African Vanielje on Oct 03 2007 at 7:28 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
I realise that the TGRWT #6 deadline was Monday 1 October, so for the purposes of this post I am going to go for temporary suspension of disbelief. My computer has just got out of rehab so I have a little catching up to do. Therefore, it IS 1 October and this is my entry for the Apple and Lavender challenge. I had great fun making this very delicate Sour Apple Sorbet with Lavender Langues du Chat.
The sorbet is a simple sugar syrup with blended Granny Smith Apples, skin included, bound with a little loosened organic egg white. The absolute juicy deliciousness is hard to describe, but sublime, and I am extremely tempted to turn it into a frozen margherita. (Wo)manfully resisting the urge, I bung it in the freezer and ban the entire household from even tasting it. Ice cream has an uncanny way of disappearing, Bermuda Triangle-like, in our house.
Semi-sure I will still have some ice cream to photograph in a few hours time, I go to work on the Cat’s Tongues. These simple biscuits are dead easy to make, as long as you have a light touch, and with lavender infused sugar and lavender flowers in the dough, are a crispy and delicately aromatic counterpoint to the juicy but subtle sorbet.
Hooray! We have a winner! Not of the TGRWT event of course. There isn’t a winner, and I could hardly vote myself victorious if there was, but this flavour combo is a definite keeper.
Thank you Martin, for the chance to host this challenging event. It has been great fun, and thanks for all the amazing entries. I hope to have the roundup out by the weekend. Check back, there are some great entries.
What a great idea to make sorbet.
Yummy! Ice cream does the same here…of course we live with the feast/famine syndrome…When the goats first kid we have so much milk that we eat ice cream daily..and now, of course, it is a rare treat!
Nice combo you came up with!
It looks lovely and I can imagine the flavour of the sorbet. Looking forward to trying it myself.
Gorgeous! And yum!
I’ve just finished a late night tub. My daughter is going to be mad because I think she counted them. I’ve made some strawberry icecream to take up the slack, but she’s switched favourites.
Beautiful and delicious-looking recipe.
Paz
Mmmmm… the langues du chat look especially wonderful! (What did you do with your egg yolks?)
How do you go about infusing the lavender into the sugar? Do you just leave some lavender sitting in a container of sugar?
-Elizabeth
Sour apples and lavender sounds like a match made in heaven! Delicious!!
paz, it was, but subtle with it.
Elizabeth, my yolks are never wasted, they either go into icecream, curds, custard or quiche.
My lavender sugar is just a jar of organic golden caster sugar and with some organic (spray free) lavender flowers immersed in it, much like a vanilla bean. The scent is quite strong, but dissipates slightly when cooking so don’t be afraid to use quite a few flowers)
Andrea, it worked beautifully.
I hope I didn’t give the impression that I thought the yolks had been wasted! I just wondered what you had made with them.
Do you leave the flowers floating around in the sugar when you use it, or do you sift them out?
-Elizabeth
Elizabeth, I sift out the flowers usually, or in the case of these cat’s tongues, left a few in as I knew they weren’t going to be overcooked.
I didn’t think you were accusing me of waste, but my eggs are from the farm up the road, never more than a day or two old, and too preciously delicious to do anything but use them up. When I make icecream I generally do it late at night so I can leave meringues (made with the leftover whites)in the oven last thing. In fact I generally try to plan my cooking around a couple of recipes that will use up all the eggs.
Clever clever! I love the idea of the sourness of Granny Smith sorbet and the dusky sweetness of the lavender biscuits. I can’t look at langues de chat without giggling – but I’m just childish that way
And Elizabeth – I can vouch for the deliciousness of those fresh eggs. Sooooo much better than that the supermarket sells – thanks AV!
I couldn’t possibly be more envious! About twice a year, when he comes into town, we get eggs gathered that day from a friend who runs his own chickens (free range). If we lived close by, we could get fresh eggs all the time but alas we live about an hour’s highway drive away.
Those fresh eggs are phenomenal! I can well imagine that you would plan your cooking around those fresh eggs you get. We do the same thing when we have them.
-Elizabeth