Cappuccino Brulee Recipe

Ingredients:

400ml milk

400ml double cream
20g ground coffee
12g instant coffee
120g caster sugar
140g egg yolk

Method:

Pre heat the oven to 100 degrees C ½ fan. 

Bring the milk and cream to the boil.  Remove from the heat and infuse the coffees for 20 minutes.  Whisk the egg yolk and sugar together and the temper the hot infused liquid into the egg mixture.

Pass through a fine sieve, and then pour them into individual ramekins.

Cook in the oven on 100 degrees C with ½ fan for 45-55 minutes in a bain-marie. When set cool them in the chillier.

For the topping

75g smooth pastry cream mixed with 25g whipped cream

To serve pipe the topping onto the cooked Brulee and then sprinkle with demerara sugar and glaze with a blow torch. Dust with cocoa powder and icing sugar to finish. 

Bon Appétit

Trio Of Rhubarb Recipe

Trio Of Rhubarb Recipe

This recipe in total needs 4 medium sized pieces of rhubarb, with the ends chopped off. Before you can make each part of this dessert, you need to bake the rhubarb in the oven. Cut each piece into 10cm pieces and place them onto a baking tray. Heat the oven to 180 degrees C. Sprinkle a little caster sugar over the uncooked rhubarb. Bake it in the oven for 15 minutes, b doing this the rhubarb cooks but still keeps its beautiful pink colour, this adds to the visual effects of the dish. Once it has baked, drain off any liquid or syrup and set it aside to cool

Elderflower and Rhubarb Jelly

150ml elderflower cordial

75g caster sugar
4 gelatine leaves
1 10cm piece of cooked rhubarb

Put the elderflower cordial and the sugar into a pot and slowly bring it to the boil, as soon as it has reach boiling point, remove it from the stove. In a separate bowl, place all the gelatine leaves into it, and cover with cold water, allowing the gelatine to soak. Once the cordial and sugar has heated, squeeze and excess water out from the gelatine, and whisk it into the cordial.

Line a bread tin with cling film, this makes removing the set jelly easier. Pour the mix of cordial and gelatine into the tin.

Cut the rhubarb into small cubes or pieces and drop them into the jelly mixture, place it into the fridge and let it set

Rhubarb Tart and Rhubarb Shot

This is done in two separate stages, but they both require the remaining rhubarb to be cooked out a little further and sweetened with some caster sugar. Place all the remaining rhubarb into a non stick pot on a medium to low heat. Generously pour in some caste sugar, there is no exact measurement, because some rhubarb is sweeter or sourer, so it just depends. Let the rhubarb cook on a low heat, all you want is to make it sweeter, so if you need to add more sugar and cook further until you have reached the sweetness you want, and also so that all the sugar has dissolved. Once the rhubarb is cooked and sweet enough, remove it from the stove, and drain off any excess liquid.

Rhubarb Tart

½ a roll of easy roll puff pastry

Cooked out rhubarb

Unroll the pastry onto a floured surface. Cut out square pieces that are roughly 7cm by 7cm and place them onto a lined tray.

 

Note: They do not have to be squares, or that size, it is up to you and how you want the final plate to look

Once you have cut out 10 squares and placed them all onto the lined tray, using a fork, make holes in the centre on each square, you want to allow air to be let out during the baking process. Using a teaspoon, place some cooked rhubarb onto each square, over the fork holes. The idea is, is that the pastry will rise up around the rhubarb when it’s in the oven. Try and not get any excess liquid onto the pastry when you spoon on the rhubarb. Bake the tarts in the oven for 10-12 minutes at 180 degrees C, you want the pastry to have a golden colour, and also make sure the pastry on the bottom of each tart s cooked.

Rhubarb Shot

All the remaining rhubarb

2 single shots of cognac

Pour the cognac over the cooled cooked rhubarb and mix it in well, place it into the fridge and let all the flavours infuse for at least 2 hours. When it is time to serve the whole dish, place the cognac rhubarb into shot glasses, filling each glass about ¾ full. When you serve the dish, whip up some sweetened cream and make a quenelle with two teaspoons.

When I serve this dish, I use some raspberry coulis to decorate the plate, and some edible flowers to garnish each part of the dessert.

Bon Appétit

 

Pistachio Biscotti Recipe

Ingredients:

800g flour
450g caster sugar
40g cornflour
180g blanched pistachios
10g baking powder
250g butter
4 eggs
20ml vanilla essence

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 185ºC full fan

Mix all of the ingredients together on a mixing machine until a smooth paste is formed. Mould the mix into a 10cm wide loaf shape and it put onto a silicone lined baking tray.

Bake for about 10-15 minutes and then leave it to cool.

Slice the loaf into ¼ cm slices and put them onto a clean silicone lined baking tray.  Turn the oven to ½ fan, and return and bake for about 10 minutes until crisp, then turn the slices over and bake again for another 5-7 minutes until the slices of biscotti are crisp.  Cool and store in containers until needed.

Notes:

Biscotti is something that keeps well, if it is kept in a air tight container. The trick with it is, to bake it, cool it, and then pack it away and keep it in a cool dry place.

I have done it before, where I have made a large quantity of the recipe, baked off the loaves, and then instead of cutting them and drying them, I let them cool, and wrap them in cling film really well and freeze them. You can keep them in the freezer for about 3 months before the quality of the ingredients and the finished product is affected by the freezer. If you do freeze a loaf of biscotti, when you need to use it, take it out and let is thaw over night, then slice it and dry it, as you would a loaf that you have freshly baked. Again once you have dried out the slices, pack them into an air tight container, and store it in a cool, dry place until you need it

Bon appétit