preserved brandied cherries Archives - Passionate About Baking

“You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”

Stephen King

If you know a little about me, you might figure out where the egg yolks came from. No mystery here! Of course they came from my quest for feet, and the failure associated with them! And in case you haven’t stopped by before, feel at home, grab some coffee, and join me in my footless saga! In a nutshell, it’s about finding feet in macarons, and then finding a home for the yolks!

Macaron madness hits us this time every month and the theme for MacTweets, the macaron obsessed blog that Jamie and I host, this September, is childhood memories! Mac Attack #11 – Long ago & far away … CHILDHOOD SUMMER MEMORIES.

Memories I had many – of nature, of flowers, of pressed flowers, of endless summers hanging upside down from mango and tamarind trees, of purple stained teeth from cramming sweet jamuns into our little mouths, of sneaking a spoonful of malt from the jar when I thought no one was looking, of my first and only pea pod that grew on pea plant…

I tried to weave all those into my macs, and failed miserably. Got macarons, delicious macarons, but no frills or fancy feet. There were some vanilla macarons, with pressed dried edible flowers on top, and others with malt. I hurriedly sandwiched them with Nutella! I think the weather was just too humid and I had to fix a small something which I couldn’t lay a finger on. By the time I counted my failures, I had wiped my memories clean!

It was time to look at the yellows in life, as the whites were being fiddly again! I had 4 yolks on hand and didn’t want to make an ice cream with the family on the flu express. Googling through images, I picked the one that caught my eye, and I knew it had to be a Canelle et Vanille recipe. Simple Chocolate Raspberry Pot de Creme, very Aran, gorgeous pictures. I didn’t have raspberries, those not being native to India, so my next best bet were preserved cherries from my summer slavery! I have 2 jars of brandied cherries preserved and refrigerated, and I thought they’d do well here! Did I tell you that chocolate and cherries are a marriage made in heaven? They are!

What are pots de creme? Pots de Creme refers to both the custard dessert as well as the small lidded pots this dessert is served in. Pot de creme, or pot-au-creme translates from French to English as “pot of cream”. The French do not have a word for “custard” the dish is simply referred to as “creme”. The pots may also be referred to as “petits pots“. Technically the pots de creme is a lightly set, baked custard. The “traditional” proportions for this dessert is one whole egg to every five egg yolks for 2 1/2 to 3 cups of liquid. A dessert made with these basic proportions will yield a barely firm custard. This is why the custard is best served in small pots (or ramekins). You can read more about it at Pots de Creme.

Feedback on these divine pots was obviously good, what with the luscious chocolate, cherries and cream! sharing space! The 3C’s together got me a 5/5!! The son asked, ‘Mousse? No? Well it’s really nice and chocolaty!’ Having just watched an episode of Master Chef moments ago, he charmingly added, ‘You would have won it if you were there. They made some really bad looking stuff today!’ Funny fellow he is! The teen who lives in the clouds also graciously mentioned that they were ‘VERY NICE’, and continued to spoon it into her mouth saying,’Fatty too huh?’ Didn’t seem to deter her though!!

For those of you who might wonder about the eggy aromas, I can assure you there were none. The vanilla bean took care of that, and chocolate in there must have appropriately masked the rest. It was a smooth, silky, deep mousse like potful! Good to the last scrape! I’ve heard lots about this delightful dessert, and I’ll have to say it’s one of the best dessert in the world, really is! Now that the weather is warming up, I’m thinking pumpkin pots de creme next!

Mr PAB bought me a new oven recently, and I finally found a patch of positivity in the PAB feet saga. I did try yet another desperate batch of macs this morning, and met with some degree of success – see some kind of feet above? Life is looking up, and this new oven might just help me find feet. Maybe it’s significant too that the monsoons have finally stopped here, and the sun is out again! Just in time thankfully, because Mr PAB was beginning to show signs of utter despair, and asked me yesterday if I thought I should buy another brand of oven! The obsession with feet is clearly infectious!

Chocolate and Cherry Pots de Creme
Adapted from Canelle et Vanille
200ml whole milk

50ml full fat cream {top of the milk cream}

200ml low fat cream {Amul 25% fat}

1 vanilla bean, split and seeded
40gms vanilla sugar
4 egg yolks
160gms bittersweet chocolate, chopped into small pieces
1 cup preserved cherries {or raspberries, fresh or frozen}
Method:
Bring the milk,both creams, vanilla bean and half of the sugar to a boil. Pour this over the chopped chocolate and stir until the chocolate is completely melted.
In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks and the other half of the sugar. Temper the hot chocolate mixture into the egg yolks while whisking constantly. Strain the custard through a fine sieve.
Place some preserved cherries into ramekins and pour the custard into them. Place the ramekins on a sheet pan and bring this to a preheated 160C oven.
Place the sheet pan in the oven and pour hot water in the sheet pan. Bake the pot de creme in the water bath until center is set, mine took about 45 minutes since the oven is new. Do check after 30 minutes. Refrigerate until completely cooled.

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