Nourished

Dessert

Recipe

Cardamom Scented Rhubarb Tart

I know, what’s with the cardamom already? But trust me, this isn’t just about obsession, this is about delicious perfection. Cardamom is absolutely perfect with rhubarb, and blood oranges – it had to make it into this dish. One thing we’re not terribly good at in mainland Europe, is layering spices. It must be an art form we’ve lost along the way, as our ancestors were absolutely obsessed with spices and herbs, from sweet cicely to orange thyme {I was going to call the blog that at one point, but it’s too long to put into a search engine :0)}.

In this rhubarb tart, the main vegetable is poached in a liquor of blood oranges, Grand Marnier, cranberry juice, and cardamom pods – it’s exquisite! Oh.  And yes. Rhubarb is a vegetable. Some of the resulting rhubarb is then blitzed into creme patisserie, making the most delicious custard, and poured into a pastry shell… Easy peasy huh?

Well, it would have been if I hadn’t been glued to this years’ Bocuse d’Or competition. I had to poach my rhubarb three times, to get to a consistency I liked. At least it provided the additional purée for the crème pâtt’, so it’s all good! Do watch yours like a hawk, even 30 seconds here or there makes a difference.

Ingredients for the Pastry:
300g plain flour
150g unsalted butter
½ tsp salt
120g icing sugar
3 large egg yolks
Seeds from ½ vanilla pod
1 egg for the egg wash

Ingredients for the Poaching Liquor:
juice of 3 to 4 blood oranges
100ml cranberry juice
seeds of 6 green cardamom pods
2 Tbsp Grand Marnier (optional)
3 stalks of rhubarb

Ingredients for the Crème Pâtissèrie:
300ml full fat milk
80g unrefined caster sugar
30g unsalted good quality butter
40g plain flour
4 free range egg yolks
200g poached rhubarb

Now, before we even begin with the method, no, of course I didn’t make my own pastry on this occasion!  You may love to do so, but I find this stuff so perfectly good, that I very rarely use anything else!  The recipe above is Heston Blumenthal’s, and if you feel the need to torture yourself, it will do very nicely, thank you! I have made it before, and it’s jolly decent pastry…

Method:

  • Add the lemon zest to the egg yolk mixture and then add to the bowl in the mixer and continue to mix on low speed until fully combined and a very soft dough has formed {approximately 3-5 minutes}.
  • Mould the dough into a flat rectangle and wrap it in clingfilm before placing in the fridge for at least 1 hour. {Last time I made it, I did it overnight, was pretty firm when I rolled it out}
    Roll the pastry between two sheets of baking paper to a thickness of 2mm, using two stacked 2 pence coins as guides, then place in the freezer for 30 minutes.
  • Pre-heat the oven to 190ºC/gas mark 5. Line a tart tin with the pastry making sure to press it into the edges and leaving the pastry hanging over the edge.
  • Take a sheet of baking paper and scrunch it up several times to eliminate any sharp edges. Prick the dough with a fork all over the surface. Place the baking paper on top and add enough coins {or baking beans} to fill the casing ¼ of the way up. Place in the preheated oven to bake for approximately 20 minutes or until fully cooked. {Be careful with the coins – once nearly put a watch battery in the oven which someone had dumped in the coin pot – check them!}
  • In the meantime, mix some of the leftover dough with an egg using a hand blender.
    After 20 minutes, remove the baking paper and coins and, using a pastry brush, brush the entire surface of the tart with the dough and egg mixture. This ‘liquid pastry’ will ensure that any holes will be sealed. Return the tart to the oven for an additional 10 minutes.
  • Remove the tart from the oven and allow to cool completely.
  • Meanwhile, chop your rhubarb to an appropriate length – this will, of course, depend entirely on the tart case you’re using!  Make sure all the lengths will actually fit inside your case, and try to pick stalks of a comparable size.  It’s inevitable that the rhubarb itself will lessen in colour towards the top of the stalk, but if you’re careful, you can match several stalks together to achieve a pleading gradient of pink.  I found three stalks fit my tart tin perfectly…
  • Combine all of the ingredients of the liquor together, and bring to a boil.  Now.  Having done this three times, and not being particularly attentive (!), I found that it was best if I brought the liquor to a boil and then turned it off!  Put the rhubarb in, and set a timer for 5 minutes.  After 5 minutes, turn the rhubarb over.  It won’t be tender at this stage, unless you’re using very tiny stalks.  After the second five minutes, bring the liquor back to a boil, and immediately turn it off again!  Turn the stalks after a further five minutes, then squidge them, as you might do a steak.  If they feel nearly there, remove them immediately – they will continue to soften.  This method will at least ensure your rhubarb does not disintegrate in the pan (as my first batch did).  If they’re still terribly firm, turn them over and wait a further five minutes.  When just about tender, set aside the rhubarb, and reduce the liquor down to a thick and syrupy glaze.
  • To make the crème pâttisèrie, put all the ingredients into the Thermomix bowl and cook for 10 minutes at 90C, speed 4. Give it a quick whizz at the end to ensure it’s smooth {especially if you still have cardamom seeds in it}, 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.
  • Finally – the assembly – take your cooled tart shell, fill it with the pastry cream, top with the poached rhubarb, and glaze with a little of the reduced poaching liquor.  C’est parfait, n’est ce pas?

