A Titillating Trifle

Jeez it's hard to be original! I wonder how other bloggers who have decided to participate in the 'Culinarty round-up' event held by Lore are faring. What does it mean to be original anyway? Every recipe appears to be a derivative of a previous dish slash combination of flavours.

To create something unique I suppose the key is to make a break from traditional recipes, whether you're introducing a non-traditional method or integrating within it an unusual ingredient or two. Admittedly, I'm always fascinated by simple structural changes which can effectively manipulate a dish, taking it to a completely new level.

­Take ham and eggs for example. What comes to mind? Some of you will be reminiscing over your last big English breakfast platter for sure. But myself, after hearing stories about The Fat Duck and coming across recipes for things like candied bacon ice cream, I've been wanting to turn the humble ham and egg sandwich into a post gluttony sweetener of some kind. Perhaps a semi-savoury brown butter panna cotta with coddled quail eggs, layered between jamon crisps and a little pig-flavoured crushed toast sprinkled around the plate?

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Normally I'm fairly restricted to using only what we already have en place and all of the things that everybody else wants to bin. Unfortunately I don't really have the time nor the money to be experimenting with all the recipes I'd like to try either. Perhaps I'll still get my chance, although it most definitely won't be today. So for the moment, you'll have to put up with this trifle for dessert (pun intended) - a little jellied quince fanfare with crumbled savoiardi soaked in sherry spooned on top and finished with a flourish of burnt orange cream.

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Orange & Quince Trifles

1 recipe savoiardi biscuits
5 poached quinces
50 ml medium-dry sherry
gold gelatine sheets
castor sugar for
caramelising

Make savoiardi biscuits and poached quinces two days beforehand.

The night before, drain quinces and reserve cooking liquid.

Place serving glasses in the fridge until cold.

Add water to the cooking liquid if necessary to damper the sweetness if you find it too intense.

Set aside a cup of liquid and combine with sherry.

Bring the rest to the boil and remove from heat.

For every 500 g of this liquid add 3 bloomed gold gelatine sheets.

Allow liquid to cool to room temperature.

Slice quinces thinly and wet with jelly mix.

Remove glasses from the fridge and lay quince slices against the sides. The cold glass will cause the jelly to set and the slices will adhere within a few seconds.

Place all the glasses back into the fridge for a few minutes until set.

Pour the jelly mix into the glasses and refrigerate for 4 hours.

1000 pouring cream
2 cinnamon quills
2 oranges, zest
1 lemon, zest
1 gold gelatine leaf
125 g egg yolks
65 g castor sugar
3 g salt

For the orange cream, bring cream to a simmer with cinnamon.

Allow to infuse for 30 mins over a low heat with zests.

Bloom gelatine in cold water and add to cream. Stir to dissolve.

In a medium bowl, cream together the egg yolks, sugar and salt.

Temper eggs with cream, pour everything back into the pot.

Slowly bring to 84ºC over low heat, stirring continuously with a spatula.

Remove from heat and strain through a fine chinois.

Lay plastic wrap on top to prevent a skin from forming and refrigerate until set.

To assemble, roughly crumble the savoiardi biscuits into the sherry liquid and give it a good stir to coat. Don't let it sit in the liquid for more than a few seconds or they'll no doubt become disgustingly soggy.

Spoon a good amount of savoiardi over the quince jelly.

Place a big dollop of cold orange cream over the top.

Sprinkle a teaspoon of castor sugar over each and caramelise with a blow torch (carefully so not to crack the glass).

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