' MEDLEY OF DESSERTS .'

Dessert medley of Fig & Mascarpone cheesecake , Crepe wrapped Pistachio nut ice cream with chocolate sauce and White Peach melba.   

                        This dessert medley was inspired by the summer figs in season and those beautiful white peaches, so sweet and full of juice but seems to be able to hold its structure better than the yellow variety. Three dessert preps presented on the one plate. When I think peaches I think of the classic peach melba (peaches, vanilla ice cream and raspberries), so with this in mind I came up with my bite size peach melba using Chantilly cream instead of the ice-cream. Figs and mascarpone is a great combination and mascarpone or cream cheese are usually the base ingredient to a cheesecake filling. The third dessert came about from a recipe I found on line some where for this great, colourful pistachio nut ice cream and went with the traditional pancakes with ice cream and chocolate sauce.                          
                  To make these dessert preps I started with pistachio nut ice cream of which I brought cream, milk, a little green food colouring and sugar to the boil, whisking to dissolve all the sugar. In a bowl whisked together egg yolks, sugar, salt, milk powder and pistachio nut meal to combine, this was then gradually added to the milk mixture and cooked while stirring until the custard coated the back of a spoon. This was then strained, placed in the freezer to harden and churned every 2 hours for 8 hours. The crepe was made by whisking together milk, sugar, eggs, plain flour and some vanilla essence in a bowl to form a batter this was then poured thinly into a hot buttered pan and cooked on both sides for 1-2 minutes before being cut into strips to be wrapped around the ice cream. The ice cream was then half dipped in chopped pistachio nuts and for plate presentation placed on top a sauce of melted milk chocolate.              
                   For the fig and mascarpone cheesecake I simply sliced a fresh fig into five 4-5 mm thick slices, placing a dollop of mascarpone cheese between each slice I re-constructed the fig and this was then placed into the freezer until plating.                                                                                                                
                   To make the peach melba I first made a raspberry coulis by placing raspberries, water, sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan and bringing to a simmer stirring to dissolve the sugar, this was then placed into the blender and pureed. The puree was then strained and then placed in the fridge to chill. I then sliced a white peach into 2mm slices and made a slit from the edge of the slice to the middle and formed cones out of the peach slices. This was then filled with Chantilly cream (whipped vanilla cream) and topped with raspberry coulis and fresh raspberries. To plate I made a swoosh of coulis on the plate arranging the peach melbas on top to finish.