Wow your dinner guests with this extremely high-end dessert created by a world-class chef
This amazing dish was created by Chef Cormac McCreary and will feature in the new Sally Gap Restaurant menu at Powerscourt Hotel. Put your cooking skills to the test by recreating it and feel like a professional chef in your kitchen!
Ingredients
For the fresh cream sorbet:
300ml milk
50g sugar
375g fresh cream
50g glucose dehydration (or sugar)
10g lemon juice
For the honey pepper syrup:
4 pears
300ml water
250g sugar
50g Powerscourt honey
1g pepper (Timur pepper, if possible)
For the pepper pastry cream:
625ml milk
2 egg yolks
100g sugar
60g cornflour
60g butter
5g black pepper
For the biscuit gavotte (tuille):
100g egg whites (approx. 3 egg whites)
90g icing sugar
50g flour
480ml water
45g butter
4g salt
For the crumble:
100g butter, room temperature (soft)
125g flour
125g brown sugar
Method
- The day before, start making the sorbet. Heat the milk, sugar, glucose in a saucepan over a low heat. Pour in the fresh cream, followed by the lemon juice and mix well. Pour into a bowl and leave in the fridge for 24 hours.
- To finish the sorbet, put the chilled mixture in an ice cream machine, preferably, or if you don’t have one, put in the freezer until it sets (approx. 6 hours).
- To make the honey pepper syrup, mix the water, sugar and honey together in a saucepan and warm it up. Add the pears and let them cook in the syrup for about 30 minutes or until soft, then remove from the pan from the heat. Allow the pears to cool in syrup.
- For the pepper pastry cream, beat the egg yolks and sugar for a few minutes until pale and slightly thickened. Whisk in the cornflour. Separately, heat the milk in a saucepan until it starts to boil. Whisk the milk into the egg and cornflour. Put the whole lot back into the pan and put on the heat, stirring all the time until thick and boiling and then add the butter and the pepper. Take the pan off the heat and cover with cling-film to prevent a skin from forming. Leave to cool and place in piping bag. Set aside.
- For the biscuit gavotte (tuille), mix the egg whites with the icing sugar, flour and salt in a bowl. Heat the water with the butter in a pan until melted and fold this into the egg mix. Spread the mixture, approximately 0.5cm to one centimetre thick on a sheet of greaseproof paper on baking tray and put in the oven for 12 minutes at 170 C. Leave aside until cools and break off pieces as needed.
- For the crumble, rub the soft with the flour and add the sugar and mix well. Pour the mixture onto a baking tray and cook it at 170 C for 10 minutes.
- To assemble your dish: Core out each pear and pipe cream inside. Place on a plate and pour some crumble beside it. Add a scoop of ice cream beside and a piece of tuille on top. Or get creative and serve as you like!
Powerscourt Honey is produced by bee farmer Olly Nolan who owns Olly’s Farm. Check out the Sept|Oct edition of Irish Country Magazine, in stores nationwide, to learn more about Olly’s journey from landscaping to honey production.
