Sweet Return

It's been a difficult 10 months so far and I still have a long way ahead of me. But in all honesty, it's not the cancer that bothers me the most. Of course it's hard, and in life nobody is prepared to hear that they have a brain tumour "in the meantime two brain tumours" in their head. But I've managed to take that on board and move forward with a positive attitude. But on the other hand, I have an incredibly hard time not being able to be in my pastry. Up until today pastry has been my life. Born and raised in a pastry shop, working alongside my dad as a little boy. I studied 7 years at the finest pastry school in Belgium and worked at some of the best pastry kitchens in Europe. After all this time, it wasn't a job anymore nor a career path. It has become my hobby, my passion and has been my drive through life for all those years. It's been the thing keeping me up at night after I've worked 16 hours for 8 to 10 days straight, but never once did I mind because I love my job to pieces.

The radiotherapy I had last year was terrible, and I wish none of you never have to go through that. The chemotherapy I have now isn't any better, but at least it's with ups and downs. So far most days have been bad but recently I got to taste what it's like to have had a series of good days and knowing it's not gonna last so I grabbed the bull by the horns and decided to spend some of that time in my dad's pastry to do something for the road to hell and sweetness. It's not the same as my pastry kitchen in London but it comes close enough. I've decided to play around with the pain perdu, for many people, as well as for me, an all time favourite. It's something I've always wanted to do at Oblix but never got around to. We could go the classic way and serve it with caramelised apple and some vanilla ice cream but that's not the way it went down.

I combined it with spiced pineapple, pickled raisins and Greek yoghurt ice cream, in theory a solid combination. A bit of sweet and sour, some spicy notes and the yoghurt to freshen it up and balance out the flavours.

Starting of, I did with pickling my raisins. It's a job that doesn't take up a lot of you're time and needs to be done few days ahead before all the rest.
100 gr golden raisins
100 gr sultanas
300 gr apple cider
60 gr honey
60 gr cider vinegar
1 cinnamon stick
3 cloves
2 star anise
1/4 orange peel
1 gr fresh ginger

You heat up the cider, honey and vinegar together with all the spices, and reduces to almost half. Add the raisins and sultanas and leave them to rest in the liquid. When cooled down transfer to a hermetically sealed jar and keep in a dark and cool space for a few days. After that comes the pineapple.

For the pain perdu I've made an orange brioche but you can easily just use a brioche from you're local baker. Next up is the soaking liquid for you're pain perdu. Again a very straight forward recipe where you just need to whisk everything together and done, ready to rest overnight.
300 gr milk
300 gr cream 40
60 gr sugar
4 eggs
2 orange zeste

Finally, to make the spiced pineapple you need to slice 1 pineapple into medium sized cubes. After you caramelise 250 gr sugar. Once a beautiful golden brown caramel, you add the pineapple cubes, the spices (1/2 vanilla stick, 1 cinnamon stick, 2 star anise and 3 cloves) and a splash of spiced rum and leave it on a medium heat until the pineapple is al dente.

I've placed the brioche a bit in the freezer so they would be easier to cut. Once semi frozen I've cut cubes of 4cm by 4cm. Then place the cubes in a container with soaking liquid. Make sure the soaking liquid covers half the cube. Soak 2 times 15 minutes, one on each side.

Once soaked we leave them drip on a rack to remove excess soaking liquid from the brioche. We place a pan on the stove with some clarified butter and when the butter is hot enough we did the cube in sugar on all sides and bake them to golden brown.

Now it's only plating up that needs to be done. Orange pain perdu on the plate followed by two spoonfuls of spiced pineapple, one spoonful of pickled raisins and a scoop of yoghurt ice cream. Job done!