[Vegan Caramel Almond Soufflé, Unmolded - a cold dessert]
...Julia has this to say about this fluffy dessert...
"
French floating island is an unmolded souffle of beaten egg whites, sugar, and flavoring, surrounded by a sauce so that it looks as though it were floating. Those little mounds of egg whites floating on custard which are usually called floating island in English are the French dessert, oeufs a la neige"
...and so I thought it was so strange that she used the english words for the dessert and translated them into french instead of the actual french name for the dessert...
...and as usual there are many...many steps to this dessert...so let's get started...
...a couple of preliminary ones...
...make a
pralin and chop it up...
...and then make a
caramel...
...I've made lots of caramel over the years I've been doing this project...
...it kind of always amazes me...
...it's just water and sugar...
...boiled together...
...until it starts to turn light brown...you know a sort of caramel colour...haha...
...and you do have to stop right then and take it off the heat as it will continue to colour and get bitter if you don't...
...and then you line your mold with the caramel and set it aside...
...after the caramel has set you butter the mold...
...and then you start whipping your vegan egg whites...aka...aqua faba...
...and it's another amazing transformation...
...beat in sugar and a little bit of salt until soft peaks form...
...there's really not a lot else to this recipe...so I'm going to add a little bit of agar agar to hopefully stabalize the fluff a little bit more...
...and I just whipped that into the vegan egg whites while it was still liquid...
...and I'm really only baking this long enough to melt the butter and soften the caramel because I don't think it's stable enough to withstand a long baking time...and I want it to set up nicely in the fridge...
...so then to serve it...there are more steps...ha...make a
VEGAN CRÈME ANGLAISE
...and chill it and pour it into a serving dish...
...and then reverse the fluff onto it ...
...the caramel sort of sunk into the middle...being heavier than the fluff...
...sprinkle with the reserved pralin...
...I also saw images of this dessert with little spoonfuls of fluff floating on the custard...
...and that was pretty too...
...it was good...like eating custard with whipped cream on top...very fluffy...also very sweet...
Substitutions:
aqua faba and agar for the egg whites
all of the subs for the
VEGAN CRÈME ANGLAISE
Mastering the Art of French Cooking (p. 622)
