traditional and modern dishes.  The one I particularly loved – we all loved – was a deconstructed sherbet dab. An intensely deep and rich liquorice ice-cream is topped with a scattering of sherbet – in this case icing sugar and Texturas Fizzy.  I immediately ordered some Fizzy from my favourite supplier Infusions for Chefs, and got cooking.

I adapted my basis recipe for the lavender ice-cream, and added an additional 160g of Panda liquorice – now I would definitely go with the Panda brand, the liquorice is soft enough to melt adequately into the cream, and has the right intense earthiness you need for it to evoke all the right memories of a proper Sherbet Dab.

Ingredients
160g Panda liquorice (five bars in my case)

300ml whole milk
300ml double cream
4 large organic egg yolks
100g caster sugar

I literally put the whole thing in the thermomix, and cooked it at 80ºC for 5 minutes, speed 5. The main thermomix book tells you to take the mixture to 80º, and although the light was solid, I double checked the mixture with a digital thermometer.  Leave it to cool, then pop into your ice-cream maker until it reaches the desired consistency.

Personally, I think I could easily have upped the liquorice even further, despite it being a higher ratio than I found in many other recipes.  Still, I think it depends how much you like liquorice :0)
I didn’t particularly measure the sherbet, but I think was about 2 Tbsp icing sugar, 1 Tbsp Fizzy, and I popped in about 1 tsp of lemon powder because it happened to be on my counter.  Blitz them together and taste!  When you’re happy, sprinkle liberally on your liquorice and reminisce…  [Looking at David’s dish again, might be worth putting a little bit in the bottom of the dish, then a smaller amount on top – rather than just chucking it onto the ice-cream :0)]

David’s Sherbet Dab
My Sherbet Dab

Butter

Flavoured Butter [Thermomix]

Of course we all know how to make flavoured butter, but in the Thermomix it’s even more insanely easy! Today I made on flavoured with 1 lime, 1 lemon, and 1 blood orange, then chopped some herbs into it.  Used it to pop under the breast skin of my roast chicken – yum yum.

Look, this is my chicken before it even went in the oven – but it’s also a cornfed chicken, so the skin is already golden :0) Of course forgot to photo it when it came out… But you get the idea.  And yes, I loosen out all of the joints to ensure even cooking, which means I cut off the end of the wing so it doesn’t stick into the breast.

Then I popped all the herbs I hadn’t used this weekend into the Thermomix, put in 1kg of butter, cooked / chopped it at 57ºC for 10 minutes.  Perfect herb butter.

Come on, who wouldn’t want that on their fish? Or a quick version of Omelette aux Fines Herbes?

Chocolate

Vanilla-Ice Cream, and Chocolate Ice-Cream

Yes, I’m still making ice-cream at a ridiculous rate since I got the Thermomix, but it’s now so easy I’m determined never to buy another tub of ice-cream again.  This way I know exactly what’s gone into it!

First up, vanilla…

1 vanilla bean
475ml whole milk
150g granulated sugar
4 large egg yolks
240 ml double cream
1 tsp pure vanilla extract.

Hey, it’s a thermomix recipe – first I pulse a whole vanilla bean with the sugar, then put everything in, cook to 80ºC, speed 5, for around 11 minutes in my case.  Do make sure the custard reaches 80ºC.  Strain it, preferably into a bowl over ice, and chill in the fridge.  When cool, churn in your ice-cream machine until the consistency is right, then set in the freezer.

Using exactly the same technique, chocolate… 

475ml whole milk
2 Tbs and 1 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder (I used the Green & Blacks)
Pinch of salt
170g good quality chocolate.  I used Valrhona 68% cocoa solids
4 large egg yolks
200g granulated sugar
240ml double cream
1 tsp pure vanilla extract.
Just omit the stage with the vanilla, and carry on as above.

