Sunday, May 20, 2012

Coconut milk and vanilla panna cotta

Ingredients for 4 people

Coconut milk and vanilla panna cotta
1.5 gelatin sheets Dr. Oetker 
(3 g)
20 cl coconut milk
25 cl heavy whipping cream
1 vanilla bean
50 g granulated sugar

Method

Coconut milk and vanilla panna cotta
- Boil together milk, cream, sugar and the scraped vanilla bean, cover it and let it infuse for 20 min.
- Hydrate the gelatin on cold water.
- Pour the cream through a strainer into a bowl and add the gelatin.
- Pour in the container of your choosing and refrigerate for a minimum of 4 hours.

You can serve your panna cotta with fruit, chocolate or caramel coulis.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Strawberry and white-chocolate mousse pie

Light and crunchy. A real treat!

Ingredients for 6 people

500 to 800 g fresh charlotte strawberries

Chocolate shortcrust pastry
180 g all-purpose flour
120 g butter
60 g granulated sugar
20 g eggyolk
20 g unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon heavy whipping cream
1 pinch of salt

White-chocolate mousse
200 g white chocolate
200 g cold heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon heavy whipping cream
1 gelatin sheet Dr. Oetker (2 g)

Method

Chocolate shortcrust pastry
- In a stand mixer or between your hands, rub the butter into the flour.
- Add the sugar, the salt, the yolk, the cream and the chocolate and knead the dough until homogeneous.
- Put the dough 30 min in the fridge.
- Preheat the oven to 356°F.
- Roll out the dough to a round shape.
- Put it in a pie mold, cover it with wax paper and ceramic beads to prevent the crust from swelling.
- Bake for 15 min, remove the wax paper and the beads and bake for another 10 min.
- Let it cool down.

White-chocolate mousse
- Melt your chocolate in a bain-marie.
- Whip the cream.
- Melt the gelatin with the teaspoon of cream.
- Mix into the chocolate then fold the whipped cream into the chocolate.
- Pour over your shortcrust pastry and add your fresh strawberries.
- Put in the fridge.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Pastry cream mousse like a crème brûlée, red berries

Ingredients for 6 ramekins

250 g fresh red berries
Brown sugar

Pastry cream mousse
470 g whole milk
2 vanilla beans
110 g egg yolk
110 g sugar
47 g cornstarch
47 g butter
33 cl cold heavy whipping cream
2 gelatin sheets Dr. Oetker (4 g)

Method

Pastry cream mousse
- Split the vanilla bean in two and scrape the seeds into the milk. Bring to a boil and let it infuse 20 min or more.
- Hydrate the gelatin in cold water.
- Meanwhile, beat together the yolks, the sugar and the cornstarch without whitening or frothing.
- Boil the milk again and pour 1/3 into the eggs, blend, add in the rest and blend.
- Put it back into the pan by pouring it through a strainer and beat over high heat until it thickens.
- Remove the pan and add the butter.
- Cool it rapidly stirring the whole time so as to prevent the cream from drying.
- Once it is cool, whip the cream and fold it gently in the pastry cream.
-Put your berries in your ramekins.
- Pour some mousse and put in the fridge.
- Before serving, sprinkle some brown sugar over each crème and caramelize with a blowtorch.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Strawberry and basil soup

Simple and refreshing for the arrival of strawberries.

Ingredients for 6 people

500 g fresh strawberries
100 g mineral water
80 g sugar
Juice of a quarter of a lemon
Between 10 and 20 basil leaves
Cold heavy whipping cream

Method

- Wash the strawberries and cut the peduncle (not the other way around).
- Wash the basil leaves.
- Bring water and sugar to a boil for 1 minute.
- Blend everything together and put it in the fridge.
- Serve cold with a few drops of heavy cream and small leaves of basil.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Crème brûlée

What a treat crème brûlées are, especially with quality vanilla beans. The big question surrounding crème brûlées is how to bake them. Some use bain-marie, others bake them directly in the oven. The end result is the same, only the timing changes: 30 minutes in a bain-marie at 320°F, 1h15 directly in the oven at 212°F. In the end, a perfectly baked crème brûlée must always be wobbly in its middle.

