Week 14: Parfait

Hi everyone!

If Matt doesn't win, I will cry.

Exciting news: I saw Matt, Gary and George in the flesh at Regional Flavours! And yes, those hours were the greatest of my life. Matt Sinclair was present as well. God, I wish that he wasn’t married and I was approximately fifteen years older. But what can I say, life is one long disappointment.

Anyway, woo it’s finals week, and I have an announcement to make. I’ve decided that as MasterChef comes to a close, so will my blog. Lately I’ve been so busy, and consequently inconsistent with my posts. This is my second last post, and rest assured I chose a tough cookie to bake!

In the past few seasons of MasterChef, parfaits seem to be terribly à la mode. I figured, what with nearing the end of this journey, I would test myself to see whether I’m MasterChef material. This week I attempted Elise’s Burnt Apricot Parfait, which has a bunch of fancy add ons.

Burnt Apricot Parfait

Somewhat inconveniently, apricots have disappeared off the face of the Earth. They aren’t in season, nor do they seem to be in any supermarket in metropolitan Brisbane. It looks like my chequered history of using the wrong ingredients and equipment is destined to go on until my dying day. Instead of ‘charring apricots on a griddle pan’, I was burning one peach and one nectarine in a fry pan. I guess some things never change.

Speaking of my unshakeable culinary habits, guess what? I overwhipped cream. Again. Additionally, I think I took my egg and sugar mixture (is that called an anglaise?) too far. In my defence, Elise, what the hell does ‘thick and pale’ actually mean? How thick do you want it? How pale? Vague recipe descriptors are actually ruining my life.

Man, who needs silicon moulds
when you have improvisation?

Since I didn’t have silicon, cylindrical moulds, I lined a cupcake tin with gladwrap to prevent stick-age. If that isn’t culinary resourcefulness, I don’t know what is. Unfortunately that stroke of genius didn’t make up for all my little cock ups. My parfaits’ texture was a little off, but at least they still tasted good.

Passionfruit Curd

These were reasonably fuss free, except that I didn’t have enough passionfruit juice. I think that affected how well it set. Ah well, worse things happen at sea. In fact, worse things happen in the MasterChef kitchen.

A note on setting time: Those blast chillers must be made out of magic. While the contestants set their frozen elements in an hour, my curds and parfaits were still runny at the three hour mark. I was forced to leave them in the freezer overnight.

Strawberry Coulis

For the first time in my life,
I don't have to blitz in batches.

What a triumph. Firstly, stewed strawberries, sugar and thyme are absolutely delish. Secondly, for the very first time, my inconveniently tiny food processor was the perfect size. After all these hellish months of making me split everything into batches, my food processor has found its true calling. Blitzing strawberry coulis- who’d have known?

Crumb

I am now head over heels in love with this ‘crumb’ trend. Dump butter + flour + sugar into the oven, and voilà, c’est finit. Tastewise, this crumb is minimal effort for maximum pleasure. Listen to me, I’m starting to sound like Nigella!

 

Forgive the melting curd. I reckon it looks pretty damn good.

Ranking rubric

With the lovely coulis

Taste: 8.7/10- other than the parfaits' odd texture, it tasted wonderful!

Presentation/resemblance to dish: 9.5/10- this is the proudest I’ve been of a dish’s appearance

Time: 8/10- not quite MasterChef’s 90 minutes. Minus setting time, I managed in roughly two and a half hours.

Kitchen Mess: 7/10- would've been worse, had mother dear not helped me clean up as I cooked.

So yeah, I'm not MasterChef ready, but there's no doubt that I've improved. My final post will probably be up soon after the grand final. 

Cheers,

Rosa