Bavarois au café

Coffee-flavoured set crème anglaise

Chef Damien

Bavarois au café

I had my first Bavarois like this in Paris many decades ago, served ice cold alongside a baking-hot Moelleux au chocolat, a soufflé-like, almost liquid, chocolate dessert. This one is the closest I have come to the original.

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Serves 4. Prep time: 30 minutes. Cooking time: 15 minutes.

Ingredients

  • 25 g coffee beans
  • 500 ml whole milk
  • 1 pod vanilla | split open
  • 1 tsp coffee extract
  • 6 egg yolks
  • 120 g caster sugar
  • 6 sheets gelatine (or 10 g powdered gelatine)
  • 40 cl double cream | whipped
  • handful mint

Method

  1. Heat the coffee beans in a pan over a gentle heat for a few minutes to release the flavour.

  2. Crush the beans coarsely in a mortar or in a bag with a rolling-pin (don't grind them).

  3. Mix the coffee beans, milk, vanilla, and coffee extract and start heating in a bain-marie. Do not let the boiling water touch the bowl: the milk mixtur must be heated only by the steam beneath.

  4. Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks and sugar until they go very pale, then scrape into the bowl with the milk mixture.

  5. Put the gelatine to soak in a small bowl of cold water and set aside.

  6. Cook the coffee-milk mixture in the bain-marie, whisking from time to time, until the it reaches 84°C and it takes on the consistency of a crème anglaise.

  7. Remove the bowl from the bain-marie and allow to sit for 10 minutes, then pour the mixture through a fine sieve into another bowl. Discard the fragments of coffee beans and vanilla.

  8. Pour the cold water off the gelatine and mix the gelatine into the still-warm crème café and mix thoroughly until fully incorporated.

  9. Leave to cool down to room temperature.

  10. Whip the cream to a firm state, then combine gently with the crème café.

  11. Pour into lightly-oiled individual Bavarois moulds or a charlotte mould and leave to chill in the fridge for a few hours.

Serving

  • Turn the set Bavarois onto a plate or plates and decorate with torn mint and a fruit coulis of your choice.

Any timings underlined in red are in addition to the preparation time (eg waiting time)

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