Ingredients for 4 people

2.5 vanilla beans
180 g egg yolk
300 g heavy whipping cream
300 g whole milk
84 g sugar
Brown sugar

Method

- Split the vanilla bean in two and scrape the seeds into the milk. Bring to a boil and let it infuse 10 to 15 min.
- Preheat the oven: 320°F for bain-marie, 212°F directly in the oven.
- Whisk the yolks and the sugar until it melts.
- Pour the vanilla milk through a strainer, whisk, then add the heavy cream, whisk again.
- Pour the custard into 4 ramekins. Be generous.
- Bake for 30 minutes or 1h15 minutes.
- Refrigerate them.
- Before serving, sprinkle some brown sugar over each crème and caramelize with a blowtorch.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Blueberry mousse cake

You can easily use frozen blueberries to make your purees but you must use fresh one for your decoration because the frozen one will dampen your cake too much. As for the decoration, use either the meringues or the whipped cream because the meringues will absorb the humidity of the cream and will get soft and melt.

Ingredients for a 10x3 cake

Decoration
250 g fresh blueberries (125 g on top, 125 g in one layer)

Whipped cream
300 g cold heavy whipping cream
60 g sugar
Vanilla

Or

Meringues
1 egg white
33 g granulated sugar
33 g confectioner’s sugar

Optional filling
Light vanilla cream
82 g whole milk
1/2 vanilla bean
23 g egg yolk
23 g sugar
8 g cornstarch
8 g butter
0.5 gelatin sheet Dr. Oetker (1 g)
83 g cold heavy whipping cream

Blueberry syrup
100 g blueberry puree
50 g mineral water
50 g sugar

Sponge cake
80 g egg yolk
160 g egg white
120 g all-purpose flour
120 g sugar
Confectioners' sugar

Blueberry quark mousse
150 g blueberry puree
40 g sugar
9.5 gelatin sheets Dr. Oetker (19 g)
43 g mineral water
85 g egg yolk
165 g sugar
425 g quark 30% fat (you can replace it by unsalted cottage cheese)
510 g cold heavy whipping cream
Sugar

Method

Decoration
Whipped cream
- Whip together the whipping cream, the sugar and the vanilla until stiff.
- Put the whipped cream in a pastry bag with the decorating tip of your choosing.

Or

Meringues
- Preheat the oven to 302°F.
- Whisk the egg whites with a little bit of sugar.
- When they are enough whisked, add the sugars little by little so as to obtain a smooth and white meringue.
- Put the meringue in a pastry bag, make some small balls and brown them with a blowtorch.
- Turn off the oven and put the meringue inside with the door still open to dry them.

Blueberry syrup
- Mix together all the ingredients in warm water to allow the sugar to dissolve.
- Put aside.

Sponge cake
- Preheat the oven to 390°F.
- Whisk the egg whites to soft peaks in a stand mixer (Cuisinart or KitchenAid) on high speed.
- Add the sugar little by little until the egg whites are very firm.
- Beat the yolks with a fork and add them to the egg whites. Whisk for 5 seconds on slow speed.
- Add the sifted flour and fold delicately with a spatula.
- Take a pastry bag with a smooth decorating tip (1 cm wide) and make two 10.5-inch biscuits on wax paper. Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar and bake for 10 minutes.
- Let it cool on a cooling rack then cut the biscuits with a 9-inch ring.

Filling

- Light vanilla cream
- Split the vanilla bean in two and scrape the seeds into the milk. Bring to a boil and let it infuse 15 to 20 min.
- Hydrate the gelatin in cold water.
- Meanwhile, beat together the yolks, the sugar and the cornstarch without whitening or frothing.
- Boil the milk again and pour 1/3 into the eggs, blend, add in the rest and blend.
- Put it back into the pan by pouring it through a strainer and beat over high heat until it thickens.
- Remove the pan and add the butter.
- Cool it rapidly stirring the whole time so as to prevent the cream from drying.
- Once it is cool, whip the cream and fold it gently in the pastry cream.
- Pour the cream over the first soaked biscuit in a 9-inch wide ring. Add 125 g of fresh blueberries.

Blueberry quark mousse
- Hydrate the gelatin in cold water.
- Whip the egg yolks with an electric mixer on high speed.
- Boil the water with the sugar to 244°F, pour immediately on the yolks and beat until it cools to room temperature.
- Blend the quark, the blueberry puree and 40 g of sugar.
- Melt the gelatin in the microwave without boiling and add in the blueberry mixture.
- Add to the yolks.
- Whip the cream and fold it gently in the blueberry cream.