I was so excited when we first came up with this dish and I still am today. It is everything you want from a dessert: fruity with strawberries, crisp with pastry, rich and creamy with elderflower custard and refreshing from the sorbet. Classic flavours and great textures sing together. The sorbet, in particular, is exceptionally good, especially when strawberries are at their best.
Nathan Outlaw's Restaurant Nathan Outlaw: Strawberries, elderflower custard & strawberry champagne sorbet
Print ThisIngredients
- For the rough puff pastry
- 500g plain flour
- 10g fine sea salt
- 500g cold butter, diced
- 250ml ice-cold water
- 200g icing sugar, to dust
- For the custard
- 300ml double cream
- 100ml elderflower cordial
- 4 large eggs
- 100g caster sugar
- 50ml lemon juice
- For the sorbet
- 500g strawberries, hulled and halved
- 500ml Champagne
- 100g liquid glucose
- 100g caster sugar
- For the syrup
- 100g strawberries, hulled
- 100ml elderflower cordial
- 200g liquid glucose
- 20 strawberries, hulled and halved, to serve
Instructions
To make the pastry, put the flour, salt and butter into a bowl and rub in the butter using your fingertips, until the pieces are roughly half the size. Add the water and mix to a dough. On a floured surface, roll out to a neat rectangle, about 50 x 20cm. Fold the top third down, then the bottom third up over the top. Wrap in cling film and rest in the fridge for 30 min. Give the dough a quarter-turn, then roll out and fold as before, twice more. Now dust your work surface with icing sugar and roll out the pastry to the thickness of a £1 coin. Dust the pastry heavily with icing sugar and roll up, like a big sausage. Wrap in cling film and chill in the freezer.
Preheat your oven to 200°C. Line a baking sheet with a non-stick baking mat. Unwrap the pastry roll and cut into 6 slices, the thickness of a £1 coin. Lay these on the baking sheet. (Freeze the rest of the pastry roll for another day.) Bake the pastry discs for 8–10 min until crisp and golden. Carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool. Keep in an airtight container until ready to serve.
To make the custard, pour the cream and elderflower cordial into a pan and bring to the boil over a medium heat. Meanwhile, whisk the eggs and sugar together in a large bowl. Pour on the hot cream mix, whisking as you do so, then add the lemon juice. Cook, stirring over a low heat, until the custard reaches 90°C. Immediately pour into 6 serving dishes. Let cool slightly and then place in the fridge to set; this will take 2 hours.
For the sorbet, put all the ingredients into a pan and bring to a simmer over a medium heat. Cook for 15 min. Take off the heat and blitz the mixture with a hand blender, then pass through a sieve into a jug and leave to cool. Once cooled, churn in an ice-cream machine until firm, then transfer to a container and freeze until ready to serve.
To make the syrup, put the strawberries, elderflower cordial and glucose into a pan, bring to a simmer and cook for 10 min. Remove from the heat and leave to cool, then pass through a sieve into a jug.
Put the fresh strawberries into a bowl, add some of the syrup and toss carefully to dress. Remove the elderflower custards from the fridge and arrange the strawberries equally on top of them. Spoon a neat scoop of strawberry sorbet on top of each pile of strawberries and finish with a puff pastry disc. Serve immediately.
Restaurant Nathan Outlaw, Bloomsbury Absolute, £45.
