[Intro music]
The elegance of this pear charlotte lies in its simplicity and its taste.
This classic French pastry is also known as charlotte Russe or Russian charlotte,
a recipe believed to have been created by the great chef Antonin Careme.
Chef of the kings, and king of the chef.
To make this charlotte, you will need poached Italian syrup,
water, whipping cream, lady fingers, gelatine.
You may use also agar-agar, which is made of sea-weed,
sugar, egg, pear William liquor, optional which is a pear eau-de-vie
and raspberry coulis.
Make the simple syrup. Simple syrup usually is 2 to 1.
So 2 parts water, 1 part sugar.
But I want to have it little sticky, and to leave it thick and syrupy,
so we are going to make it 1 to 1.
Place the sugar in a saucepan.
Add the water.
And optionally, add some clear alcohol.
It’s nice, Its 40% 0f alcohol.
Beautiful pear flavour.
This is This is an eau-de-vie. Add it.
Bring the liquid to a boil and give it a stir.
Make sure the sugar gets dissolved into the liquid.
When the simple syrup is boiling,
turn the heat down and allow to simmer for 2 minutes.
Turn it off and let the simple syrup cool down.
Make the pear puree. So we need about 3 cups.
So I am going to fill the jar to 3 cups about,
and when it will be puree, you will lower down.
That will be a cup extra. Here we go.
Add little bit of simple syrup.
You want to have a thick puree, so you want to have just a little bit of simple syrup,
just enough to have liquid to spin.
Then process.
Good. Measure about 2 cups of puree,
so it is pretty thick.
Drain a few pears and dice them up.
This is marquise mould.
This one is about 7 and a half inches by 4 and a half.
Sometimes you can find a circular shape with 2 little handles also.
They are available in silver or in aluminium.
You don’t have to spend a lot of money for it
because we don’t bake with it, we don’t cook with it.
So this is just a mould, in order to cool down food, such as charlotte.
So, line the mould with plastic wrap inside.
So just push everything to the corners,
you really want to have the plastic on the sides of the pan.
We need another one.
The plastic will prevent the cookies to stick to the pan.
So leave the extra like that, we are going to wrap it over later on.
Separate the yolk from the white.
Add the sugar into the yolks,
and whisk vigorously until the mixture become pale and fluffy.
This action is called blanch the yolks,
because at the end, the egg yolk will look like pale a little bit.
And that’s the only way to make sure that the sugar is well incorporated to the yolks.
I forgot an ingredient in the recipe.
You know what it is? Elbow grease.
You don’t have to suffer like me;
I am very dedicated to my job.
You may use technology such as a nice electric whisk.
Good. Then keep the mixture aside.
Pour the cold cream in the bowl
and whisk it until soft.
Tiny bit more.
Good. You want soft mix like this.
Keep the whipped cream refrigerated.
Transfer the pear puree into a saucepan.
All of it
and bring it to a boil on medium heat.
We are using 6 gelatine sheets.
Fold it in the bowl and pour over cold water from the tap.
Make sure the water is not warm at all
because it will dissolve the gelatine and you don’t want that.
You just want to soften it.
Great. Let’s see the pear puree.
We are heating the pear puree in order to melt down the gelatine.
Take the gelatine, squeeze the water out,
and add it to the hot puree
and stir to melt it down.
And add the diced pears.
Add the full puree to the egg yolk mixture.
So, a little bit at the beginning,
just to temper the eggs,
and the rest.
So, use a rubber spatula to grab
every piece of food
because in your pear mixture here,
you have the gelatine which will help to set the dessert.
Mix well,
in the sides because you have some sugar in there.
You shouldn’t feel the sugar.
If you feel some grain, pick them up.
And because the mixture is slightly warm, they will dissolve.
Then add some of the whipped cream,
like a third, mix. Sorry.
I am touching the bottom of the bowl,
and I can feel it is little bit too hot to put more cream.
So I am going to wait for about 10 minutes to let it cool down a little bit.
But at room temperature, not in fridge.
And will put the rest of the whipped cream after that.
That gives us time to add the cookies to the mould.
So hold quickly the finger into the syrup
and place them side by side.
Sugar side out.
Work one lady finger at a time
because we don’t want them to soak too long in the syrup.
Because, later on, when they will be cooling for 1 one day in fridge,
they are going to absorb the moisture of the cream.
Then we are going to line the bottom.
Break this one.
Here we go. Ok.
That’s pretty good. Much better.
The mixture has tempered to about little bit
warmer than the room temperature.
So now, I can add the rest of the cream.
So fold it in. Fold in.
You want to have the mixture totally homogenised.
Then transfer the mixture into the mould.
So wrap it over. That will keep it protected in the fridge.
Place the charlotte 24 hours minimum in the fridge.
Make sure you don’t eat the left over pears
because tomorrow we are going to use them
for garnishing the top of our charlotte.
Our charlotte has been refrigerated for 24 hours.
So now, it’s time to unmold it and finish it.
The first thing I am going to do is to cut the end off, of those cookies here.
Because we don’t need them, otherwise the charlotte will break.
Good.
Now is the delicate moment of unmolding the charlotte.
Place your serving platter over the charlotte,
then place one hand on each side and flip it.
Do some magic.
Garnish the top with sliced pears.
Cut your pears in very thin slices.
So garnish the top to cover the cream in the plate.
Then add a ribbon around.
A knot.
The ribbon will make it very feisty! Hhmmm!
Serve your charlotte with raspberry coulis.
And keep it refrigerated at all times until you serve it. Bon Appétit!