Recipe: Tonka Bean Brûlée
For four brûlée portions you need the following ingredients:
1 dl milk
100 g whipping cream
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tonka bean
For the chocolate mousse and the almond sponge cake you need the following ingredients:
3 eggs
80 g baking chocolate
50 g sugar
30 g flour
30 g ground almonds
Directions:
Combine the milk and the whipping cream in a saucepan, add the tonka bean and heat it all up, bringing the mixture almost to boiling point. Allow it to stand for ten minutes to bring out as much of the flavour as possible, and then take the bean out of the aromatized whipping cream-and-milk mixture.
Prepare a water bath, remove the bowl from the pot and use it to beat the egg yolks and sugar until foamy, adding the hot aromatized milk as you go. Place the bowl back over the steam and wait for the mixture to thicken while whisking it. When the crème is thick enough, take it off and pour it into ramekins.
Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Crack the eggs, separate the egg yolks from the egg whites.
Add sugar to the egg whites and beat them to stiff peaks. Sprinkle with ground almonds and flour, and fold it in gently. Spread onto a baking tray covered with parchment paper, level it to 1-centimetre thickness, and bake for 15 minutes.
Beat the egg yolks and the sugar until foamy. Melt the chocolate using a water bath, pour in the cream and then add the yolk mixture to the mix. Heat over the water bath until it thickens, and put the chocolate mousse into the fridge.
Cut the baked and chilled sponge cake to pieces shaped and sized like the ramekins. Cover the ramekin with chocolate mousse, place the upside down tonka bean brûlée in the middle, cover with the almond sponge cake, and keep it in the refrigerator overnight.
You can serve the dessert with a blueberry or a raspberry sauce prepared by bringing the fruit and sugar to the boil, and with melted dark chocolate poured over it.