Thursday, August 4, 2011

Jelly + custard = disaster

I found myself wanting something sweet last night after dinner, so I leafed through the cold desserts and selected melrose cream (p203), entirely on the basis that I happened to have all the necessary ingredients in the cupboard.


It seemed quite simple: you make a custard, then make up the contents of a packet of jelly, combine the two, and chill until set.


I was a bit short on time, so instead of mixing up the jelly after making the custard, I did the jelly first, which would give it time to cool down while I was making the custard. Add boiling water to jelly crystals, stir until dissolved, and place in fridge: Done.




The prospect of making custard was not particularly daunting - I've made quite a few successful custard-type desserts by now, which probably made me a bit over-confident. I stood at the stove, stirring my milk, sugar and custard powder mixture for some time, but it didn't seem to thicken.


After a while, there was a bit of resistance as I moved the spoon along the bottom of the pan. I knew some of the custard was sticking to the bottom, but the rest of it still wasn't thickening.


The minutes ticked by, and I started to catch a whiff of scorchy odour as I stirred the pot: I had to get that pot off the heat. The custard had thickened a little, but hadn't yet reached the consistency I was wanting. Still, if I left it on any longer, the custard would be entirely unusable.




By this time I was fed up with my melrose cream and already convinced it was a failure. I wanted to get that custard out of the scorched pan as soon as possible, so I stirred in the jelly mixture straight away. Neither mixture had cooled down much at this point - and I gather they're both supposed to have cooled by the time you combine them - but I mixed them together anyway.


The result was a weird sort of curdled-looking, bright pink mixture, which didn't look appealing at all. It hadn't set by the time I was ready for bed, so I left it in the fridge and didn't look at it until tonight.




My melrose cream did not look any better once it had set. The mixture had partially separated, leaving a layer of jelly on top and a dodgy mush underneath. But when I dug a spoon in, I was surprised to see that it that mushy stuff actually looked quite edible. So I tasted some: very sweet, but otherwise not too bad.


Stunned, I scooped some into a bowl, adding a little banana because an entire bowl of pink mush just didn't seem right, and sat down to eat. Unfortunately, after the first few spoonfuls, I was starting to revise my assessment of the dessert being edible. The texture, which I suspect ought to be light and fluffy, was more that of a curdled substance than anything. And the sickly sweet raspberry flavour was more than I could handle.




My attempt at melrose cream was a bit of a disaster, but I was able to glimpse the kind of dessert it's supposed to be - and I think if it's done right, it could be quite nice. Choose a less sickly flavour of jelly, don't burn your custard, and wait till both mixtures have cooled down before you try to combine them: do this, and you might just have a decent dessert on your hands. If nothing else, you'd be hard-pressed to produce a worse version than mine!

2 comments:

  1. Have just stumbled across your blog but what an EPIC find! Love it! One of the unappealing things about Edmonds is the lack of pictures so you don't *really* know how it's supposed to turn out! You've just changed my fear into interest

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  2. Yeah, it can be difficult not knowing what it's supposed to look like, but on the upside, you never get disappointed that yours doesn't look like the picture - and it NEVER does!

    Also: "EPIC" is a pretty flattering description for my little blog! Thanks!

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