Alright, watch how easy this is. We’re going to prep our berries and have a pint of strawberries, half of pint of fresh blackberries and you’re going to sprinkle some sugar over, that’s a third of a cup and the juice of half an orange.
Now, what’s going to happen here in the refrigerator is the juicy orange is going to melt the sugar. The sugar is going to pull some of the liquid out of the berry and in two or three hours, you’re going to have a really good amount of berry served at the bottom of this bowl. You could leave this overnight. You’ll get even more juice come out of it but a couple of hours is minimum, it’s going to be fine. I mean in a pinch, you could use it just like this but the longer it sits, the more juice you’re going to get out there. And that’s that.
To prep our mascarpone cheese mixture, we’re going to zest the lemon which is impossible to do without a zester. Okay. So, get yourself on this little zester, it’s got this little tiny circulated blades at the end and if you drag it across the surface, it just takes off the zest which is just that first layer of the citrus where all the oils and flavors are. Make sure you mince that really fine. You don’t want chunk zest which is just too strong to bite into. But minced fine and it gives it amazing lemon scent to this dish, just teaspoon.
Alright, in a bowl you’re going to add some softened mascarpone alright, this is an Italian cream cheese, same cheese used in soup alright. So , I left that out for about a half hour before I started just to make a nice and easy to work with. Alright, that’s an eight ounce container. Alright, you’re going to add your lemon zest and just a half of teaspoon of sugar because the berries are going to be pretty sweet, they’re going to go around this kind of mixture once we—we don’t want the cheese mixture to be too sweet. So, this is about a half of teaspoon of sugar and that’s all you’re going to need. And I finished this of with a couple of drops of vanilla that is optional but I’m sure you’re going to make the two gourmets styles, there’s your Madagascar and there’s your Tahitian. So, that was in more of a Tahitian so I put of drips to that in. And that just gets on mixed together. And now I want you to note how soft this mixture is. And it should be pretty soft so we can spread it on to our shortcakes without tearing them, alright. So, you don’t want to refrigerate this. Put a good mix. Make sure all that zest is evenly distributed and then we’re to top our shortcakes.
What I have here is basically just two strawberry shortcakes. I’ve actually done this with scones before, plain scones which were pretty nice. So, any shortcake type that has this kind of texture will work. I’ll stay away from the real spongy angel food type, those that you see for strawberry shortcakes in time. And I just cut those shortcakes down in the middle which makes four halves. And onto each one we’re going to spread some of our mascarpone mixture. Now, how much you put on here is really going to be up to you. I divided my mixture into four which gave me two ounces of cheese brulee. I mean that sounds like a lot but hey if you eat a piece of cheesecake in restaurant, you’re going to eat more cheese than the nut. So, you decide. If you want to make this half the size, you can get eight halves and just spread it on each, exact same recipe will work but I want with two ounces. Alright, just spread it. It doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, if it’s a little regular, it even looks nicer at the end. I put one on the plate, and I’m going to take a teaspoon of granulated sugar and I’m going to sprinkle it right on top.
Now, here’s the fun part, you’re going to get yourself a little blue torch if you don’t have one already, you go to—or on this website. This is $19.00, we really just use, nothing to be afraid of, alright. Keep it away from the kids of course. And what happens here, the granulated sugar, you fire it with this blue torch and it melts right on the surface. And this is really what’s going to confuse your—and I think you’ve baked this little cheesecake type of things and you didn’t, this is literally 30 seconds with the torch, the sugar melts and then solidifies and you get a nice crunchy crust on top. Put that in a shallow bowl.
And to finish, we’ll take our delicious berries with that nice natural syrup that came out, just surround it and there you have what I think is just a really beautiful delicious summer desert, the shortcake’s going to soak up that juice. And again, if you tap the spoon on the top, you actually can hear the crunch of the sugar so this is a really nice interesting dish. Don’t tell anyone how you made it and enjoy.
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