 

Notes:

  • I remembered, last year, that Tom Kitchen shocked asparagus before cooking – by putting it into ice-water – the reverse of an ice-bath…  It sets the chlorophyll, and though rhubarb doesn’t have chlorophyll per se, I though it might help the colour… It certainly seems to work…
  • Poaching the rhubarb in successive batches in the poaching liquor definitely intensifies the colour and cardamon flavour
  • You can use any leftover rhubarb on porridge, ice-cream etc – it’s delicious

 

Cardamon scented rhubarb tart

Cardamon scented rhubarb tart

Cardamon scented rhubarb tart

Cardamon scented rhubarb tart

Cardamon scented rhubarb tart

Cardamon scented rhubarb tart

Cardamom Scented Rhubarb

Baking

Pain Perdu, Pineapple and Coconut

We haven’t been to Marcus Wareing’s eponymous restaurant since it was re-branded.  It’s a little art-deco jewel-box of a restaurant, but the atmosphere seemed just as hushed at lunchtime as before… Still.  The food was good, and I was particularly enamoured with this dish – a little chef’s joke…  The pineapple tastes of coconut, which initially confuses the senses, especially as you try to work out how… I pressed the waitress, it’s clearly compressed, because of the texture, but what with? And then of course it struck me – Malibu – the scent led me by my nose to my teenage years.  Malibu.  When was the last time you tasted Malibu?  Well, rest assured, in this dish it’s absolutely delicious, as long as you like coconut and pineapple.

The plate comprised Malibu compressed pineapple, a coconut ice-cream, coconut curd, toasted brioche cubes, and coconut meringue.  I wasn’t terribly fond of the coconut curd, so I thought I would experiment with a coconut-milk creme patisserie (in the Thermomix)…  For the coconut meringues I used the Meringue Girls recipe, which I’ve made often before. It’s a very clever little dessert – you can prepare all the elements well in advance (perhaps with the exception of toasting the brioche), and then assemble when you’re ready.  You see.  I make sweeping statements like that.  Yes, it’s a clever dessert, and easy,  if you own a chamber vacuum sealer and a Thermomix.  I’m still posting it, because someone out there will…

As the recipes are quite long, you can find them listed in the Plating section.  The pineapple was cubed (as accurately as your patience will allow), and popped into a vacuum pack bag – I included 40ml of Malibu, and compressed under full pressure.  I left it in the fridge for 48 hours to absorb the flavour.  The compression will also change the texture of the pineapple, making it denser, and less fibrous (it effectively changes the cell structure of the fruit – it’s also an amazing technique to use on watermelon, for example).

To Plate:

Malibu compressed pineapple
Coconut meringues
Coconut-milk creme patisserie
Coconut cream ice-cream
Brioche cubes, dipped in egg and fried in a little butter

Notes:

  • The coconut version of the creme patisserie worked incredibly well – I used 300g of coconut milk, and upped the flour to 45g, but that was because I included 20g of Malibu, and also wanted to be able to pipe the cream into quite firm ‘peaks’…  The coconut flavour was subtle, but discernible, and the texture was exactly like the normal version.  I didn’t refrigerate it, but did whisk through some more malibu before piping onto the plates.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Baking

The Meringue Girls Meringue Kisses…

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI love the Meringue Girls on many, many levels – they’re cute, and they’re cute! They’ve taken something basic and created a niche market – good for them… In addition, their cookbook has brilliant little video clips which can be accessed via the cookbook by scanning a special code on your iPhone. They’re fun, informative, simple, and definitely give you a sense of their personalities: that’s often difficult to achieve in a cookbook.

