Directly from the 1978…

Do you remember I had some leftover egg whites and I used them to make my ginger meringues? Perfect, I used the egg yolks to make a bavarese alla crema, but sincerely I don’t know how to translate in English… can you help me? Read the recipe and tell me if this pudding has a proper name in English, otherwise let me introduce you my bavarese!

This is the first sweet I have ever made all by myself, using an old recipe book my mother bought before getting married. Why bavarese? because it’s one of mum’s favourite cakes, because it’s yellow and sunny, because it was my Holy Communion cake, all covered with strawberries, because it was perfectly described with text and pictures into this old book: Cooking School – Pratic lessons and recipes, Puddings, Curcio Guide Ed. Price: 1.500 lire. Year of publication, 1978.

Since then, evert time I make bavarese, I follow the same recipe with religious devotion, and every time the results are extraordinary. So, directly from the 1978, my bavarese alla crema.

Ingredients:

• gelatine, 4 sheets (*)
• eggs, 3
• caster sugar, 150 gr
• milk, 300 gr
• cream, 350 gr

(*) I used that kind of gelatine that in Italy is called ‘colla di pesce’, that is ‘fish glue’, made with pig skin and bovine bones… I know, quite horrible, but it is tastless. I’ll give a try to agar agar next time.

Draw gelatine sheets into cold water.

Crack eggs open and place egg yolks in a mixing bowl (you know what to do with white eggs, don’t you?). Add sugar and whisk eggs with a wooden spoon until you have a light and frothy cream.

Bring milk to the boil and pour it little by little over egg mixture, sieving it through a colander and stirring continuously. Place on low flame and bring to simmer, stirring. Now remove the mixture form the heat and add the gelatine, stir until it is dissolved thoroughly.

Sieve again the mixture and set aside to cool completely. When it is cold, whip cream until firm and soft and mix it to the egg mixture, stirring from high to bottom.

Dampen a pudding mould and fill it up with the mixture. Beat the mould on the table one or two times to remove possible air bubbles.

Sorrowful note. I have always used the proper pudding mould, always, like a good pupil. But I’m grown up now. I’m a foodblogger now. I love experimentig new things. And so I used silicone little moulds, perfect for muffins… but not for bavarese! Tragedy! Thanks Heaven I had some meringues and I crumbled them over those little sad puddings: excellent idea for taste and decoration, excellent idea to give a crunchy surprise to the velvety bavarese cream, but above all excellent idea to cover each and every flaw caused by the hard procedure to remove puddings from the silicone moulds!

So, we were saying… set the mould in the fridge to cool and to set for at least 3 hours and when it’s time to serve it dip the mould into hot water for a few seconds and turn out the pudding.

Related posts:

Laura’s Sacher Torte Strawberry and mascarpone pound cake An old fashioned love story: Tuscan Schiacciata, sweet Easter bread Here comes again the season of elderflowers: let’s make a panna cotta and a gelato with them