Verrines

Sun 15/9/13

For those of you old enough to know what a trifle is, well, a verrine is the new kid on the block. The humble trifle has undergone a bit of a makeover & is now so much more than rum-soaked sponge with jelly, custard & tinned fruit salad. It is now composed of any of the following - fruit purée jellies, curds, mousse, creamy custards, sponge or biscuit soaked with jelly, liqueurs etc, fruit compote & crumbles. It is constructed & presented in a rigid plastic cup that displays all the layers. As with desserts, there are a number of components that all introduce different flavours & textures. For this reason, the class only produced three different verrines as each had a minimum of four components, if not more. We also tried a rum Baba, which isn't a verrine but we did bake it in the glass receptacle for presentation.

Photo: our selection of verrines. Going clockwise starting from the front right: rum baba, raspberry & vanilla, tiramisu & passionfruit

 

 

 

Rum baba is a yeast product, so we made the dough & baked it in the glass. Once out of the oven it was soaked in a sugar syrup flavoured with orange zest & rum. A lot of rum! We topped this with a layer of passionfruit custard & Chantilly cream (cream flavoured with sugar & a vanilla bean)

The raspberry vanilla verrine is composed of layers of berry compote & jelly, crème patissiere, a yoghurt sponge soaked in a raspberry syrup, raspberry & vanilla custard, crushed freeze-dried raspberries & topped with Chantilly cream & a fresh raspberry.

 

If you're not a fan of strong coffee, then this tiramisu version isn't for you. Nearly every component, apart from the sponge, had coffee or Bailey's liqueur or both as flavouring agents. The layers are a coffee jelly, mascarpone custard, a coffee-soaked savoiardi biscuit & flaked dark chocolate topped with shards of chocolate. Very rich & decadent.

 

The tang of passionfruit combines beautifully with vanilla in this verrine. Passionfruit jelly, passionfruit custard, vanilla mousse, a crumble & a light almond biscuit soaked in the passionfruit jelly are all layered to create this verrine. It was then decorated with chocolate garnishes.

 

 

As I've mentioned before, Burch & Purchese produce the most amazing verrines, with so many more components than we produced. Their flavour profiles also offer more complexity & variation than we achieved. They are probably the go to place if you're after a verrine. When you eat a verrine, you should be able to push your spoon through all the layers to the bottom, scoop it out & get each flavour in every layer in that single (huge!) mouthful. Good luck!