Berry Compote with Cardinal Cream

Method

1. Soak the gelatin sheets in cold water for 10 minutes, or sprinkle powdered gelatin over 2 tbsp of cold water.
2. Scrape the vanilla seeds into the milk, add the pod and heat until steaming.
3. Whisk the yolks with 30 g of the sugar until pale.
4. Pour the hot milk onto the yolks in a thin stream, whisking all the time.
5. Pour the mixture back into the pan and cook over low heat, stirring, until it coats the back of a spoon, 80–82°C (176–180°F); do not let it boil.
6. Take the pan off the heat, remove the vanilla pod and stir in the chopped white chocolate until melted.
7. Squeeze the water out of the gelatin sheets (or use the soaked powder) and stir it into the hot custard until dissolved.
8. Strain the custard into a bowl and let it cool to room temperature, stirring now and then; it must stay liquid, so don't chill it.
9. Whip the cold cream with the remaining 30 g of sugar to soft peaks.
10. Fold the whipped cream into the cooled custard in two additions.
11. Toss the berries gently with the sugar and lemon juice and leave them for 15 minutes.
12. Divide the berries and their juice among the glasses.
13. Lay a flat piece of white chocolate on the berries in each glass.
14. Spoon or pipe the Cardinal cream over the top.
15. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours, until softly set.
16. Shave the remaining white chocolate with the peeler.
17. Top each glass with chocolate shavings and chopped nuts and serve with one or two macarons.

1. Instructions
2. For the Cardinal cream:
3. Whisk egg yolks with a half of sugar over the bain-marie until white and fluffy.
4. Gradually add milk, and cook the mixture until slightly thick.
5. Enter chopped white chocolate, vanilla bean seeds.
6. Chill the mixture.
7. Whisk two kinds of cream with the remaining half of sugar until thick, and combine with chilled cream and gelatin.
8. For the macarons:
9. Combine almond flour with powdered sugar and cocoa, stir until smooth.
10. Add half of the egg whites.
11. Do not mix, just set aside.
12. Beat the remaining egg whites (110 g) put in a bowl until light foam.
13. Add the sugar to the saucepan, and pour in the water.
14. Put it over medium heat, bring to a boil, and cook until the mixture reaches a temperature of 118 C.
15. Remove the syrup from the heat.
16. On low speed, add the sugar syrup to the beaten egg whites.
17. Beat until shiny dense foam and stiff peaks.
18. Fold in the meringue batter to the almond flour and unbeaten egg whites mixture.
19. Stir gently, moving from the edges, rotating the bowl in a circle.
20. Almond flour and meringue should be well-combined, but smooth.
21. Transfer the macaron batter to a pastry bag fitted with a small corner cut off and pipe 3-4 cm rounds on parchment-lined baking sheets.
22. Let it stand at room temperature for at least an hour, then put the baking sheet into preheated to 150-155 C oven, and bake 11-12 minutes.
23. Let macaron shells cool down completely, then fill it with dark chocolate butter-cream.
24. Assemble the dessert:
25. Put clean berries (raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries) to the bottoms of a shot glasses.
26. Put flat white chocolate chip on berries, and top with Cardinal Cream.
27. Garnish with white chocolate shavings and ground nuts.
28. Serve with chocolate macarons.

The dish in the photograph was cooked by the restaurant for this story. Photo: Oleksandr Slyadnyev.