Plougastel Strawberries in a vanilla shell
Ingredients :
and its lime tree and mint cream.
Plougastel Strawberries in a vanilla shell and its lime tree and mint cream recipe for 6 people:
500g strawberries, washed thoroughly.
4dl double cream.
60g icing sugar.
2 tea bags of lime tree tea.
20 leaves of fresh mint.
30g of sugar crystals.
1 lemon juice.
For the shells mix:
100g strong flour.
100g caster sugar.
1 egg.
few drops of vanilla extract.
50g of soft butter.
Direction :
The vanilla shells:
Pre-heat your oven at 200 degrees Celsius (gas mark 6-7, 392F).
In a bowl, using a whisk, mix well the soft butter and the caster sugar. Then add the flour, the vanilla extract and the egg.
Take a non-stick baking tray and spread a table spoon full of the mixture, making a disc of about 10cm (4 inches) in diametre. Repeat this operation six times.
Bake the discs for 6-7 minutes.Then, carefully take each discs, while still hot, with a palet knife and place them into a large bowl. In this way, they will take a nice shell shape while cooling down. Keep them in a dry place; never in fridge.
Heat up your cream, place the two tea bags in it, then take your pot off the heat and let the lime tree tea infuse for about 15 minutes.
Then, take the tea bags out of the cream and place it in the freezer for five minutes.
When the cream is fully cooled down, whip it until stiff. Then add the icing sugar. Set aside in the fridge.
Finelly shred 15 mint leaves and add them to the whipped cream.
Place the sugar crystals into a napkin and crush them with a rolling pin or a hammer. Set aside into a small bowl.
Arrangements:
On six nice dessert plates, place the vanilla shells in its centre, fill them up to mid-way with the wipped cream. Sprinkle them with bit of crushed sugar crystals and top them up with the rest of the cream.
Then, harmoniously place some strawberries on the top of the cream along with few mint leaves.
A small chef's tip:
Brush the strawberries with a bit of lemon juice. It is an excellent natural flavour enhancer.
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