Burnt Orange Brulee
Cook Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Servings make 4 x 120g desserts
Ingredients
Burnt Orange Brulee
240ml milk
120g (3) egg yolks
100g caster sugar, plus extra for brulee
2 oranges, fine zest
500ml cream
2g gelatine, leaves
Cinnamon Biscuits
50g caster sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
50g unsalted butter, room temperature
100g plain flour
Pinch salt
1 tsp cinnamon, ground
1 orange, fine zest
1 egg yolks
Orange Blossom Filling
45g unsalted butter, softened
90g icing sugar
Orange blossom water (or orange juice), to taste
Orange Salad
3 Reserved zested oranges
Few mint leaves
Method
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Prepare a 1 x 8 cavity round silicone mould 4 cm x 4 cm.
To make the burnt orange cream: Preheat the oven to 200°C and soak the gelatine in cold water for a couple of minutes to soften. Drain, discard the water and set the softened gelatine aside. Add the milk to a saucepan and use a microplane to finely grate the zest of one orange inside the pan. Heat the pan and set the grated orange aside. Add the yolks and sugar to a bowl and mix well with a hand whisk, pour 1/3 of the heated milk onto the yolks and mix well. Return this mixture to the pan of remaining orange infused milk and set over a low to medium heat. Stir continuously and cook the custard to 85°C. Remove from the heat and add 200ml of the cream.
Pour the custard into a baking dish and put into the oven for 10 minutes. Turn the gill to high and start to burn the top of the custard. Don’t worry if the custard has separated and is overcooked at this point. Once the surface of the custard has been burnt sufficiently remove the dish and allow to cool for 5 minutes. Scrape the entire contents of the dish into a jug and add the soaked gelatine, add the remaining cream and use a handheld blender to completely whip and emulsify the cream, all of those burnt flavours will mix in to give an extra dimension to your cream. Pour the cream evenly into four dishes or bowls and place them in the fridge to cool and set.
For the cinnamon biscuits: Preheat the oven to 180°C. Add the caster sugar, golden syrup, butter and salt to a bowl and use a spatula to cream the ingredients together. Mix until you have a smooth pale cream. Add the yolk and fine zest of one orange and again mix well. Sieve the flour with the cinnamon powder and add this to the bowl. Mix well to form a paste. Transfer the paste onto a sheet of baking paper and top with another sheet of paper. Use a rolling pin to roll and spread out the paste to an even 2 mm thickness. Place the paste into the freezer for 15 minutes to chill and rest. Remove from the freezer and quickly peel off the top layer of paper, flip the paste over and peel off the other layer of paper and place the paste onto one of the sheets. Line a tray with baking paper and use a 40 mm diameter round cutter to cut 12 discs. Lay them onto a cutting board and use a small knife to cut them neatly in half. Lay the 24 crescent shapes of paste onto the lined tray, bake them in the oven for 8-10 minutes and remove when cooked. Set aside to cool.
For the orange blossom filling: Add the butter, icing sugar and orange blossom water to a bowl and use a spatula to cream them smooth. Use spoons or a piping bag to apply the filling to 12 of the cooked cinnamon biscuits and top each one with the remaining. Biscuit shapes to make little orange segment biscuit sandwiches.
For the orange salad: Peel the two reserved oranges and then use a small sharp knife to segment them into a small bowl. Finely julienne the mint leaves and mix into the fruit.
To brulee: Remove the creams from the fridge and scatter caster sugar evenly over the surface of each. Use a blow torch to brulee the sugar evenly on the surface of the creams. Arrange some orange salad onto each cream and add a few cinnamon biscuits to the surface and serve.
