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crème anglaise with saffron

crème anglaise with saffron

Crème anglaise with Lebanese saffron is a perfect pairing for the tartness of a gooseberry compote. Having made Claudia Roden’s hazelnut cake with chocolate ganache from The Med (delicious), there were 6 egg yolks spare. While custard is traditional with gooseberries, adding saffron to the custard, gave it a touch of the unusual, and was more interesting than vanilla.   

In France, custard is called crème anglaise, which sounds very grand. When we lived in Bordeaux, our children brought friends home for lunch on a Friday, which was slightly unnerving. This discerning audience gamely tucked into shepherd’s pie or fish cakes on a Friday. When we presented them with another British classic, apple crumble and custard, they promptly poured the custard into their glasses, and declared it “pas mal”. Our children’s jaws dropped surprised that custard was something to drink from a glass!
 
Saffron divides people. However, as custard/crème anglaise can be quite “eggy”, using a bit of Zejd’s saffron somehow tempers the “eggyness” or zankha in Arabic. Served in glasses, straight from the fridge, alongside a compote of tart gooseberries, this might even make it on to a grown-ups table in Bordeaux! If saffron ice cream piques your interest, see the variation below. 
 
enough for 6 served in small glasses

ingredients

6 egg yolks
4 tbsp caster sugar
500ml full fat milk
a generous pinch or 1/4 tsp of Zejd saffron ground with a pestle and mortar

ice cream variation
2 tsp Lebanese rosewater
50g of rose flavoured lokum (Turkish delight) chopped up

method

  1. Warm 2 tablespoons of the milk in a small saucepan and add the crushed saffron. Turn off the flame and leave the saffron to infuse while you get on with the rest.
  2. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar in a bowl until thick and pale, without creating too many bubbles.
  3. Gradually add the milk into the mixture, stirring to combine thoroughly.
  4. You can make this bain marie style -placing the bowl over a saucepan of gentling steaming water or emptying the contents of the bowl into a heavy bottomed saucepan. The bain marie method takes longer but the mixture is less likely to split. If you choose the saucepan method, keep the flame very low and stir all the time. Remember that this won’t be as thick as shop bought custard.
  5. Once you’ve decided how to proceed, stir continuously until the mixture thickens slightly. Add the saffrony milk and continue to stir for about 10 minutes in a bain marie or 5 minutes in a saucepan.  
  6. If the mixture does look like splitting, plunge the bottom of the pan/bowl into some cold water and stir quickly. 
  7. Remove from the heat and pour into the glasses on a tray. When cool, put the tray in the fridge.  Leave for as long as you can, and eat within a couple of days. 

Serve with something tart, a compote of gooseberries or blackcurrants.  A bowl of fresh red currants or raspberries would work well too. 

variations ...

Once chilled the crème anglaise can be made into ice cream. We added a couple of teaspoons of rose water and some chopped up pieces of lokum (Turkish delight) while the mixture was churning. It went very well with a gooseberry tarte tatin.

saffron ice cream with rosewater and lokum with a gooseberry tatin
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