Pears Chiboust

PROJECT PATISSERIE : Adventure #3

 

Gelatin has been a suspect passenger in the airport terminal of my kitchen for some time now, but after this weekend’s debacle, it’s been put on the “no fly” list. With the possible exception of Bavarian cream, which begrudgingly necessitates it, I will henceforth staunchly refuse to use any recipe that incorporates gelatin. Ever.  “All done”- as my three year old says.

I was undecided about this weekend’s specific recipe but I knew, come what may, that it would  incorporate crème chiboust. I stumbled upon the recipe for it earlier this week and it quickly became the stuff of dreams:  pastry cream combined with lightly sweetened whipped egg whites. Chiboust had me at “bonjour.”

Although no one really knows its exact origins, the word on the street is that crème chiboust was invented in the 1840s by a French Pastry Chef named (what else?) Chiboust.  You know you’ve achieved pastry-world domination when you not only invent your own pastry component, but when you name it after yourself everyone goes along with it. I make a pretty mean cheesecake, but try as I may to have everyone call it a “Lenka Cake” no one seems to be getting on board. I have to keep working on it, I guess.

Anyway, back to the chiboust. There are two ways to go about it: one method involves folding whipped raw egg whites into a pastry cream base. The other involves substituting the raw egg whites with Italian Meringue - a safer bet as the egg whites are cooked by the addition of boiling syrup. After some consideration I decided to err on the side of caution and go with the latter method for my maiden attempt- if I was going to risk salmonella poisoning I needed to be certain that the end result was worth it. I could feel all the pastry chefs in France sneering at me. France is the land of unpasteurized dairy, after all, and there’s a general eye rolling when it comes to the American obsession with germs. C’est la vie.

You can eat the chiboust all by itself, much like you would a mousse, which is actually what it tastes like and what I will do next time. The recipe that I used incorporated caramelized pears to fancy the whole thing up a bit but they were nothing to write home about- partially my fault as I let the caramel cook too long and it was slightly burned. Also, the recipe calls for the pears to be firm- I would shoot for medium soft. The pears present an interesting catch-22 as they will retain their firmness after they’ve been caramelized but if you cook them long enough to soften them, you’ll burn the caramel. Also their firm texture makes them hard to cut with a dessert spoon and adds a weird texture contrast to boot with the rubbery-ness of the chilled chiboust, courtesy of the gelatin. All in all, the dessert was a bit of a disaster. And in case you’re wondering, the only reason I know that the gelatin was the culprit and not the chiboust itself is that I tried it before it went in the fridge. It was lovely before it was chilled.

Counterintuitive as it seems to pass along a bad recipe, in the interest of integrity, here it is. See what you think. I’ve included the directions for the Italian Meringue and the hated gelatin. My advice is to skip the gelatin altogether unless you’re going the raw-whipped-egg-white route, in which case the egg whites will benefit from the structural support of the gelatin. The Italian Meringue has enough body to hold the cream all on its own, thank you very much.

Pears Chiboust recipe:  serves 6.

Unlike the leisurely pace of last week’s French Crepe Cake this Pear Chiboust moves at a quick clip. It’s done in about thirty minutes but you’re going 90 mph the whole time. You’ll need a stand mixer, or at the very least a handheld mixer and a friend, a pastry bag (although you could probably MacGyver-it with a gallon zip lock bag and a pair of scissors), and a candy thermometer. Unfortunately you can’t MacGyver that one- if you try substituting the thermometer in the medicine cabinet it will probably melt. Candy thermometers are inexpensive and available at most hardware stores in the canning section.

Caramelized pears: Peel, core, and quarter two firm, ripe pears. Cook 2 ½ T sugar in a medium skillet over medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon until it melts and turns a light amber color.  Add the pears to the skillet and cook them until coated with caramel on one side- about 1-2 minutes. Turn them over and repeat the process until they’re caramelized on all sides. Remove from heat.

For the pastry cream: Combine ¾ cup of milk and ½ T of vanilla extract in a saucepan and heat just to a boil. In a separate bowl, whisk together 3 egg yolks (save the whites for the meringue), 3 T sugar, and 2T cornstarch until thick and creamy.  Whisk 1/3 of the hot milk into the egg yolk mixture. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat until thick. Pour into a clean bowl and place plastic wrap directly on the cream’s surface.

If you’re using the gelatin, here are the directions; if you’re skipping it just pretend this paragraph doesn’t exist- it won’t affect the order of the recipe at all: mix one envelope of plain gelatin (about  ½  T) into ¼ cup of water. Let the gelatin sit until it absorbs all the water and swells. Stir it into the hot pastry cream. Do not chill the cream or allow it to set while you work on the Italian Meringue.

Italian Meringue: Combine ¾ sugar and 3 T water in a small pan. Mix them together and bring them to a boil. Place 3 egg whites and 1/8 teaspoon of cream of tartar in the bowl of a stand mixer. If you don’t have one, a big glass bowl will do and have a friend at the ready with a hand mixer. Insert your brand new candy thermometer into the boiling sugar mix- as it approaches 220 degrees Farenheit begin whipping the egg whites. Once the egg whites form soft billowing peaks, reduce the mixer speed and continue whipping.

When the syrup reaches firm ball stage- that’s 246 degrees Farenheit- remove it from the heat and very carefully pour the syrup in a steady stream between the wall of the bowl and the beaters while whipping the egg whites at high speed. Try like all get-out to not get the hot syrup on the beaters themselves or you’ll (1) make a mess, (2) have hard sugar chunks in your meringue, and (3) quite possibly send molten sugar flying in the air. Not good. Keep whipping the meringue until all of the syrup is incorporated evenly, approximately 1 minute.

Remove the plastic wrap from the pastry cream and quickly fold in 1/3 of the hot meringue into the warm cream with a rubber spatula- you need to move quickly before the cream and meringue (and especially the gelatin- if you’ve used it) begin to set. Gently fold in the rest of the meringue. This is your crème chiboust. If you’ve used the gelatin, make sure to taste the chiboust creme now and revel in its deliciousness because it will taste very differently once it chills. Spoon it into a pastry bag. Pipe a mound of chiboust cream into each serving dish, top with a caramelized pear or two and more chiboust. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes. If you want to be a fancy pants, top each dessert with a drizzle of caramel just before serving.



Pears Chiboust with Caramel