A Spoonful of Sugar

Happy New Year everyone! Thank-you for visiting A Spoonful of Sugar--especially those readers who have stuck with me though my all-too-frequent absences--and for all your kind comments and questions. I really appreciate them.

As I skipped out on blogging for rather a lot most of 2007, I feel like a bit of a fraud joining in with the triumphant parade of "Best of 2007" posts. So, instead, allow me to present to you our Hogmanay dessert!

Introducing... individual Banana Praline Parfaits with a secret centre of mixed berry sorbet, topped with a shard of macadamia praline. It's a Heston Blumenthal recipe and while it feels so thrilling and exciting to say that I've cooked one of Heston's recipes, in truth he intended it as a component rather than a dessert in its own right. However, I'm sure he wouldn't be too upset to see it served in this fashion.

The much more elaborate dessert that this was originally a component for is Heston's Perfect Baked Alaska, which I hope to have occasion to make one day. This was probably the best episode--followed closely by the risotto one--of his recent television series: Further Adventures In Search of Perfection.

I love Heston--he's absolutely barking mad, passionate about food, and a genius to boot. I'm sure he'd be absolutely impossible to live with, but his unerring attention to detail and deep need to investigate every possible way of handling or eating food is just so appealing and it makes great television, too.

He gets a lot of criticism from people who dismiss his food as overly fussy and pretentious or those who don't see the point of a cookery programme that doesn't showcase recipes achievable by even a chimpanzee working in an ill-equipped kitchen, while a hurricane rages outside. Just by way of an example, you understand.

Those sort of people are missing the point. Heston doesn't expect you to go out and buy a squirrel cage and smoke your own fish, but if you want to copy him? No problem. Want to top your trifle with mediaeval comfits? Sure! Here's the method!

It's all about trying new ways of doing things, pulling the best possible flavour from each dish, treating food with respect and above all... having a bit of fun with it too.

And that, ladies and gents, concludes my (unintentional) love-note to Heston. (Hi, Heston! Can't wait to come over for lunch! Mwah-mwah!) Did I mention that we're going to The Fat Duck for my birthday this month? No? Well, we are and I can't wait!

For someone who is renowned for complicate cooking, this is a very straightforward recipe. You start off by making a nut brittle--the original recipe called ror hazelnuts but I couldn't get hold of any, so substituted my favourite macadamias instead--grind it, then make a caramelised banana puree. These then get gently combined with a regular meringue and some whipped cream before being still-frozen.

At Christmas Dave's parents gave me lots of lovely silicone bakeware. Amongst all the goodies was a jumbo muffin tray which I thought would be the right sort of size for desserts. I've always been intrigued by--and suspicious of--silicone moulds. It just seems wrong to bake a cake in something that feels so floppy and thin. However, I'm certainly a convert when it comes to freezing ice-cream in them!

The parfaits popped out from the moulds with absolutely no need to run a knife around the edges, whack on the counter, or perform any arcane rituals of the sort that would normally be necessary with a metal mould. The sides were even beautifully smooth, which made for my best dessert presentation of the year. (Okay, so I couldn't resist slipping a Best... in there. So sue me!)

The most surprising thing about the parfaits was the aroma. Straight from the freezer, with absolutely no chance of defrosting, you could smell the bananas. Considering that my bananas were only just ripe, that's quite a feat! The next thing I noticed was the texture: silky smooth, punctuated by all those lovely nutty praline speckles. You'd swear that it'd been lovingly churned in an ice-cream maker, but no... just dolloped into a mould and frozen.

My attempt at a secret centre half-worked. The sorbet melted at a slightly faster rate than the parfait mixture, but I put it into the moulds too early and it sank straight to the bottom. The unadorned parfaits revealed all--a shameful scarlet splodge on the surface. Next time round I'll freeze the parfaits for a couple of hours before pushing the sorbet cubes into the centre. Hopefully that will be enough to prevent further sinkage.

The flavours, on the other hand, worked beautifully. I'd added some limoncello to the berry mixture to (a) keep it from freezing solid and (b) cut the sweetness, and the slight sharpness played really well against the soft, mellow sweetness of the banana and praline. Really, it was almost like having summer and winter on the spoon at the same time.

There are two left in the freezer... first come, first served!