Vanilla Ice-Cream

Valrhona Chocolate Ice-Cream (slightly melting :0)

Coconut

Tribute Dish – the Roux Pre-Dessert – panna cotta, jelly and granita… [Thermomix]

At Roux Parliament Square, the pre-dessert is a panna cotta, topped with a jelly, and then a refreshing granita. On the day I went we had a coconut/passion fruit/lime, but I notice from trawling reviews that they also do apple/apple/cucumber (yum!), pineapple/coconut/kaffir lime, strawberry/strawberry/meringue.  So it’s a very successful formula, onto which you can put your own twist.  If you’re going to do this regularly, you’ll need some better glasses than mine, I’m on the lookout for something far prettier, a little like this…

I love dishes like this, you immediately wonder what flavour combinations you’d be able to get away with – is whackier better? Could you go liquorice/pernod/blackberries like some ’80’s throwback drink? How about plum/Prucia liqueur/plum… [I recently discovered Pruci at Gerry’s in Soho, the most amazing stuff! It’s made from the Japanese Ume plum, macerated in grape spirit and aged in French oak barrels – one of the most addictive things I’ve tried in ages!] How about bergamot/apple/elderflower? Earl Grey/Bergamot/Lime? Matcha/coconut/matcha?   

The Roux Panna Cotta

Actually, because I’ve been cooking all weekend, I thought I might try Fruit Tea/Pimms/Cosmopolitan Mixer and massively cheat.  That may be a bad idea, but the grand thing about a thermomix is that it will only take 20 mins or so of prep to try the whole thing out – so why not?

Fruit Tea Panna Cotta (adapted from the Daily Mail). 
3 gelatine leaves
200ml semi-skimmed milk
300ml double cream
50g caster sugar
2 fruit tea bags

A quick adaptation of the standard Thermomix panna cotta recipe gives us a combined technique of…

  1. Soak the gelatine in a bowl of cold water for 5 minutes. 
  2. Meanwhile, put the milk, cream and caster sugar into the thermomix and cook for 6 minutes / 80ºC / Speed 3
  3. Drain the gelatine and squeeze to remove the excess water. Add to the thermomix and stir for 3 minutes / speed 3 to dissolve the gelatine.
  4. Tip into a bowl, then add the tea bags and leave to infuse for 20 minutes.
  5. Remove the tea bags, pour the mixture into your glasses and leave to chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours or until set – there should be a slight wobble in the centre.
Tips: Now, getting this panna cotta neatly into the glass is going to drive you insane! Make sure you know where your funnel is, and that it fits your glass, before you begin!  I ended up using a sauce bottle, you know the kind, for putting little dots around the plate – still ended up with the odd splash…
Pimms Jelly  (adapted from the Daily Mail)
50g caster sugar
50ml water
Squeeze of lemon juice
2 gelatine leaves
100ml  Pimm’s
100ml  lemonade

Not going to do this in the thermomix.  

  1. Put the sugar, water and lemon juice into a saucepan and heat gently until dissolved. Simmer for 5 minutes. 
  2. Place the gelatine in a shallow bowl, cover with water and soak for 4 minutes. Squeeze out the excess water, then add the gelatine to the pan to dissolve. 
  3. Cool, then add the Pimm’s and lemonade. Cool at room temperature. 

Before you put the jelly onto the panna cotta, make sure it is completely set!  From past experience I’ve found it best to put a tiny layer of jelly on first, allow this one to set, then add the rest of your jelly layer – this gives you a clear jelly.  I know this picture has a frosted glass, it’s just come out of the fridge.  But look at the jelly layer – you can just make out the first, slightly milky layer, and then the clearer jelly on top. Do take the time to do this step properly if you’re doing it for guests – but hey – my kids didn’t even look at it!

Cosmopolitan Mixer Granita:
100ml Funkin passionfruit syrup
2 pouches of Funkin Cosmopolitan Mixer
Juice of 1/2 lime
Ice cubes to blend into a granita
I’m going to cheat, because I can :0)  Put the juicy bits into the thermomix and add enough ice cubes to blend into a granita.  Make sure you really get a fine grain, as the flavour is much stronger in a finer grain than a really gravelly granita (if you’re using a thermomix that is – will not apply to a normal granita if you make it in the traditional way, as your flavour is your ice!).  As usual, mine is far too ungainly, but the flavour is there. I’m going to find a more appropriate glass, and cut back on the quantity and roughness of the granita.  Having said that, the panna cotta is flipping perfect! Absolutely the right amount of wobble, smooth, creamy, so I’ll use those ratios again!  Think I’d be more inclined too to make a proper granita, the thermomix one is great if your in a hurry, but the texture is difficult to gauge like that.






