Another Way to Eat Strawberries and Cream
Crème Bavaroise with Basil, Black Pepper, Voatsiperifery, or Vanilla
Crème bavaroise is a 19th-century dessert, not common on menus with a contemporary sensibility, especially outside France. No one knows why the dessert is “Bavarian,” and confusingly the name is sometimes masculine, bavarois, and sometimes feminine, bavaroise. A bavarian combines pourable custard (crème anglaise) with whipped cream and whatever flavor you like, all stabilized with gelatin, which allows the bavaroise to be unmolded. For years, I’ve had the idea that I could produce a wonderfully delicate bavarian, rich yet light and filled with the flavor of ripe fruit. But I don’t remember ever making one at all, until recently, finally, I made one using my own strawberry jam. The result was way too sweet, had an oddly slippery texture from the sugary jam, and the jam’s beautiful deep red, mixed into the custard, became a faintly muddy pink. Reducing the amount of sugar in the jam would make it runny, and using less jam wouldn’t provide enough fruit flavor. (And, as an aside, for perfectly smooth texture the jam for a bavarian has to be strained, which is annoying.) On top of it all, when the jam was incorporated into the bavarian, it tasted strongly cooked, not fresh at all (but I’d just made it, and it was very good). Why did I think that serving a dish of cooked strawberries at the height of their season made sense?