Food like many other things tastes brilliant when the experience is shared. From that perspective I consider myself lucky because my family is full of experienced gastronomes who love food as much as I do. The art of cooking is enhanced when you make a dish which satisfies the palate of someone who never liked the core ingredient before. This post does not reflect that sentiment since it would be difficult to find someone who does not like dessert.
Most people judge food from two perspectives : taste and presentation. Innovation and technique in these two areas are always appreciated. Probably one of the reasons why I never thought of becoming a chef were my limitations in terms of speed and presentation. The lady of the house comes to the rescue in this regard. My better half gave me the inspiration to start this blog and her sweet tooth gave rise to two versions of the ubiquitous but simple custard
Coffee Custard with Peach Crumble
Our parents often get us a lot of goodies which are not readily available in India or are priced at a premium. When the stock of canned peach and cake mix was nearing an end of shelf life, my wife decided to do a clever mix of cake and peach. She baked a cake adding peach chunks into the batter. Having that alone would have made anybody's day but she went a step further. She decided to make regular custard with a twist adding small amounts of coffee to cut down the sweetness. The masterpiece emerged from the final assembling. A base made out of the peach cake crumbled into pieces, covered in smooth and coffee flavoured custard left to set in the fridge. Voila! A simple but elegant dessert.
Custrawd
This is not a typo. In fact it is an interesting mix of strawberry jelly and custard. Free flowing custard poured into bowls followed by strawberry jelly mixture. This was kept to set in the fridge. In a saucepan, add strawberries and sugar and gently allow the strawberries to cook till they are puréed. The set custrawd is then topped up with this purée and a sprig of mint. Another example of graceful simplicity.