Pierre Koffman

Pierre Koffman’s Pistachio Souffle [Thermomix]

Pistachio soufflé with hibiscus flower ice-cream

We all know I love a soufflé, but now I have a thermomix I’m going through my recipes seeing how I can adapt them accordingly.  This Pierre Koffman soufflé was an absolute doodle in the thermo, the creme patisserie is now so simple to do, that soufflés are now a very real option for every day eating (though perhaps not to be recommended!).  It also means that it’s a very simple and viable option for a dinner party – the creme patisserie has to be made in advance anyway, but whilst your thermo gets on with that, you can be prepping the rest of your meal!  Watch this space, soufflés are going to be flooding out of my kitchen…

Ingredients


Creme Pattiserie:
½ vanilla pod
100g caster sugar
500ml milk

120g egg yolks

50g corn flour
40g pistachio paste

For lining the dish:
25g butter, softened
25g caster sugar

For the Meringue:
4 egg whites (let’s say 140g)
1 tbsp caster sugar
Icing sugar to serve.
Preparation:
Grind together the vanilla pod and caster sugar until smooth.  Mix in the remaining creme patisserie ingredients and cook for 7 minutes at 90ºC, speed 4 until smooth.  Put in a bowl to cool and cover with cling film and cool rapidly.
Generously butter 4 individual soufflé dishes. Put the grated chocolate inside and rotate the moulds so that the chocolate completely covers the inside, sticking to the softened butter. 
In the thermomix, beat the egg whites until firm, add the tablespoon of caster sugar and whisk until stiff. Add a small quantity of the whites to the pistachio mix to soften it, then fold in the rest of the egg whites and pour into the soufflé dishes.
Bake in a hot oven 240°C/ 475°F/ gas mark 9 for 15 minutes or until well risen. (If you’re making large individual ones, 15 minutes will leave them baveuse, which is my preference anyway – if you want them slightly further along than that, you’ll need to watch the oven like a hawk.)
To serve, dust the top with icing sugar and serve with ice cream of your choice.
Serves 4

Additional notes…

I know Pierre recommends the chocolate flake lined moulds in the original recipe, but I always find they go a strange colour.  This time have melted some of the pistachio paste into the butter before double lining the moulds.  I realise these seem very heavily lined, but having recently seen Alan Murchison line his moulds for an apple and cinnamon soufflé, I’m now trying out this heavier method.  It seems to work well, and perhaps offers more ‘structure’ to the soufflé?

And yes Bruno, I know that creme patt doesn’t look smooth, but I was just forking it out :0)

I use the Sevarome purees, fantastic things, though jolly expensive.  There are lots of recipes to make your own on-line, and now I have a thermomix, I may just do that :0)

Hibiscus Flower

Hibiscus Flower Ice-Cream [Thermomix]

Having made the lavender ice-cream so easily, I thought I should see what else I could do with my thermomix!  This time hibiscus flower ice-cream.

Ingredients
1 jar of wild hibiscus flowers in syrup (140g?)
280ml whole milk
290ml double cream 
5 large organic egg yolks
100g caster sugar 
1 Tbsp hibiscus flower tea liquer
Having adjusted down the liquid ingredients a little to accommodate the hibiscus flower quantities, I pulsed the hibiscus flowers down to a puree before adding all of the other ingredients.  Then I cooked it at 80ºC for 10 minutes, speed 5, checking it after 8 minutes to see if it had reached 80ºC.  Leave it to cool, then pop into your ice-cream maker until it reaches the desired consistency.  The ice-cream will have a strange grey-pink colour, so I boosted mine with a tiny bit of red colour paste, but it tastes yummy all the same.  Thought I might serve it with a pistachio soufflé…

Wild hibiscus flower ice-cream

Ice-Cream

Lavender Ice Cream

Lavender Ice-Cream

I found a lavender ice-cream recipe on the Telegraph website, and thought it would be a good one to adapt for the thermomix.

