We have lots of rhubarb at this time of year, and until the gooseberries ripen thats the only fruit on the plot. Nut there are only so many crumbles we can eat, and as we had guests over for Saturday night (but didn't know how hungry we'd be when we got back from Strawberry Fair) I thought I'd make a showpiece dessert rather than main course.
And its a bit of a construction, this one, but really easy to compile if you have the skills to make each component.
Start off with a basic shortcrust pastry - I made up just a handfull with 100g of butter, 200g of flour and a pinch of salt. That was rubbed together to a crumb before working in enough water to make a stiff pastry, which went into a covered bowl in the fridge while I made the rest of the dessert.
I had about 600g of rhubarb which was then cleaned, chopped, and stewed with enough water and sugar such that it wasn't too sour when tasted, until it was gooey, at which point I added enough cornflour (about a dessert spoon full) in a water paste and cooked it in for a few more minutes, until I couldn't taste the flour any more. Once cool, thats the fruit filling ready to use.
The custard was really creme diplomat - which is creme patisiere folded in with whipped cream. Are you still with me? Good, you can get a recipe for creme patisiere here, and I made mine with two egg yolks, about a tablespoon of cornflour, about 40g of sugar, 175ml of milk and a dash of vanilla essence. Its incredibly easy to make and you should have this one in your arsenal, find one of the many online recipes that works for you and keep it handy. Once cool I mixed in about half as much again whipped cream, which technically gives you creme diplomat. If you can manage a but of icing and puff paste you now also know how to make a custard slice...
The third component was the meringue, which was Italian meringue. Imagine the inside of a walnut whip but actually nice. Whisk the egg whites (2) to stiff peaks. Heat half a cup of sugar to 121C with just enough water to get it dissolved (the less you add, the faster it gets hot enough) and slowly drizzle the now molten sugar into the whisked egg whites while continuing to whisk - in a rotary mixer this is a doddle. It'll start steaming as the egg whites are cooked by the hot sugar and will form a shiny foam - its ready, but let it cool before you use it.
Now everything is cooling, make your pastry case. You aren't cooking this again so cook it thoroughly, so blind bake it for longer than you normally would. And when its cooked and cool add the the rhubarb, then the custard, and top it all off with Italian meringue. Try to keep the top messy, so when you then put it under the grill to brown the top off (as you should, it only takes a minute) you end up with a dessert that looks as good as it tastes.
This sounds like a really complicated dessert but it really isn't - if you've cracked a couple of core skills (creme patisserie, Italian meringue and pastry) then you're laughing, its the sort of dessert you put together in-between doing the dishes and getting things together for putting dinner on. Don't be put off by how many steps there are, and give this a go.
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