Ingredients
Strawberry Pillows
300g of strawberries hulled and quartered
50g of sugar
50ml of lemon juice
100ml of water
2 gelatine leaves
1 vanilla pod
Elderflower crème
375ml of cream
110ml of milk
180g of egg yolk
2g of agar agar
2 silver gelatine leaves
40ml of elderflower cordial
Mascarpone
150g of mascarpone
1/2 lemon, zest only
35g of sugar
Crumb
10g of freeze-dried strawberries
10g offreeze-dried raspberries
10g of freeze-dried yoghurt
10g of popping candy
To serve
50g of strawberries, hulled and chopped
5g of sweet cicely
Method
Place the chopped strawberries into a bowl with the lemon juice, vanilla, sugar and water. Place the bowl over a bain-marie and leave for 20 minutes. Pass through a fine sieve, but do not push through the mx and allow as much of the clear liquid to drip through as possible. allow to cool and store in the fridge until needed.
To make the “pillow”, soak 2 leaves of gelatine in cold water until soft. Heat up 200ml of the strawberry juice mixture, once hot melt the gelatine into the liquid. Pour into a mixing bowl and whisk, over ice, until the mixture starts to cool, set and expand. Continue to whisk until soft peaks form.Pour the mixture into a piping bag and fill the semi-circle moulds. Smooth off the tops then place in the freezer until frozen.
For the elderflower crème, place the cream, milk, elderflower cordial, sugar, egg yolks and agar agar into a thermomix and bring up to 81°C. Once it reaches 81°C, add the soaked silver leaf gelatine then pass through a sieve into a bowl. Pour into the lined moulds and set in fridge until needed.
Mix the lemon zest with the mascarpone cheese and sugar, spoon into a piping bag and store in the fridge until needed. Mix the freeze-dried strawberry, yoghurt, raspberry and popping candy in a bowl to make a crumb.
Remove the strawberry “pillow” from the freezer. Using a melon baller, scoop out some of the middle, then fill the hole with the mascarpone mixture. Return to the fridge.
Pop the mascarpone-filled strawberry pillows out of the moulds and stick them together to make a ball, repeat to make 3 more. Roll each ball until evenly coated and set aside. Cut the fresh strawberries into a 1/2cm dice and mix with a little of the remaining strawberry juice from step 1 and set aside.
Remove the elderflower cremes from the moulds and place in the centre of each bowl. Place the ball on top of the crème, then spoon around the diced strawberries and juice. Scatter with some sweet cicely and serve.
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