Impress your family with this decadent dessert curated by Vinay Kumar, Executive Chef, Novotel Vijayawada Varun.
Photograph: Kind courtesy Novotel Vijayawada Varun
Vanilla Rose Petal Eclair
Ingredients
For the sable biscuit base
- 200 gm butter
- 140 gm icing sugar
- 1½ eggs
- 3 ml vanilla extract
- 360 gm maida or refined flour
For the mirror glaze
- 250 ml water
- 450 gm liquid glucose
- 450 gm castor sugar (a kind of finer sugar manufactured by top baking brands)
- 450 gm lightly melted white chocolate
- 180 gm cold glaze, easily available in stores or online (a glossy coating liquid)
- 320 gm condensed milk
- 45 gm gelatin or a gelatin equivalent like agar agar for vegetarians
- A few drops red food colour, optional
For the rose petal panna cotta
- 350 ml fresh cream
- 150 ml milk
- 100 gm sugar
- 15 ml rose water
- 25 gm red rose petals
- 10 gm gelatin or a gelatin equivalent like agar agar for vegetarians
For the vanilla cream
- 4 egg yolks
- 50 gm castor sugar (a kind of finer sugar manufactured by top baking brands)
- 1 pod of vanilla beans or 2 tsp vanilla essence
- 10 gm gelatin or a gelatin equivalent like agar agar for vegetarians
- 300 ml fresh cream
For decoration
- Sliced strawberries
- White chocolate for decorating
Method
- Using a hand blender, make the sable base by creaming the butter, sugar along with the eggs and vanilla extract.
- Mix in the flour and rest the dough for about 30 minutes.
- Once the dough is ready, roll it out till it is about ½-inch thick and cut it with a round cutter into an eclair shape (see picture for the shape of the dessert).
- Bake at 180°C for 15 mins until its colour darkens. Set aside to cool.
For the mirror glaze
- Boil the water, liquid glucose, and castor sugar in a saucepan.
Once the sugar melts, take off heat. - Add the melted white chocolate, cold glaze, condensed milk and bloomed gelatine. Soak the gelatine sheets in warm water for a few minutes for it to bloom.
- Add the food colour and mix well.
- Store in the fridge until it's time to glaze the pastry.
For the rose petal panna cotta
- In a pan, add the fresh cream, milk, rose water, rose petals and sugar.
- Warm on low heat, stirring continuously, until the sugar dissolves.
- Add in the bloomed gelatine. Mix well.
- Pour the mixture into a flat silicone tray, cool and set it in the refrigerator.
For the vanilla cream
- Whip the egg yolks, castor sugar, cream and vanilla together to make a sabayon or light creamy sauce.
- Pour the whipped mixture into a saucepan placed over simmering water in a pot, in a double boiler kind of arrangement.
Cook till thick and creamy, whisking all the time. - Add the bloomed gelatine into the sabayon and mix until it dissolves.
Assembling
- Use an eclair-shaped mould to assemble all the ingredients of the dessert. First fill the whipped vanilla cream in a pastry bag and pipe the mixture into the mould. Fill only half of the mould with the vanilla cream.
- Cut the set rose petal panna cotta into long slices and insert it into the half-filled vanilla cream mould.
- Fill the mould with the remaining vanilla cream and freeze.
- Once it sets, de-mould and place on a glazing rack.
- Pour the melted mirror glaze over the frozen and set vanilla cream-panna cotta eclair and position on the sable biscuit base.
- Garnish with a LOVE white chocolate stencil and fresh strawberries.
Note: Each sheet of gelatin is about 3 gm. Four sheets of gelatine can be substituted with 2 tsp agar agar.
