Recipe: Spiced Gingerbread Fruit Charlotte

Spiced Gingerbread Fruit Charlotte

By Librarie Larousse

Fruit Charlotte
Heat 200-ml (7 fl oz, 3/4 cup) milk. Pour 50 g (2 oz, 3 Tbsp.) clear honey into saucepan and dilute with milk. Add 2 Tbsp. very finely chopped candied orange peel and the same of candied lemon peel, with 1 tsp. powdered cinnamon, 1 powdered clove and a pinch of grated nutmeg. Allow to infuse off the heat.

Beat 4 egg yolks and 25 g (1 oz, 2 Tbsp.) caster (superfine) sugar until the mixture has thickened and doubled in volume. Stir this mixture into the flavoured milk and cook gently over a low heat, stirring all the time without boiling until the mixture thickens. Remove from the heat.

Roast 40 g (1-1/2 oz, 1/4 cup) chopped almonds and hazelnuts under the grill (broiler) until golden. Soak and dissolve 3 sheets of leaf gelatine or 7 g (1/4 oz, 1 envelope) powdered gelatine in a little cold water. Stir the dissolved gelatine into the candied fruit custard. Add 250-ml (9 fl oz, 1 cup) very cold whipped cream, then the almonds and nuts. Flavor with 2 tsp. kirsch. Put in the refrigerator.

Mix 250-ml (8 fl oz, 1 cup) sugar syrup and 4 tsp. kirsch. Dip 12 slices of gingerbread in this syrup and line the bottom and sides of a charlotte mould with them, overlapping them slightly. Fill with the cooled cream, smooth the top and cover with gingerbread. Leave in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours.

Soak mixed dried fruits (prunes, apricots, figs and raisins) and fresh raisins in warm Gewürztraminer and place in a dish. Unmould the charlotte on a dish, sprinkle with crushed praline and serve with the dried fruit.

Buy the Book!

from:
Larousse Gastronomique
by Librarie Larousse
Clarkson Potter/Publisher
$75, 1,350 pages
Full color photography throughout
100 line drawings
ISBN: 0-609-60971-8
Publication: October, 2001
Recipe reprinted by permission.