Snow Eggs with Caramel and Crème Anglaise : Oeufs à la Neige : Lesson 8 : Part 4 : LCB at Home

Le Cordon Bleu at Home cooking continues. Dessert is a favorite but often tricky to execute; as this one was. It will be repeated in the (near) future to get the "snow eggs" to come out right. It also has yet more Crème Anglaise (vanilla custard); about the fifth week in a row - - and this one finally came out just exactly correctly.

These don't look too bad from this angle but the white eggy things on the middle ought to have been puffier - - they sort of fell flat in this instance. A second little problem was that the caramel was a little on the crunchy side - - would have been better if it was a wee bit softer to the tooth. And finer caramel threads would have been classy too.

But were good anyway.

What went on in this dish is the following:

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Oeufs à la Neige : Snow Eggs with Caramel and Crème Anglaise

Serves: 6

Ingredients

• 2 Cups Crème Anglaise
  • 1 C cream, whole
  • 1 C milk
  • 1 t vanilla
  • 1/2 t flour
  • 
    
  • 4 yolks
  • 1/4 C sugar
• Meringue
  • 4 egg whites
  • 4 T sugar
• Caramel
  • 1/2 Cup sugar
  • 2 T water

Procedure

1. Make some Crème Anglaise (same procedure as back in "an earlier recipe") and stick in the fridge to cool and set some more
2. Make the meringue:
1. Beat whites until stiff
2. Add sugar - gradually
3. Beat again until you have them making stiff peaks
3. Now the tricky part - the Snow Eggs
1. take a large tablespoonful, oval, egg shaped sort of (but not egg sized) of meringue
2. drop into simmering water - for 3 minutes (it'll puff up)
3. turn it - 3 minutes more
4. until cooked completely - the surface of them will change texture
5. remove with a slotted spoon and drain on a kitchen towel (paper towels absorb rather too dramatically)
6. Stick them in the fridge (or not)
4. Caramel (just before serving)
1. Melt sugar and water slowly in a pan (see also Lesson 2)
2. Until it slightly darkens
3. Plunge base of pan into cold water (that's important) to stop the cooking
5. Presentation:
1. Vanilla Custard (crème) on a shallow plate
2. 2 egg things in/on top of the custard (or more... you'll have lots)
3. drizzle caramel threads over the eggs & custard
4. enjoy

Done

Notes

1. Putting a half teaspoon of flour into the mixture is reported to help prevent the custard from "breaking" later while thickening it. It absolutely means that you must remember to sieve the custard when its done.
2. Cooked the custard bizarrely slowly and it did, eventually, thicken up to properly coat the back of a spoon. The last few weeks have been sort of runny custards but they were being mixed with gelatin so no one noticed.
3. The snow eggs deflated as they hit the towel in my case. Probably from not being fully cooked enough - - that being because they were way too big to start with
4. The caramel, if it hardens up on you in the pan before serving, can be recovered by adding a tablespoon of water and reheating/melting it.

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