Sometimes "cheesy" is better than you could ever imagine. Karel Doms' wonderful dessert course for people who don't like pudding. Look and learn. kids. Read it in his own words.
The stirring tale of Kamiel Vaniel
I had to dig deep since pudding doesn’t see daylight in my kitchen too often. Happy therefore, I managed to reconstruct this particular one that used to be a favourite of Rosi’s and mine. I must disappoint you in one aspect though: it is not something that just occurred to me in some sweaty vanilla delirium. I picked up the concept of mashing cheese, chocolate and vanilla together in a recipe somewhere long time ago, but for the life of me, I can’t remember where. As a matter of fact, this version may be rather original after all in as far as it features Kamiel, my favourite ash covered, raw milk goat cheese. Truly sorry if your local cheese shop doesn’t have that on the shelf. But no worries, there are alternatives, all the more exciting for finding one that will enchant your own gustatory senses.
Shopping list
A short one with “2” as a recurring element, which may have helped me remembering something of the recipe. Depending on your appetite for dessert (or is it the cheese course after all, hmm, gastro-philosophical conundrum), this will serve 6 diners at around 100g per person. Don’t worry if you’re less than 6 persons at any given occasion; filled in single portion pots, this keeps in the fridge for a few days, ideal until your next peckish moment arrives.
one fresh goat cheese; in terms of weight, we want to use approx. 200g. Fresh would mean up to 2-3 weeks of affinage. Cheese with an ash covered mould such as Kamiel will stay fresh and manageably soft and creamy in the fridge for a few weeks longer and will taste even more intensely. At this point, I can see the first people faint in the audience. Should you have a concern about intolerance or just feel uneasy about using mould: don’t. You can either remove it, which is a bit messy. Or choose a very fresh cheese where no mould has formed. This will result in a less expressive taste but it’ll still be good and, come to think about it, resemble more what the initial recipe may have looked like
200 ml single cream
• 200g white chocolate
• 2 egg whites
a pinch of salt
• a few leaves of gelatine. (I find it difficult to assert a number since they come in different sizes. As to the tune of the other ingredients, why don’t we say 2 of the larger kind?)
1 whole vanilla bean. Asking for 2 of these would be overkill not least in view of vanilla’s current price. Infinitely sad, this will only get worse because of the horrific environmental changes we now face worldwide, for instance the increasing number of devastating hurricanes that we have ravaged entire harvests. In spite of its price, DO use the real thing though. Do not use ground vanilla which is only the pod without the seeds, and most certainly not the undefinable “natural” (yeah, sure, as in wood pulp and coal tar) vanilla “essence” or synthetic aromas. Also, when treating yourself this way make sure to use really good vanilla from a reliable source. Have a look at this for reference and a benchmark for what you’ll have to expect in terms of price for prime quality vanilla
NO additional sugar: I have not forgotten an ingredient, the chocolate is sweet enough!
Cooking method
Using a small sharp knife, slice the vanilla pod lengthwise and scrape the densely packed tiny black seeds from both halves
Let the gelatine soak in cold water until soft/ This will take 5 to 10mins. Remove and let it drain (it’ll become a bit of a rubbery consistency)
Into a saucepan, pour the cream and add the vanilla seeds as well as the scraped pod. Let this come to a boil and, stirring with a wooden spoon, make sure it doesn't boil over. Let it boil a few seconds
At this point, if you’re cooking on a plate, you can turn it off. Otherwise turn the heat down far enough to stop boiling, always stirring to avoid sticking. You can—but need not—let the cream rest for some time to extract more flavour from the vanilla. Also complete these further steps: gently warm it up. stirring again; ore work, but even safer, continue working au bain-marie, i.e. either keep your saucepan suspended in a second pot with hot water or on the rim of a fittingly sized pot thus creating a simple double-boiler to work with steam. In all honesty, I never go to that length myself
Break up the chocolate into small pieces and, bit by bit, add to the still hot cream until completely melted. During the melting process, you guessed it, keep stirring
Retrieve the vanilla pod halves from the mixture
Make sure the concoction is still hot enough and add the gelatine and let it dissolve whilst still stirring
As with the chocolate before, you now start adding bits of cheese. Personally, I use all of the Kamiel (or a comparable cheese) including the black mould, or at least part of it in case it has gone quite thick and dark already. If you use any of the mould, shred it in very small pieces as this is the hardest bit to dissolve and you don’t want to find large pieces of that in your pudding[ neither visually nor on your palate. In fact, no lumps of cheese should remain noticeable in the pudding. So, stir thoroughly
Separate the egg yolks—that you’ll save for another dish—from the whites. Making sure that no yolk goes into the whites. Beat the with a pinch of salt until firmly stiff
Meanwhile, the mixture should have cooled to lukewarm. Mix with approx. ¼ to ⅓ of the beaten egg whites first. This first batch can be folded in without need for the particular prudence required for the rest of the whites. Bit by bit, this needs to be scooped in. Then, get rid of the peaks of white and continue folding the mixture until you obtain a homogeneous mousse (nothing new there, cheese or not)
In portions for individual servings, fill the mousse in small pots. If you don't have any, not the end of the world: just fill the mousse in a bowl that can be placed in the fridge
Cover the pots or the bowl with cling film or plates if you want to avoid plastic (which I welcome but appreciate is not always possible) and put them in the fridge at least 2 hours or more if you used a large bowl. In fact, a half day is better anyway, giving you the possibility of cooking your dessert conveniently in advance. Optionally, to freshen it up, you might like to serve the dessert with a short-cooked fruit coulis of your choice. Quince, cassis, (wild!) strawberries, blood orange, rhubarb, figs etc. leap to mind. Only, if you decide to do this, make it something fresh and crisp: don’t spoil the experience for yourself with a sugar overdose in the last instance
Finally, making best use of your vanilla, the pods that you’ve retrieved from the cream can be further utilized for preparing your very own vanilla sugar: cut them in a few short sprigs and, in a small jar, cover them with unrefined cane sugar. I've created my own small sugar solera that I keep topping it up with sugar as well as new vanilla sprigs
Comments