and the living is easy

adaptation of pierre herme’s bayadère

sable breton base, white chocolate mousse with lime zest, citrus biscuit soaked in passion fruit puree, poached peach puree, raspberry sauce

the sable breton base is extremely buttery with random hits of salt flakes and it crumbles with a vaguely reassuring crunch. it adds a pleasant heft to the otherwise silky and soft white chocolate mousse. The original recipe from ph10 calls for stewed rhubarb compote; unfortunately, it is near impossible to find rhubarb, let alone rhubarb at a reasonable price, in most local supermarkets. So, I opted for a poached peach puree and a light drizzle of raspberry sauce instead.

in the first few batches, i was too generous with the raspberry sauce; the tartness of the raspberry sauce overwhelmed the subtle milky and vanilla-y flavour of the white chocolate mousse. later on, i went for a paltry drizzle of raspberry sauce. this time round, the raspberry adds a refreshing tanginess that lightens and complements the white chocolate mousse before giving way to the fruity aroma of the passion fruit which lingers in your mouth

Lime biscuit
Sift 19g of plain flour and 19g of corn starch together. Rub 10g of lime zest with 63g of castor sugar using your fingers until fragrant. Whisk 64g of egg yolks with the sugar-zest mixture until the colour turns off-white and it flows slowly. Pour in 16g of lemon juice and whisk until combined. Whisk 95g of egg whites with the remaining sugar until stiff peaks. Incorporate the egg whites with the egg yolk mixture. Fold in flour and corn starch mixture until no streaks of flour can be seen. Be careful not to deflate the mixture. Pour into a 13” by 9” pan and bake at 180 degree celcius for approximately 20-25 minutes. Let cool. Using a cookie cutter, cut out circles with a 4-5cm diameter. 


White chocolate mousse with lime zest
Melt 210g of white chocolate and keep warm at 45 degree celcius. Soak 4g of gelatin in cold water; drain, rinse and melt it in a bain marie. Fold 395g of pastry cream and 10g of lime zest into the melted gelatin. Whisk the melted white chocolate into the pastry cream mixture and let it rest until it drops below 35 degrees celcius. While the white chocolate mixture is resting, whip 640g of heavy cream into stiff peaks. When the white chocolate mixture is ready, fold the whipped heavy cream into the white chocolate mixture gently. Use immediately.


Poached peach puree and raspberry sauce
I don’t have a recipe with specific measurements for these two components. For the poached peach puree, poach some peaches in a lightly sweetened syrup with some lime zest, lime juice and lemoncillo until the peaches are tender. Then, puree the de-seeded peaches while adding sugar and lemon juice to taste.

The raspberry sauce is adapted from Medrich’s Pure Dessert. Gently warm slightly less than half a punnett of raspberries on low heat until the juices of the raspberries starts to flow.  Next, add in about 1 tablespoon of sugar, cover the pan and continue cooking until the juices start to thicken. Remove the pan from the heat and gently fold the remaining half punnett of raspberries.


To assemble:
Start with a 4-5mm thick sable breton base. Pipe a little white chocolate mousse on the base and layer it with a lime biscuit that has been doused liberally in freshly squeezed passion fruit juice. Pipe more white chocolate mousse and add some of the poached peach puree. Top with more white chocolate mousse and refrigerate for approximately two hours. Drizzle with raspberry sauce just before serving.


note: I foolishly made the full batch of white chocolate mousse with lime zest and had tons of left over mousse. I’ve halved the recipe in the preceding instructions but you should still have a little leftover mousse. Also, as I’ve stated in the previous entries, I know zero french and have to tap on the collective intelligence of google translate and yahoo’s babelfish to make sense of the recipe; before you attempt the recipe, do note that my instructions might deviate from that of the text …