How to Eat (22 page)

Fill the sink with enough cold water to come about halfway up the custard pan. On medium to low heat cook the custard, stirring all the time with a wooden spoon or spatula. With so many egg yolks, the custard should take hardly any time to thicken (and remember, it will continue to thicken further as it cools), so don’t overcook it. If it looks as if it might be about to boil or break, quickly plunge the pan into the sink of cold water, beating furiously until danger is averted. But I find this yolk-rich custard uneventful to make—about 7 minutes, if that, does it; it’s unlikely to need cooking for more than 10. When it’s cooked and thickened, take the pan over to the sink of cold water and beat robustly but calmly for a minute or so. When the custard’s smooth and cooled, strain it over the fruit-topped sponge and put the bowl back in the fridge for 24 hours.

Not long before you want to eat it, whip the heavy cream till thick and, preferably with one of those bendy rubber spatulas, smear it thickly over the top of the custard. Put it back in the fridge. Toast the flaked almonds by tossing them in a hot, dry frying pan for a couple of minutes and then remove to a plate till cool. Squeeze the orange, pour the juice into a measuring cup, and then measure out an equal quantity of sugar; I reckon on getting ½ cup of juice out of the average orange. Pour the orange juice into a saucepan and stir in sugar to help it dissolve. Bring to the boil and let bubble away until you have a thick but still runny caramel; if you let it boil too much until you have, almost, toffee (and I often do), it’s not the end of the world, but you’re aiming for a densely syrupy, sticky caramel. Remove from heat and, when cooled slightly, dribble over the whipped cream; you may find this easier to do teaspoon by slow-drizzling teaspoon. You can do this an hour or so before you want to eat it. Scatter the toasted almonds over before serving.

This is certainly enough for 10, and maybe even more, though it certainly wouldn’t swamp 8.

WHITE TIRAMISU

I wouldn’t suggest a tiramisu, ubiquitous in the 1990s, in the normal run of things, but this coffeeless, chocolateless, all-white confection is a rather chic take on it; it evokes, just by virtue of its name, the cliché and the overfamiliar, but elegantly, rather grandly, overturns that presumption, which I quite like. But even if it were to become the tackiest, most overfamiliar, and thus generally downgraded and despised dolce ever constructed, I would still stand by it; you’ll see. . . .

This dessert is always a success; it always works, and everyone always loves it. It is, once again, a recipe that bears the mark of Anna del Conte. I have made one slight alteration, which is to increase the liquid in which the biscuits are soaked. You must use the Italian
savoiardi,
crisp sponge fingers, not our regular lady fingers. To get these, you need to go to a good Italian food shop, or see
page 461
for sources. If you can’t be bothered to make your own meringues, crumble some bought meringue nests.

20 small meringues, about 1 inch in diameter, made with 2 egg whites and 2/3 cup sugar (see recipe on
page 17
)

2 eggs, separated

½ cup superfine sugar

3 cups mascarpone

2/3 cup white rum, such as Bacardi

1 cup milk

18 savoiardi

Choose a dish about 4 inches deep, suitable for holding 9 savoiardi.

Heat the oven to 275°F. Then make the meringues. Set aside 10 of them and crumble the others.

Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until pale and mousse like. Fold in the mascarpone gradually and then beat until incorporated. Whisk 1 egg white (you don’t need the second) until firm and fold into the mascarpone mixture.

Mix the rum and milk in a soup plate and dip the savoiardi in the mixture just long enough for them to soften. Lay about 9 moistened biscuits in the dish and spread over about a third of the mascarpone mixture. Sprinkle with the meringue crumbs. Dip another 9 biscuits into the rum and milk as before and then arrange them on top of the meringue crumbs. Spread over about half the remaining cream, cover with plastic film, and refrigerate. Put the remaining cream in a closed container and refrigerate also. Leave for a day. (I have left it for 2 days without any problem.)

Before serving, smooth the remaining cream all over the tiramisu and decorate with the whole meringue coins. I would offer a bowl of raspberries alongside.

Serves 6.

The white tiramisu is far less effort in the kitchen than it looks on the page. Another standby of mine is syllabub. You hardly have to do anything, although that isn’t my prime motivation; it tastes fabulous, all that softly piled-up whiteness infused with nutmeg, the sort of dessert you imagine eating in heaven.

QUINCE SYLLABUB

This version is particularly fragrant, as the name suggests. The quince in question is not the actual fruit but the peachy-peppery breath of an eau de vie de Coings (quince liqueur or quince brandy). Instead of the sherry, you could use white wine, and instead of the quince liqueur, you could use ordinary brandy. The dessert might look rather lovely—to amplify the coral tones of the quince liqueur—if you chose one of those French dry rosés in place of the sherry. And if you want to play on the Arabian Nights feel of the creamy, quince-fragrant confection, then add a drop of rosewater (only a drop, or it’ll smell like bath lotion). I think I’d stop short of decorating with rose petals, though.

I normally hate things in individual portions, restaurant-style, but with a syllabub, there’s no getting round it. You have to eat it with a teaspoon. So, I pile it into separate glasses.

As the alcohol, lemon juice, and zest have to sit and steep overnight, you need to do this a little in advance, but I have happily done it rather a lot in advance and left the syllabub, made up and spooned into its glasses, on the bottom shelf of the fridge for a couple of days before eating it. This amount makes enough to fit into 6 small glasses or 4 wineglasses—the syllabub looks best piled right up to the top and swelling bulkily beyond.