I’m particularly fond of their meringue kisses, because they’re easy to make, they look fabulous, and you can flavour them in all manner of ways.  They’re the perfect little gift, and make a great item for a charity bake sale.  My most popular flavour are the passion fruit, though the cocoa, raspberry and coconut are popular too.  (The coconut variety taste like a Bounty bar, without the additional calories.) I use Aromes, which are professional patisserie flavours, and these do make a difference.  If you’re going to make a large quantity of a particular flavour, an investment in them is well worth while – they also have the advantage of not adding too much liquid into your recipe.

The Meringue Girls technique is a little different to French Meringue (whisked with cold sugar), or Italian (whisked with a hot sugar syrup, and therefore cooked), or even Swiss (which is whisked over a bain marie to cook, then taken off the heat and whisked until cool).  In this method the sugar is heated in the oven while you’re preparing the whites… It does actually work well, so don’t feel it’s necessary to opt for a different technique.

I’m giving you their basic recipe – do look at their book for different flavour ideas…  Although the method section may seem quite long, do watch the videos included below the instructions – I promise you the Meringue Girls will make it all perfectly obvious in those videos

Ingredients:
150g free-range egg whites (5 medium eggs)
300g caster sugar
For flavourings, see Notes

Method:

  • Start by lining a large baking sheet with baking paper (this is the tray onto which you will pipe the meringues.  In reality this volume of ingredients will certainly fill two normal sized baking sheets, and at least one double oven sheet).
  • Pre-heat the oven to 200ºC.  Line a roasting tray with baking paper, pour in the caster sugar and put it in the oven for about 5 minutes until the edges are just beginning to melt. Heating the sugar will help it dissolve in the egg which more quickly to create a glossy stable mixture.
  • Meanwhile, weigh your egg whites in the free-standing mixer bowl, or a non-plastic bowl.  Make sure your bowl and whisk are free from grease.  Whisk slowly at first, allowing small stabilising bubbles to form, then increase the speed until the egg whites form stiff peaks, and the bowl can be tipped upside down without the egg falling out.
  • Keep an eye on the mixture and stop whisking just before it turns into a cotton woolly appearance, at which point the mixture will be over-whisked and will have lost some of the elasticity in the egg white protein
  • At this point, the sugar should be ready to take out of the oven.  Turn down your oven to 100ºC.  Leave the door ajar to speed up the cooling.
  • With the whites stiff and while whisking again at full speed, add one big tablespoon of the hot sugar ager another to the meringue mixture, ensure that it comes back yup to stiff peaks after each spoonful of sugars. Don’t worry about any small clumps of sugar, but avoid any larger chunks of caramelised sugars from the edges of the roasting tray.
  • Once you have added all of the sugar, continue to whisk on full speed for about 5-7 minutes.  Feel a bit of the mitre between your fingers, and if you can still feel the gritty star, keep whisking at full speed until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is smooth, and the bowl is a little cooler to the touch.  The mixture will continue to thicken up during this stage.  You know when it’s read to use as it will form a nice smooth, shiny peak on the tip of your upturned finger.
  • To pipe the meringue kisses, turn a piping bag inside out, and place it over a jug or bottle, so that it stays in place.  Using natural good colouring and a clean paintbrush, paint 5 thick strips from the tip of your piping bag to halfway down the bag.
  • Then carefully spoon your stiff meringue mixture into the piping back, and turn the bag back the right way around.  You need to pack the meringue mixture in tightly, ensuring there are no air bubbles.
  • With sharp scissors, cut the tip of the piping bag to the size of a 20p coin.
  • To get the piping bag flowing, use some of the mixture to pipe small dollops onto the four corners of your baking sheets, and use like glue to stick your baking paper to the sheet.
  • Hold the piping bag with both hands, placing your dominant hand at the top of the piping bag and your other hand halfway down the bag.  Use the top hand to apply pressure and the lower hand to control the flow of the kisses.  Squeeze the bag (like and udder!) to form the kisses.  They should have a 5cm diameter and a big peak at the top.  You can use different nozzles for different effects.  For example a star nozzle will give you beautiful little star-like kisses.
  • Once you have assembled your meringues into the desired shapes on your lined baking sheet (leaving a couple of centimetres between each shape), bake for approximately 30-40 minutes.  Take them out of the oven as soon as they lift off the baking paper with their bases intact.
  • Leave them to cool on the baking sheet.