Ingredients
300ml whole milk
300ml double cream
4 large organic egg yolks
6 drops lavender arome, if you have it.
100g caster sugar (I used lavender sugar, with a few of the lavender flowers left in)
I literally put the whole thing in the thermomix, and cooked it at 80ºC for 5 minutes, speed 5.  The main thermomix book tells you to take the mixture to 80º, and although the light was solid, I double checked the mixture with a digital thermometer.  This was only at 73º, so I cooked it for a further 4 minutes – 9 minutes in total.  Leave it to cool, then pop into your ice-cream maker until it reaches the desired consistency.
Lavender Ice-Cream

Chocolate

Michel Roux’s Chocolate Soufflé [also for Thermomix]

Chocolate souffle – the ultimate hit of chocolate, but without the guilty stodge… You can almost convince yourself that this doesn’t count…  This is the joy of soufflés, they satisfy without making you feel as though you’ve eaten a whole tart…  Would be delicious served with pistachio ice-cream…

Ingredients
40g softened butter, to grease dishes
40g caster sugar, to coat dishes
50g cocoa powder, sifted
240g plain chocolate (70% cocoa solids), chopped into small pieces
10 medium egg whites (this is the equivalent of 330g of egg white)
40g caster sugar

For the pastry cream:
350ml milk
80g caster sugar
4 medium egg yolks
30g plain flour

To finish:
icing sugar, to dust

 

Method:

  • Butter four individual 10cm soufflé dishes and coat the insides with the sugar.
  • To make the pastry cream, put the milk and two-thirds of the sugar in a small pan, and bring slowly to the boil. Whisk the egg yolks and remaining sugar in a bowl to a ribbon consistency, then incorporate the flour. Pour the hot milk on to the yolks, stirring continuously with a whisk. Return to the pan and whisk over a low heat for 1 minute, then pour into a bowl, cover with cling-film, and cool slightly.
  • Preheat the oven to 200°C/Gas 6 and put a baking sheet inside to heat.  Measure 280g of the pastry cream and delicately mix in the cocoa power and the chopped chocolate using a whisk.  (Keep the rest of the pastry cream for another use.)
  • Beat the egg whites to a thick foam, then add the 40g sugar and continue to beat until the form soft peaks. Fold one-third into the pastry cream using a whisk, then delicately fold in the rest with a large spoon; the mixture will be fairly loose.
  • Divide the mixture between the soufflé dishes, to come level with the rim. Stand on the hot baking sheet and cook for 10 minutes. Serve the soufflés as soon as they come out of the oven on warm plates, dusting with a little icing sugar.

Thermomix Version:
  • Butter four individual 10cm soufflé dishes and coat the insides with the sugar.
  • Chop your chocolate in the Thermo bowl and set aside.
  • Put all the pastry cream ingredients into the bowl and cook for 7 minutes at 90C, speed 4. Give it a quick whizz at the end to ensure it’s smooth, then pour into a bowl and cover with cling film until it’s cool.  This stops a skin from forming.  You can also leave the Thermo on stir mode, until you’re ready to use it.
  • Preheat the oven to 200°C/Gas 6 and put a baking sheet inside to heat.  Measure 280g of the pastry cream and delicately mix in the cocoa power and the chopped chocolate using a whisk.  (Keep the rest of the pastry cream for another use.)
  • Put the egg whites into a clean Thermomix bowl, and beat the egg whites to a thick foam on Speed 4 / 6 minutes before adding the sugar.  Whisk for a further 3 minutes until the sugar is fully dissolved. Fold one-third into the pastry cream using a whisk, then delicately fold in the rest with a large spoon; the mixture will be fairly loose.
  • Divide the mixture between the soufflé dishes, to come level with the rim. Stand on the hot baking sheet and cook for 10 minutes. (I think this should be closer to 13 minutes, but that might be the size of my soufflé dishes!)
  • Serve the soufflés as soon as they come out of the oven on warm plates, dusting with a little icing sugar.

Soufflé Tips:

  • One of the key factors in achieving a perfect soufflé is to ensure that all of the ingredients are at the same temperature.  If you’ve chilled the creme patisserie, bring it back to room temperature before you make the soufflés
  • I now double line my soufflé dishes – let’s face it – it takes no more time and gives a more consistent result.  You could use caster sugar on the first layer, and grated chocolate on the second, if you’re prefer.  I’ve found the sugar layer is best as the first layer as the granules allow the soufflé to elevate evenly.  Chill the dishes in-between lining them
  • When filling your dishes, fill roughly half way first, and rap the dishes down onto a board to ensure that the mixture is evenly distributed over the base of the dish – this ensures an even rise… Air pockets can throw the soufflé off track and make it shoot out in strange directions
  • Always, always, smooth the top of your soufflé with a palette knife to ensure a flat surface.  Then take your thumb and run it around the inside edge of the soufflé dish – this frees the mixture and allows it to soar!