Bloody Valentine

With this post I'm making an end to the road to hell and sweetness Citrus month(s), who have dominated this January and February. Or at least when it comes to me writing posts for it. Maybe there will still be a citrus related guest blogpost from a fellow blogger but that's not sure yet since he still hasn't signed the million dollar contract and we can't seem to agree on certain terms :-) on that funny but unrelated note, I would like to let you know that this last post is a plated dessert, since I couldn't help myself from noticing that you, my fellow reader, seems to show more interest in my baking and candy making skills, hence the popularity of my posts like Gluhwein fudge, Gummie balls and Speculaas babka.

It's been a very long time that I've posted a plated dessert, and in all honesty it's my favourite thing to do, but I'm not that conservative so I make sure everybody gets a bit of everything. I started working on this a week ago not knowing that today, the day I finish writing this post would be Valentine's day. So being the romantic soul that I am, I couldn't stop myself from naming this post anything else but 'Bloody Valentine', and with that said, that's the only link Cupid has with this dessert. No hearts shaped arrows in sight, trust me.

The dessert is a take on a classic "Baba au rhum" but then with a citrus twist. It's a Campari savarin served with blood orange gastrique gel, citrus marmalade and vanilla chantilly. Fairly straight forward if you know your basics. I don't need to tell you how to whip cream to soft peak with 10% icing sugar and the inside of a vanilla pod so I can put the vanilla chantilly on the side. The marmalade doesn't need my explanation either cause all that you can find in my previous post called Bittersweet Symphony. So that leaves us with the hardest part, the dough for the savarin, followed by the blood orange gastrique. Here is the recipe for the dough.

400 gr flour (t45)
4 gr salt
140 gr soft butter
12 gr yeast
17 gr orange blossom honey
500 gr fresh eggs

To make the dough you start by mixing the flour, salt, soft butter, yeast and honey for five minutes on low speed with the paddle. After you start adding your eggs one by one, every time waiting until the previous one is fully incorporated before adding the next one. You gonna end up with a shiny, elastic dough. I recommend that you spray you're mould with grease spray, even if they are flexipan moulds. Portion the dough in the moulds and prove until the dough almost reaches the top of the mould. Bake at 180C for about 10 to 12 minutes.

I would almost forget you need soaking syrup for you're savarin. Just take a liter water and bring to boil with 750 gr sugar and the zeste of 2 oranges. Once boiled you take it of the heat and let it cool down. Once that's happened you add 100ml Campari and it's ready to use.

The blood orange gastrique is gonna give you this fantastic sweet and sour kick you want in this dessert. A gastrique is more of a savoury type of sauce but it's finding it's way into our desserts. In this case I've added a small amount of gelatin to make it more of a jelly but if you prefer it as a sauce then you just leave it out.

100 gr sugar
100 gr sherry vinegar
150 gr blood orange juice
4 gr gelatine

You start with caramelising the sugar. If you prefer a bit of honey in it, then you can replace some sugar with honey. Once you get a nice golden coloured caramel you add the sherry vinegar, followed by the blood orange juice to deglaze. If you're making the jelly then add the gelatin and don't reduce it but let it cool down a bit and pour it very thinly in silicone moulds to make thin gastrique jelly sheets. If you just make a gastrique sauce then you reduce it for a bit until it's a bit thicker.

From know on it's just plating. You start with disks of gastrique jelly. Before placing you're savarin, make sure it's well soaked in syrup. And before serving make sure it gets some extra Campari over it. A few quenelles of marmalade and some vanilla chantilly and if you look at it, you just have four things on a plate. Four things that give you the sweet, the sour and the bitter you need from a good citrus flavoured dessert. Please enjoy and play around with it.

To close off, I have to say that this year's citrus months were containing mainly European basic citrus fruits like Spanish navel oranges and Italian bergamot. But also grapefruits and a famous Thai called Pomelo. So considering that this will all return in 2015, I will try and focus more on different citrus fruits, like American Meyer lemons or Japanese yuzu. So if you have ideas or things you would like to see in 2015 or sooner, just let me know and we will make it happen. You can find me on twitter (@JurgenWillems14), Instagram (jurgenwillems), LinkedIn and Facebook. Worst case scenario you can leave a comment down bellow :-) So please don't hesitate to let me know.