Results - Guava and Custard Apple Snow Egg

And now for some very very sweet results.....literally!! After reading possibly the longest recipe I've ever seen, and been challenged by my un-believing brother, I gave the almighty Snow egg from Masterchef a try. I'm happy to say that I succeeded and my brother ate his words! HA! I finally got you back for making me eat dirt when I was a kid......revenge is sweet.......just like dessert.

I'm glad that I wasnt on Masterchef with only a limited time to complete this recipe. It took me nearly 4 hours to finish it. Most of it was waiting around, trying to get custards to set, ice creams to cream and water to freeze. When I first read the recipe I thought it was going to be a breeze, and to be honest there wasnt any particular part which was difficult. The only problem was that it was 8 separate desserts crammed into one almighty uber dessert. So by the end of it I was well and truly over the snow egg. So much so that I didnt really like it. I thought it was way to sweet and a little un-impressive. Daz, my borther, sister-in law and my 1 and a half year old niece disagreed, saying that the dessert was VERY delicious. I guess I'll just have to agree to disagree.

What I absolutely loved about the recipe was the custard apple ice cream and the custard cream. These were so fantastic. I'm glad I had plenty of left overs, I've been making left over bonus desserts with the custard cream, I truly recommend trying it with some fresh strawberries. A thousand times better than ordinary strawberries and cream. Yes, simple strawberries and cream are now ordinary to me.

I did come across a couple of tricky issues when attempting this dessert. Firstly, I couldnt find strawberry guavas. Guava season in Australia ended in June, so I was hoping for a miracle to find strawberry guavas. On my hunt I actually come across ordinary guavas but decided not to buy them because I thought I'd hold out. Big mistake. I searched high and low, I even went to Coles where apparently Masterchef's shop....but still no luck. In the end I opted for rhubarb as a replacement. It was a great substitute, rhubarb and strawberry as a combination is a favourite of mine. I later found out that at Quay they often have the dessert as white peach instead of guava, so my artist licence has not been revoked.

Next was finding liquid maltose. After a chance discovery, I was in an asian grocery looking for beef jerky - as one does, I found the maltose staring at me begging me to buy it. So that was alot easier than I thought.

My next issue was finding a silicone dome tray for the meringues. I remember seeing one during my quest to find the perfect tart pan for my French party, but considering that an 101 year old Alzheimer suffer has a better memory than me, I couldnt remember where I saw it. So instead I used the tiny little glass bowls I use to put sauces in. Worked a treat. I even put baking paper inside them, just in case the meringues got stuck, but there was no need.....they slid out like a weekend at wet-n-wild.

Even though this recipe was pretty straight forward I did make one fatal error. My maltose tuiles were a little under done. They produced the perfect crack (see the below video), but unfortunately I didnt quite caramelize the sugar enough, giving the snow eggs a very pale appearance. I also had difficulty with the tuile melting onto the eggs. I'm not quite sure if that was due to a thickness issue, the sugar being too pale hence under done or the fact that I was trying to melt them with possibly the most pathetic torch imaginable. I've never had a size issue before, but yesterday I just wished for something bigger and hotter. *giggles*

The most important question, would I make these again? Probably not. The effort clearly outweighs the rewards. I'm all for complicated dishes, in fact I love a challenge....but even this was too much for me. I will certainly be making parts of this dish again, but will be paring them with less diabetic inducing elements. Still, I have admire Peter Gilmore for even contemplating a dessert o this caliber.

Guava and Custard Apple Snow Egg

Restaurant: Quay (NSW)

Recipe from Chef Peter Gilmore (recipe from Masterchef website)

2010 Rating: Number 1, 3 Stars

Yep, you read right, I'm going to attempt to make the snow egg dish from the finale of Masterchef. It will be my first attempt at any of the recipes featured on the show. I'm attempting this recipe for two reasons really. Firstly, the recipe comes from Peter Gilmore from the famed Quay restaurant (which means I can tick off Quay from my list) and secondly, my brother said I couldn't do it. If that isn't incentive enough, I dont know what ever will!!

I'm not going to be crazy enough to put a time limit on the whole exercise, I get enough of an adrenaline rush from washing all the dishes. So here is the recipe, and stay tuned for the results and hopefully some impressive word eating from my brother.

Guava and Custard Apple Snow Egg

INGREDIENTS

Custard apple ice cream

100ml milk

3 egg yolks

100g caster sugar

3 soft ripe custard apples

50ml pouring cream

Vanilla custard base

400ml pouring cream

2 vanilla beans, split and seeds scraped

1 whole egg

3 egg yolks

80g caster sugar

Guava granita

100g caster sugar

500ml water

400g strawberry guavas, peeled and diced

100g fresh strawberries, hulled and halved

Poached meringue

Canola oil spray

150g egg white

150g caster sugar

Guava puree

175g caster sugar

250ml water

½ vanilla bean

375g strawberry guavas, peeled and roughly diced

Maltose tuiles

200g liquid maltose

100g caster sugar

20g flaked almonds

Vanilla cream

100g vanilla custard base

100g double cream

Guava fool

100g of guava puree

200g vanilla cream

1 cup icing sugar, to serve

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 150ºC and turn on ice cream machine to chill.

