TASTE
Crowning touch
By Amy Scattergood
Los Angeles Times
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The creme de la creme of dessert sauces, creme anglaise reigns in the pastry kitchen — although its fancy title belies the fact that it's only a simple stove-top custard.
Transcendently smooth, a cool match for a catalog of desserts, creme anglaise is at once as comforting as a homey pudding and as intoxicating as the intricately plated desserts it so often accompanies. Yet with about 15 minutes' work and with the most basic of ingredients — milk, sugar, egg yolks, vanilla — you'll have a sauce that can transform the last course of a meal from just good to utterly sublime.
The technique isn't demanding, though there is one tricky point where care must be taken to keep the egg yolks from scrambling.
Creme anglaise is a chameleon sauce, able to undergo transformation into an almost endless array of uses — it's the base for Bavarian creams, semifreddos and many souffles. And then there's ice cream, which in its basic form is frozen creme anglaise.
It also can be infused with any number of flavors. Add a bag of tea or a handful of broken espresso beans to the initial pan of milk. Or try citrus peel, fresh rosemary, toasted nuts, freshly crushed spices. Either add these to the vanilla bean or omit it: You can use a single flavor, or create a matrix of them.
Once chilled into velvety smoothness, creme anglaise is perfect as a dipping sauce for homemade cookies, paired with an oven-warm blackberry tart, or serving as the shallow sea under a flotilla of meringues.
CREME ANGLAISE
Pour the milk into a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the milk and drop in the bean. Heat over medium heat until just simmering (do not boil), about 4 minutes. Remove from the heat, cover and let steep half an hour. Reheat the infused milk over medium heat until almost simmering, about 3 minutes.
Whisk together the egg yolks and sugar, then temper the mixture by pouring half of the hot milk into the egg-and-sugar mixture and whisking, then pouring this back into the rest of the hot milk.
Stir the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly, until the custard coats the back of a spoon, about 3 minutes. Be careful not to overcook, as it can curdle easily.
Strain the custard through a sieve into a bowl and immediately place it in an ice bath, stirring until it begins to cool. Keep the bowl in the ice bath until the custard is completely cool. Lay a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface and refrigerate until needed.
Makes 2 cups.
HAZELNUT CREME ANGLAISE
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the hazelnuts on a cookie sheet and toast in the oven until fragrant and golden, watching so that they don't burn, about 10 minutes. With the back of a saute pan, break the nuts apart and set aside.
Pour the milk into a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Scrape the vanilla bean seeds into the milk, and drop in the bean. Add the hazelnuts. Heat until just simmering (do not boil), about 4 minutes, then remove from the heat, cover and let steep half an hour. Reheat the infused milk over medium heat until almost simmering, about 3 minutes.
Whisk together the egg yolks and sugar, then temper the mixture by pouring half of the hot milk into the egg and sugar mixture and whisking, then pouring this back into the rest of the hot milk.
Stir the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly, until the custard coats the back of a spoon, about 5 minutes.
Strain the custard through a sieve into a bowl (discard the hazelnuts) and immediately cool in an ice bath. Refrigerate, with a bit of plastic wrap over the top to prevent a skin forming, until needed.
Makes 2 servings.
Like the old-fashioned dessert floating islands, the meringues provide a kind of kitchen symmetry by incorporating the egg whites left over from making the sauce. But unlike floating islands, which feature soft meringues cooked in a double boiler, this updated version relies on baked meringues to give crunchy contrast to the velvety sauce. And both sauce and meringue can be made one or even a few days ahead of time.
If you don't want your islands to float on an entire ocean, pour just 1/3 cup of heady hazelnut-infused creme anglaise into a soup plate and top it with a solitary crisp meringue. For textural balance and a zing of both flavor and color, roast a pint of fresh raspberries with a sprinkle of sugar, a splash of earthy hazelnut oil. Then spoon the fruit over the meringue, the garnet berries falling into the sauce like errant jewels.
This recipe will make 12 meringues. You can increase the raspberries and the amount of sauce to make additional servings if desired.
MERINGUES WITH ROASTED RASPBERRIES AND HAZELNUT CREME ANGLAISE
Heat oven to 200 degrees. In the bowl of a standing mixer or with a hand-held mixer, whip the egg whites and the cream of tartar on high speed until soft peaks form, about 1 minute. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add 1 cup sugar in a steady stream; continue whipping until stiff and glossy, about 4 minutes. Whip in the cinnamon.
Fill a pastry bag fitted with a medium star tip with the meringue. On to a Silpat or oiled piece of parchment paper, pipe the mixture into rounds, starting in the center and moving outward in a spiral to form a 3-inch disk. Bake for 2 hours, until crisp but not browned. Cool on the Silpat or parchment, then carefully remove the meringues. Set aside, uncovered, on a wire rack in a cool, dry place.
Increase the oven temperature to 350 degrees. Toss the raspberries with the remaining 1 tablespoon sugar and the hazelnut oil. Mound the berries on a baking sheet lined with Silpat or parchment paper and roast them for about 5 minutes, until glistening and very fragrant, but not mushy. Remove from the oven.
Pour 1/3 cup of chilled hazelnut creme anglaise into the middle of a soup plate. Place a cooled meringue in the center, then spoon one-fourth of the roasted raspberries on top of each meringue. Serve immediately.
Makes 4 servings.
Total time: About 20 minutes, plus 2 hours baking time
The classic dessert sauce creme anglaise can be had in basic form or dressed up with any number of flavors