Notes:

  • It’s easier to use a liquid egg white, such as Two Chicks, rather than separating and measuring eggs
  • The Meringue Girls use a ratio of 1:2, egg whites to sugar.  I have seen other ratios, but for meringue kisses, this ratio works fine
  • Room temperature whites achieve more volume than cold whites, so once you’ve measured them, allow them to come to room temperature – usually around 30 minutes
  • Your equipment must be clean of grease – if necessary wipe a cut lemon around the inside of the mixing bowl
  • Flavourings can be added by including an ingredient directly into the mixture (for coconut, you stir 25g desiccated coconut into one batch, and sprinkle 25g over the batch – but I also included a few drops of coconut Arome; for chocolate you take 3 Tbsp of cocoa, including half into the mixture, and scattering the remainder over the meringues before cooking (though I did include a little chocolate flavouring in them too).
  • I don’t take my meringues out of the oven straight away, as I found they had a tendency to crack, from being cooled down too quickly.  I turn off the oven, and stick a wooden spoon into the top of the oven door, propping it ajar…
  • Any extra meringues will keep for two weeks in an air-tight container, though I doubt they’ll last that long, particularly if you have children!
You can watch the Meringue Girls in the following clips:
You can get the Meringue Girls book here – and it’s well worth having a look – there’s much more in there than just the kisses…
I’ve used coconut kisses as an element in a pineapple and coconut dessert:
Coconut meringues, coconut creme pattisserie,
brioche pain perdu, compressed pineapple, lime sorbet
They are also an intrinsic part of my petit-four collection, along with pâte de fruit, marshmallows, peanut butter fudge, macarons, and truffles.
Huge close up of coconut kisses…
A little bit of a joke, deliberately coloured and squat,
to look a little like little hats for some sugar work I was making
Production line for the school Christmas Fayre, along with
pâte de fruit – there are passion fruit, raspberry, cocoa, and blackberry there
Cocoa and chocolate flavoured meringues 

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.

Recipe

Chocolate Delice

I realise that I don’t usually pay homage to a chef when making a recipe, but the legendary Monsieur Blanc is no ordinary chef!  Nearly as important to my culinary journey as the Roux Brothers, Raymond is completely self-taught, and his Manoir aux Quat’Saisons has held two Michelin stars since 1985 – no mean feat.  As well as sharing my birthday, Raymond is a most amusing and very brave man – he served both his first and second wife a croquembouche on their wedding day…

This delice was featured on Kitchen Secrets, a most enlightening look at a number of dishes and techniques.  Every time I see an episode, I note another little detail.  You can see this particular recipe on You Tube, which certainly shows you how simple it can be.

Ingredients

For the base
100g/3½oz toasted hazelnuts
100g/3½oz caramelised sugar pieces
150g /5¼oz bran flakes, slightly crushed

For the delice
140ml/5fl oz full-fat milk
325ml/11½fl oz double cream
2 free-range eggs
340g/12oz good-quality dark chocolate, minimum 60 per cent cocoa solids, roughly chopped

For the caramel hazelnuts
125g/4½oz caster sugar
8 hazelnuts, shells removed, lightly toasted in a dry frying pan

For the coffee foam
200ml/7¼fl oz strong black espresso coffee
1 sheet gelatine, soaked in cold water for 10 minutes, drained

To serve
2-3 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp freshly ground coffee beans