2. For the custard apple ice cream, bring milk to the boil in a small saucepan. Whisk egg yolks and sugar together by hand, then pour boiling milk onto the egg yolk mixture while whisking. Pour into a stainless steel bowl and cook while whisking over a pot of simmering water for about 10 minutes or until it is thickened. Whisk sabayon until cool over ice. Set aside. Scoop the flesh of one custard apple at a time into a double muslin lined chinois sitting over a measuring jug. Gather the muslin cloth at the top and squeeze tightly to obtain a clear juice. When you have 150ml, whisk it into the sabayon with the cream. Place the mixture into an ice cream machine and churn for about 40 minutes. Place in the freezer until set.

3. For the vanilla custard base, heat cream and vanilla seeds together in a small saucepan until it just begins to boil, and then remove from the heat. Whisk by hand the eggs, egg yolks and sugar together in a stainless steel bowl until combined. While whisking the eggs, slowly pour on the hot vanilla cream. Mix well and remove the vanilla pods. Pour this mixture into 4 dariole moulds to a depth of 5 cm, place the dariole moulds into a small baking dish with boiling water around the dariole moulds up to halfway to form a water bath. Place the water bath into a 150ºC oven and cook the custard 25 minutes or until the custard is just set. If the centre is still runny place in the freezer until set then place in refrigerator until needed.

4. For the granita, combine sugar and water in a large saucepan; bring to the boil then lower heat. Add diced fruit and gently simmer for 10 minutes. Take off the heat and infuse at room temperature for 30 minutes. Pass the liquid through a muslin cloth and discard the solids. Pour the syrup into a lamington or slice tin to a depth of 5cm. Place in the freezer until solid. Scrape with a fork into crystals and then transfer to the freezer until required.

5. For the poached meringue, whisk the egg whites in an electric mixer until they form soft peaks and then slowly add the sugar bit by bit. Keep whisking until the meringue forms firm peaks and the sugar has dissolved. Spray hemisphere moulds lightly with canola oil spray. Spoon mixture into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm nozzle. Pipe mixture into moulds so it sits above the surface. Place the filled moulds into a large baking dish and pour boiling water into the baking dish to a depth of about 3cm. Bake at 150ºC for 15 minutes until just. Allow to cool for 2 minutes, then trim off tops so they are perfect hemispheres. Gently un-mould and place cut side up on a baking paper lined tray in the fridge until needed. Increase oven temperature to 180ºC.

6. For the guava puree, combine sugar, water and scraped vanilla bean in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Lower heat to a gentle simmer, add guava and simmer 10 minutes. Take off the heat, remove the vanilla pods, drain the flesh from the liquid, place the flesh in a blender and add just enough of the cooking liquid to process into a thick guava puree. Pass the puree through a fine sieve and set aside, covered, in the fridge until needed.

7. To make the maltose tuiles, stir maltose and sugar together in a small saucepan then bring to the boil until it reaches hard crack stage (until it caramelises). Take care to brush down the sides with a pastry brush dipped in water so it doesn't crystallise. Once golden add the flaked almonds and immediately pour the mixture onto a silicon mat, allow to cool completely. Process the cooled praline in the bowl of a hand blender to form a fine powder. Next sift a fine layer of the praline mixture through a drum sieve, over an acetate stencil with 11cm circles cut out of it onto a silicon mat on a baking sheet. Melt this mixture in a 180ºC oven for a few minutes until it forms a clear liquid paste. Cool tuiles slightly and peel off silicon sheet while still flexible. Store flat between sheets of baking paper until ready to use.

8. For the vanilla cream, whisk the cream and custard together to form soft peaks. Store in the fridge until ready to use.

9. For the guava fool, place the guava puree in a small bowl and fold through the vanilla cream gently to form a rippled effect. Do this just before you are ready to assemble the dessert.

10. To assemble, take 8 of the half hemisphere poached meringues. Using a teaspoon or half teaspoon measure remove a small scoop from the centre of each half hemisphere being careful not to break through the outer edge. Then place a teaspoon or half teaspoon measure scoop of custard apple ice cream in four of the hemispheres. Invert the other four hemispheres over the ice cream filled meringues to form a complete sphere. Use wet fingers to stick the two halves together. Place a tuile on top of each sphere and using a blow torch and an even motion, melt it over the sphere, patting it down if necessary. Dust spheres liberally with icing sugar. Next add a generous spoonful of the guava fool in the bottom of each serving glass. Top the fool with the guava granita. Use two teaspoons to place the snow egg on top of the granita and serve.