8 tablespoons dry sherry or dry rosé

2 tablespoons eau de vie de Coings or brandy

juice and grated zest of 1 lemon

4 tablespoons superfine sugar

1¼ cups heavy cream

drop rosewater (optional)

whole nutmeg

Put the sherry, eau de vie de Coings, lemon zest, and juice in a bowl, cover with plastic film, and leave overnight; the mixture does not have to be refrigerated. The next day, strain the liquid into another bowl, stir in the sugar, and keep stirring until it’s dissolved. Keep on stirring as you gradually pour in the cream. Add the drop of rosewater and a grating of nutmeg; I once tried cinnamon instead and, although I prefer the nutmeg, the cinnamon variant was well liked, so you may want to give it a whirl yourself.

Now whip the syllabub until it is about to form soft peaks. It should occupy some territory between solid and liquid, rather like the cool, buttery flesh of a newborn baby does when, touching it, you can’t tell where the skin stops and the air begins. You don’t want the cream to become too thick or, indeed, to go further and curdle. The answer is probably to use a wire whisk, but if you promise to keep the beaters going at the lowest possible speed and to be vigilant, then you can use an electric hand-held whisk. Cookbook author Jane Grigson, in her St. Valentine’s Syllabub (white wine and brandy, flavored with honey and sprinkled with toasted nuts), talks of its “bulky whiteness”; that seems the perfect, poetic, description of the point at which you should stop whisking.

Spoon the syllabub into the glasses and set aside in a cold place or the fridge for 2–3 days. Sometimes I grate some more nutmeg over the syllabubs just before eating. And serve with cookies, delicate, thin, light ones—tuiles, langue de chat (see
page 19
), or pistachio-studded Middle Eastern pastry curls.

STEM GINGER GINGERBREAD

Gingerbread is perhaps more of a tea bread than a dessert, but, with some sharp, damp, but crumbly Caerphilly, Wensleydale, or Lancashire cheese, or a sourish American cheddar, it makes a stylish ending to an informal meal. I include the recipe under cooking in advance because—to get the seductive, highly scented stickiness—the gingerbread must be wrapped in foil and kept for a day or so before being eaten. It is also good—if eccentric—in plain unbuttered slices with the aromatic spiced baked plums on page 116. And I love gingerbread with ice cream; all you need is good vanilla ice cream sprinkled with a little cinnamon, but if you really want to go for it you could serve, along with the ice cream and gingerbread, some more stem ginger in its pungent syrup.

The recipe comes from
The Baking Book
by Linda Collister and Anthony Blake. I use a drum grater to prepare the ginger for this.

2 cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

pinch salt

1 tablespoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon pumpkin-pie spice

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, diced

1/3 cup molasses

1/3 cup golden syrup or light corn syrup

½ cup light or dark muscovado sugar or light or dark brown sugar

1 cup milk

¼ cup stem ginger (preserved ginger in syrup), drained and grated

1 egg, beaten

Grease a 10 × 4 × 3-inch loaf tin and line the bottom with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Sift the flour, baking soda, salt, and all the spices into a large mixing bowl. Add the diced butter and rub in with your fingers until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. (I use my freestanding mixer, with the flat beater in place.)

In a small saucepan, melt the molasses with the corn syrup, then leave to cool to tepid. Meanwhile, in another saucepan, dissolve the sugar in the milk over low heat, stirring occasionally.

Add the ginger to the flour mixture. Then whisk or beat the milk mixture into the flour mixture and next whisk in the molasses mixture, followed by the egg. When thoroughly blended, the mixture should be a thin batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 1–1¼ hours or until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Start checking after 45 minutes. But be warned: the mixture goes very runny before it is ready. Don’t panic. The gingerbread will rise during baking and then fall and shrink slightly as it cools. Leave to cool completely in the pan, then turn out and wrap first in wax paper and then in foil. Keep for a day before slicing thickly, then eat hungrily.

Serves 6–8.

ALMOND AND ORANGE-BLOSSOM CAKE

For no real reason, I think of this as a summer version of the sticky gingerbread. It is wonderfully fragrant, dense with almonds, and gently scented with oranges and orange-flower water. It is wonderful served with a compote of cherries, or indeed with any fruit. I rely on cakes with berries for a dinner-party dessert and I’m particularly pleased with this one. Like the gingerbread, this almond cake has to be wrapped in foil (without the wax paper layer) for a day or so before being eaten.

16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup superfine sugar

4 eggs

½ cup Italian 00 or all-purpose flour

1¼ cups ground almonds

1 scant teaspoon almond essence

zest of 1 medium orange

juice of ½ medium orange

2 tablespoons orange-flower water

confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Grease an 8-inch springform cake pan (if the only one you’ve got measures 9 inches then that’ll do, or anything between these figures, but no bigger) and cut out a circle of parchment paper to line the bottom. I lay the paper out on the table, put the tin on top, press down heavily on it with one hand and, using the other, tear the paper away from the base of the tin. What you end up with is a circle of the right size with maybe a few fuzzy edges, but what does it matter?

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Then cream together the butter and sugar until almost white. (Again, I use a freestanding mixer, with the flat paddle beater, for the entire operation.) Beat the eggs and add them gradually to the creamed butter and sugar, beating all the while. I put in a couple of tablespoons at a time and, with each addition, sprinkle on some flour. When all the eggs and flour have been incorporated, gently stir in the ground almonds, then the almond essence, grated orange zest, orange juice, and orange-flower water.

Pour the mixture into the cake pan and bake for about 1 hour. After about 40 minutes, you may well find you have to cover it, loosely, with foil; you don’t want the top of the cake to burn. The cake is ready when the top is firm and a skewer, inserted in the center, comes out clean. Take it out and let it stand for 5 minutes or so in the pan. Then turn it out on to a rack and leave till cool. Wrap it well in foil and leave for a day or two. Shake some confectioners’ through a fine or tea strainer over the cake when serving.

Serves 8.

BAKED SPICED AROMATIC PLUMS