Preparation method

  • For the base, blend the hazelnuts and caramelised sugar pieces in a food processor until you have a smooth paste. Heat the paste in a small pan on a gentle heat until warmed through.
  • Place the bran flakes and warmed praline paste into a mixing bowl and scrunch them together, using your hands, until the bran flakes have broken down and been incorporated into the paste.
  • Line a baking tray with a sheet of greaseproof paper, then transfer the praline mixture onto it. Cover the praline mixture with a second sheet of greaseproof paper, then roll the mixture out until it measures at least 14cm x 20cm/5½in x 8in and is 0.5cm/¼in thick.
  • Remove the top sheet of greaseproof paper, then push a 14cm x 20cm x 3cm/5½in x 8in x 1¼in rectangular pastry frame down onto the praline mixture and trim off any excess. (NB: The excess praline mixture can be pressed into any gaps in the mould, if necessary.)
  • Cover the mould with greaseproof paper and chill the praline in the fridge for 30 minutes, or until set.
  • Meanwhile, for the delice, heat the milk and cream in a saucepan and heat gently over a medium heat until it just reaches boiling point.
  • Meanwhile, whisk the eggs in a bowl.
  • As the milk and cream mixture comes to the boil, pour it over the eggs, then whisk the mixture constantly until smooth and thick.
  • Stir in the chopped chocolate and whisk again until the chocolate has melted and the custard is smooth.
  • Remove the base from the fridge and pour in the chocolate delice to fill the mould. Gently tap the sides of the mould to release any trapped air bubbles, then smooth the surface using a palette knife. Chill in the fridge for 6-12 hours, or until completely set.
  • Meanwhile, for the caramel hazelnuts, heat the caster sugar in a pan over a low heat, stirring occasionally until golden-brown and caramelised. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool slightly. (NB: The caramel is cool enough when a cocktail stick dragged across its surface leaves an imprinted trail.)
  • Spear each hazelnut onto a cocktail stick, then dip the hazelnuts into the caramel until coated. Stick a little adhesive putty onto the underside of a shelf or cupboard above a worksurface and secure the cocktail stick into the putty, so that the caramel drips off the hazelnut and creates a tail. (NB: Place a baking tray or sheets of greaseproof paper underneath the hazelnuts to catch any caramel that drips.)
  • Set the caramel hazelnuts aside to cool and harden for at least 30 minutes.
  • For the coffee foam, just before serving, heat half of the coffee in a pan until just hot but not boiling.
  • Squeeze the gelatine sheet dry, then add it to the hot coffee and continue to warm until the gelatine has completely dissolved.
  • Pour the remaining cold coffee into a bowl, then add the hot coffee mixture to it. Whisk well until the mixture starts to foam.
  • To serve, heat the outside of the mould using a chefs’ blow torch to loosen the base of the delice. Carefully remove the pastry frame from the delice.
  • Heat the top of the delice very quickly using a chefs’ blow torch to make the surface glossy. Dust the delice with some of the cocoa powder and ground coffee beans.
  • Smear a teaspoonful of the coffee foam across the width of six to eight serving plates. Plunge the blade of a knife into boiling water to heat the metal, then slice the delice into six to eight pieces and place one onto each smear of foam, at an angle. Rest a caramel hazelnut against each slice. Dust each serving with the remaining cocoa powder.

Whisk the mixture constantly until smooth and thick

Stir in the chopped chocolate and whisk again until the chocolate has melted and the custard is smooth

It will look like this, leaving ribbons on itself…
Pour in the chocolate delice to fill the mould (I didn’t have a rectangular mould to hand)
Watch your caramel, it’s cool enough when a cocktail stick dragged across its surface leaves an imprinted trail
The finished article – a gigantic slice of chocolate delice – I’d recommend a slice about half the size

Baking

Frangipane Tarts

Pistachio frangipane, with figs

There’s something about the scent of frangipane which has haunted me for decades. We have relatives on the French side of the Swiss-France border, and on our very first visit, we had a plum and frangipane tart. The memory has stuck with me for twenty years – served at room temperature – the tart was luscious, creamy, delicately scented – just adorable.

Spotting some nectarines which needed using up, I thought it would make a delicious variation.  A quick trawl through some of my favourite chefs revealed a recipe on the BBC site by Angela Hartnett…

That first tart was consumed by the multitudes in my household within twenty-four hours.

Luckily, the quantity of frangipane in the recipe allowed me to make two tarts – so the second tart was a plum and frangipane one…  The plums hold up better than the nectarines, though surprisingly they do make the mixture more moist (I would have assumed the nectarines would offer up more water).  The scent load is also greater with the plums.

Having everything to hand, the second tart only took about 10 minutes to prepare, so well worth keeping some frangipane in your fridge (bring it back to room temperature, and give it a quick re-fluffing with a fork – et voila – instant tart…).

The next time I made a bakewell tart, and then another for my chum Sarah… And then we moved on to pistachio and fig tarts, with a further tart for another chum, Nicole…

Once you have the basic frangipane recipe in your back-pocket, the possibilities are endless :0)

Ingredients:
For the pastry:
375g/13¼oz plain flour, plus extra for dusting
15g/½oz sugar
225g/8oz unsalted butter, cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing
1 free-range egg
4 tbsp ice-cold water
For the frangipane:
200g/7¼oz unsalted butter
200g/7¼oz caster sugar
2 free-range eggs
200g/7¼oz ground almonds
For the tart filling:
5-6 ripe plums, each cut into eighths, stones removed
To serve:
icing sugar, for dusting
whipped cream or crème fraîche

