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| Dish as in the restaurant |
Escoffier played a key part in Marco's choices when it came to dishes. In another book I own 'Le Gavroche cookbook' by Michel Roux Jr there are many recipes inspired by the first 'great chef' as Escoffier was referred to. This dessert is inspired by Escoffier but tweaked by Marco.
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| The marzipan for tuile baskets |
Many of you I'm sure will have seen this pudding served to Pierre Koffmann in the 'Marco cooks for...' series on Youtube, I must admit looking at it I did think it looked relatively simple, a tuile basket, a few berries and a sugar cage, how hard can it be? Well I was about to find out.
Annoyingly my workplace has been selling Peaches seemingly all year and the one week I want some for a recipe they do a vanishing act, great. So I had to venture over to the dark side and buy some from Tesco.
The other components to the dish include a raspberry coulis, vanilla ice cream, sugared nuts, an assortment of berries, a few sprigs of mint and a spectacularly crafted sugar basket. I began by making the tuile basket, by mixing ground almonds, icing sugar, egg whites and a little flour you get marzipan!
The book advises you to dust a work surface with icing sugar and roll the marzipan paper thin. This is where things got tricky, seemingly no matter how much icing sugar I put down the stuff still stuck like sh*t to a blanket. After a few discontented murmurs and some choice words I decided to flatten the tuile mix on a baking tray and see if the oven technique Marco uses in the Youtube video would solve my problems.
Many of you I'm sure will have seen this pudding served to Pierre Koffmann in the 'Marco cooks for...' series on Youtube, I must admit looking at it I did think it looked relatively simple, a tuile basket, a few berries and a sugar cage, how hard can it be? Well I was about to find out.
Annoyingly my workplace has been selling Peaches seemingly all year and the one week I want some for a recipe they do a vanishing act, great. So I had to venture over to the dark side and buy some from Tesco.
The other components to the dish include a raspberry coulis, vanilla ice cream, sugared nuts, an assortment of berries, a few sprigs of mint and a spectacularly crafted sugar basket. I began by making the tuile basket, by mixing ground almonds, icing sugar, egg whites and a little flour you get marzipan!
The book advises you to dust a work surface with icing sugar and roll the marzipan paper thin. This is where things got tricky, seemingly no matter how much icing sugar I put down the stuff still stuck like sh*t to a blanket. After a few discontented murmurs and some choice words I decided to flatten the tuile mix on a baking tray and see if the oven technique Marco uses in the Youtube video would solve my problems.
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| The troublesome baskets |
The end result after 5 minutes in the oven is somewhere between tuile and marzipan biscuit, not good! But I persevered and after flattening the mix to within an inch of its life, I pressed it into the moulds and voila! I had baskets (sort of).
Thankfully the poaching of the peaches is more straightforward, simply sugar and water boiled clear, add a vanilla pod and the peaches until soft. I peeled the skin off the peaches while still hot to reveal the golden colour displayed in the book.
The end result after 5 minutes in the oven is somewhere between tuile and marzipan biscuit, not good! But I persevered and after flattening the mix to within an inch of its life, I pressed it into the moulds and voila! I had baskets (sort of).
Thankfully the poaching of the peaches is more straightforward, simply sugar and water boiled clear, add a vanilla pod and the peaches until soft. I peeled the skin off the peaches while still hot to reveal the golden colour displayed in the book.
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| Peaches poaching |
The ice cream is a straightforward egg yolks and sugar base, with hot milk added, allow to cool and infuse with more vanilla. The only things left were a raspberry coulis, whizzed up raspberries and a little sugar and lemon juice and caramelised nuts. I used pistachios.
The only further stumbling block was the spun sugar cage. Made basically by running warm caramel thread over the back of a ladle forming the shape of a nest. A top tip is to pull the caramel off the heat at the palest possible stage as the likely chance is it will A) keep cooking with the heat inside the pan and B) you will be moving it back onto the heat and off again to loosen it enough to run off the end of the spoon.
After making two fairly average cages (more work needed!) it was time to plate up. This dessert is a lot of fun to plate, starting with the coulis in the middle and the berries and nuts around the outside, the dish looked striking. Add the perfect peach on top of the ice cream sitting in the basket being ultra careful with the sugar cage.
The ice cream is a straightforward egg yolks and sugar base, with hot milk added, allow to cool and infuse with more vanilla. The only things left were a raspberry coulis, whizzed up raspberries and a little sugar and lemon juice and caramelised nuts. I used pistachios.
The only further stumbling block was the spun sugar cage. Made basically by running warm caramel thread over the back of a ladle forming the shape of a nest. A top tip is to pull the caramel off the heat at the palest possible stage as the likely chance is it will A) keep cooking with the heat inside the pan and B) you will be moving it back onto the heat and off again to loosen it enough to run off the end of the spoon.
After making two fairly average cages (more work needed!) it was time to plate up. This dessert is a lot of fun to plate, starting with the coulis in the middle and the berries and nuts around the outside, the dish looked striking. Add the perfect peach on top of the ice cream sitting in the basket being ultra careful with the sugar cage.
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| The final plate |
So how did it taste? Peaches and cream! What can go wrong there? Well when you chuck a raspberry or two in there and some nuts it makes for a cracking dessert, you can't go wrong with the classics.
So how did it taste? Peaches and cream! What can go wrong there? Well when you chuck a raspberry or two in there and some nuts it makes for a cracking dessert, you can't go wrong with the classics.
Fantastic that you tackled this. I applaud you for doing so. It looks amazing and looks delicious. Great job. I am going to have to try this out this weekend. Any advice, outside of what you wrote here? Thanks.
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