CookEat Recipe
Strawberry Almond Blancmange
A chilled dome of strawberry and sweet-almond milk set with leaf gelatine and flavoured with kirsch, served on a folded napkin.
Method
Steps
Step 1
Use raw sweet almond kernels with their brown skins. Weigh half a pound before blanching. Wash sound strawberries under running water, remove the hulls and damaged parts, and measure half a pint of the prepared fruit. Have clean pans, a mortar, wire sieve, cheesecloth, a food-safe one-quart dome mould and a refrigerator ready.
Step 2
Plunge the almonds into one pint of boiling water for three minutes. Drain, let them become safe to handle, remove the brown skins and pound the kernels in the mortar to a firm paste. Transfer the paste to a saucepan.
Step 3
Press the half pint of strawberries through the wire sieve into the almond pan, leaving the seeds behind. Add one pint of cold pasteurized whole milk, mix well and boil gently for five minutes, stirring. Strain through clean cheesecloth into a clean bowl and keep all the liquid actually recovered; leave the retained solids out.
Step 4
Weigh one ounce of Dr. Oetker Platinum Grade leaf gelatine and snip the leaves. Take enough cold water from the measured half pint to cover them in a small bowl and hydrate until fully soft according to the product directions. Keep all this water with the leaves; keep the rest of the measured half pint for the sugar.
Step 5
Heat the five ounces of sugar with the remaining water from that same half pint, stirring until dissolved. Add all the strained strawberry-almond milk and two tablespoons of Studer Kirsch (41% ABV). Stir while boiling for two minutes, then strain into a clean bowl and retain all the filtered liquid.
Step 6
Gently warm the softened gelatine with all its soaking water until fully dissolved, without boiling. Let the filtered milk mixture come off the boil while remaining warm, then stir in all the dissolved gelatine and water until evenly combined.
Step 7
Let the mixture cool briefly over an external ice-water bath, stirring and keeping it fluid. Pour into the one-quart dome mould without exceeding its capacity. Keep any excess actually remaining in separate food-safe containers. Cover, surround with cracked ice for initial cooling and refrigerate. Cool the dessert to 20°C within two hours and to 4°C within the next four hours, checking the actual dessert temperature.
Step 8
Keep refrigerated at 4°C until firmly set; one hour is an initial check, and setting may take longer. Briefly dip the outside of the mould in warm water if needed, wipe it dry and unmould onto a cold dish lined with a clean food-contact suitable folded napkin. Serve cold immediately, keeping any separately set excess refrigerated until serving.
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