Method:
  • For the pastry, sieve the flour and sugar into a large mixing bowl. Tip the cubed butter into the bowl. Rub the butter and the flour between your thumb and fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
  • In a jug or small bowl, beat the egg together with four tablespoons of ice-cold water. Pour into the flour mixture.
  • Slowly bring the ingredients together with your hands to form a dough, being careful not to overwork it.
  • Knead the dough lightly on a clean, floured work surface, then wrap it in cling film and refrigerate until firm, at least 30 minutes.
  • For the frangipane, beat the butter and sugar together in a bowl until light and fluffy. Crack the eggs into the bowl one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the ground almonds and mix well until combined. Set aside.
  • Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Dust the work surface with flour and roll the chilled dough out thinly. Use it to line one large 25cm/10in tart ring or 6-8 individual tartlet rings 8cm/3¼in in diameter. Trim away any excess.
  • Spoon the frangipane into the tart case so that it comes about halfway up the sides. Smooth over the surface with a spatula and cover the frangipane evenly with the plums.
  • Bake for 30-40 minutes (15-25 minutes for the tartlets), or until the pastry is crisp and golden-brown and the fruit is tender.
  • Remove the tart(s) from the oven. Dust with icing sugar and serve warm with whipped cream or crème fraîche.
Notes:
  • I used a pre-rolled pastry sheet made by Marie – it’s the best I’ve used, comes in a circle, and is rolled super-fine!  Because it’s so fine, I always brush it with beaten egg and allow to dry in the fridge, before putting any filling in
  • Don’t push your figs too far into the batter, it will rise up around them.  For maximum visual effect, just lightly lodge them in

Lay the fruit in a pattern of your choosing – you can see from the plum chart that I chose a different layout that time

Fig and pistachio frangipane

Nectarine and frangipane

Plum and frangipane

Bakewell Tart: spread jam  spread a layer of frangipane, and top with almonds halfway through cooking #simples

Baking

Marco Pierre White’s Raspberry Soufflé

 

My favourite souffé recipe, I found this again when I moved the blog onto this site – I’d posted this for Gemma, from the Independent.  If you’ve ever been lucky enough to eat at Mirabelle, the now deceased restaurant run by Marco Pierre White, you’ll know this dish.  I’ve had many, many variations of it, but none are as good as this, which was published in the Mirabelle cookbook.

Frozen raspberries are actually better than fresh for the pureé (or coulis) which is used as the base of this soufflé. They contain more moisture than fresh, and are much cheaper.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

50g unsalted butter
220g caster sugar
16 fresh raspberries
100ml Framboise (raspberry eau de vie)
12 egg whites
200ml raspberry reduction (see basic recipes on page 54)

To serve: 1 quantity raspberry pureé, made with 300g raspberries and 100g caster sugar, blended and sieved.

Method:

  • Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and thoroughly grease four soufflé dishes 7.5cm/3in in diameter and 6.25cm/212in deep with half the butter. Place in the fridge until the butter sets hard, then butter again just before pouring in the soufflé mixture. Sprinkle with 20g of the caster sugar to coat, tipping out any excess. [See my comments on lining the dish]
  • Marinate the fresh raspberries in the Framboise until ready to use.
  • Put the egg whites into the bowl of your mixer and begin to beat. When they start to take shape, start adding the remaining sugar, a quarter at a time. When thoroughly mixed in, add another quarter and so on. [You can check whether the sugar has fully dissolved by rubbing a tiny bit between you fingers – if it’s still grainy – it hasn’t fully dissolved]
  • Put the raspberry reduction (the soufflé base) in a round bowl and whisk in a third of the beaten egg white; this loosens the base. Fold in the remaining egg white carefully.
  • Half fill the soufflé dishes with the mixture, then place three drained, marinated raspberries in the centre. Fill to the top with the mixture, then scrape off evenly with a palette knife. Run your finger around the edge to push the mixture away from the sides. Cook in the oven for 10 minutes. [Running your fingernail around the edge should create a lip, which allows the soufflé a clean lift from the dish]
  • To serve, place the dish on a plate with a raspberry on top, and some of the pre-prepared raspberry puree, or coulis, on the side.

You can make a blackberry soufflé the same way, using creme de cassis for the reduction and marination. Use a little less water, as blackberries contain more water than raspberries. Bake the soufflé for 7-8 minutes instead of 10.