Parfait always.
Espresso Almond Ice Cream Sandwich
Hello from NL 58. This is Bake Sense, the somewhat ordered record of ramblings that concern the world of baking. Here, we champion flavour and wholesome ingredients and keep an open and curious mind that questions where those ingredients come from and how we can make the most of them.
Parfait is a medium with many possibilities, a means by which you can express yourself, your mood, and the season infinitum. I’ll be leaning into its ways for the rest of the month and hope I can persuade you to join me as I share some of my favourite new recipes inspired by the ebbs and flows of feelings and moods and the rotation of seasonal produce that passes in and out of the bakery each week.
First up... espresso parfait, taking its place between sheets of toasted almond sponge in an ice cream sandwich reminiscent of tiramisu and to the nostalgic mind of my inner child …dark chocolate walnut whips.
But before we begin, let’s take a parfait primer to define this dessert and look at some tips and tricks for successfully making it at home…
Parfait, which translates as ‘perfect’ in French, is highly appropriate, as I can think of no more perfect frozen dessert. Unlike ice cream, where air is churned into a creamy base as it freezes, parfaits are made by whipping air into the creamy base before freezing.
It is formed by combining two foams, a pâte à bombe made with egg yolks and boiling sugar syrup, and whipped double cream or an Italian meringue. The result is an aerated frozen dessert with a smooth, rich mouthfeel that can be flavoured, textured and shaped to your persuasion thanks to some beneficial features -
A large amount of double cream, which you can infuse beforehand with everything from citrus zest to cacao husks and from tea leaves to fig leaves.
A thick, bombe base in which heavier and richer ingredients can be mixed; think peanut butter, tahini, or melted chocolate.
A voluminous final foam that is stable enough to hold mix-ins in suspension, from nut brittles and pralines to fruit ripples and cake croutons.
It remains fluid at room temperature, so it can be piped into moulds of different shapes and sizes or poured and levelled into large trays to be portioned once frozen.
Members of the wider family tree of frozen aerated desserts have similar properties but a few distinct differences. My understanding of the topic is gleaned from various books, articles and recipe research, and I’ve concluded this much…
Whilst all are based on creating foams from eggs (whole, yolks and/or whites) and cream, the proportions and combination of these foams differ. Semifreddos, for example, incorporate not just two but three foams - pâte à bombe, French meringue and whipped cream. Frozen mousse, by contrast, is more similar to parfait in that it contains two foams - pâte à bombe and whipped cream but in a 1:1 ratio, and a ‘Bombe’ typically has the same components as a parfait but with a lot more whipped cream and is named after the shape it is moulded into.
All this is to say that a recipe for any of these aerated frozen desserts forms the basis for a versatile and endlessly variable dessert, no matter its exact nomenclature, which, unlike ice cream, needs no special machine or equipment to make successfully at home.
Perhaps one of the most challenging parts of the process is timing more than one foam to be peak and prime simultaneously, but with practice and a methodical workflow, this can be done.
Top tips for making aerated frozen desserts at home -
Keep your cream cold. Cream whips at its best when it is cold, I whip all my double cream for parfaits by hand (for my sins and the practical fact that I don’t have multiple stand mixer bowls and whisks), so it’s a good idea to chill or briefly freeze the stainless steel bowl in which you whip your cream beforehand.
Prioritise according to foam stability. The aim is to combine the foams when they are all at their peak, i.e. containing the most volume possible. Don’t allow foams to wait around once they’re ready, as they will begin to lose the volume you worked so hard to create. Whipped double cream is the most stable of the three foams you will encounter when making aerated frozen desserts, so this should be made first and placed in the fridge to remain cold until needed. Next up is pâte à bombe, followed by any of your egg white foams, be they French or Italian.
Begin whisking your egg yolks on high to achieve a voluminous pale result while the sugar syrup cooks. Egg yolks will never increase in volume as much as egg whites, but with time, they will become moussey and increase to around four times their original amount. This is important as I find that if there is not sufficient volume in the bowl when I begin to add the hot sugar syrup, it is more prone to catch the whisk and splatter against the sides of the bowl instead of combining with the yolks. For the pâte à bombe to form correctly, the yolks need to ‘cook’ via the hot sugar syrup to pasteurise them and create a stable foam.
Work quickly and efficiently to incorporate the foams in the right order. As with making a foam-based cake, you want to preserve volume, sacrificing as little as possible. There will always be some loss, but the best way to retain air in the mixtures is to add the lightest foam to the heaviest. In the case of today’s recipe, you will add the whipped cream to the egg foam base. Pour half of the cream foam into the base and fold with a silicone spatula to loosen the mixture. Then, by rotating the bowl in the opposite direction from folding and using a large metal spoon, you can incorporate the rest of the cream more effectively, maintaining horseshoe-shaped movements that lift from the base of the bowl.
After that crash course in parfait perfection, let’s get to the recipe.