Clouds Personified as a Dessert

Directions

1. A conserve is a fruit preserve that uses whole fruit rather than macerated fruit. To make the conserve first zest 2 lemons and 2 oranges into a bowl, squeeze the juice of both oranges and one of the lemons into the bowl and add the golden raisins, poppy seeds, and earl grey tea. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for a few hours. After the raisins are done soaking put them into a frying pan along with the sugar and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce to a medium heat and continue to simmer until the liquid has thickened into syrup and has reduced to the point where you can see the tops of the raisins in the pan. Let the conserve cool at room temperature until it is needed.
2. To make the tuille batter simply mix together the honey, sugar, orange juice, almonds, poppy seeds, and bread flour until you have a smooth batter. Refrigerate the dough for at least half an hour before using.
3. While the tuille batter is refrigerating you can make the mascarpone mousse, but first preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit for the tuille. Mascarpone is a very rich, creamy, and absolutely scrumptious cheese, it embodies the culinary abstraction of a cloud. Cream the mascarpone cheese so that is nice and fluffy, then cream in the sugar followed by the yoghurt. (make sure that you use a plain yoghurt of no less than 3% fat content, (a heavy Greek yoghurt works the best) Whip the cream to soft peaks, add the sugar and continue whipping until you have medium peeks. Fold the cream into the mascarpone mixture, cover and refrigerate it until you are ready to plate the dessert.
4. Remove the tuille batter from the fridge and spread it out onto a baking sheet lined with a silpat or parchment paper leaving one inch around the sides for spreading. Dont worry about getting the tuille perfectly even it will even out when it bakes. If you are using parchment paper double pan the tuille so it does not burn on the bottom, place the pan in the oven and bake for 7 minutes or until the tuille is an even light brown; it may get darker on the edges but that is ok you can cut the edges off later. Let the tuille cool after baking before cutting the dark edges off and breaking it into 6 pieces
5. The final component of this desert is the caramel for the mouse, the first thing you always do when making a caramel is clean your pot and all of your utensils. Using a half a lemon and some salt to scrub out the pot works well but if you don’t have these any acid will work; the acid cleans away any food particles that may cause the caramel to crystallize. It does not take much for the sugar molecules to crystallize, they like to act in unison so if one crystallizes it influences the others and the result is a course caramel. Rinse thoroughly and then place the sugar, lemon juice, honey, and water into the pot and bring to a boil. Reduce to a medium heat and simmer until the sugar starts to become a light amber colour, this means the sugar is caramelized, (if you want a darker richer caramel cook the sugar to a darker colour of brown)immediately remove from the heat and add the butter and cream. Stir the cream and butter in and place aside to cool until needed.
6. I like to present the dessert in a hallowed out orange but you can also use a bowl or a wide mouthed glass. Place two tablespoons of caramel in the bottom of each vessel top it off with the mascarpone mousse followed by a drizzle of caramel, the conserve, and the tuille. Finally grind up some earl grey tea in a mortise and pestle and sprinkle it on top; this provides a wonderful aromatic layer on top of the layers of flavours.