Thanks so much for all your lovely comments and great guesses. Today I’ll reveal how I made that golden sausage, that gooey egg, sunny side up and that pesky streaky bacon. The egg and sausage were fine, but that streaky bacon had me stumped. I was almost going to leave it out altogether. When I finally came up with the brandy snap bacon, I knew I had it. Though not an absolute likeness (due to the holes!) it looked realistic enough for me, the texture was good and the taste was great.
Fried Egg – or – Panna Cotta and Lemon Curd
For the egg I decided it would be a beautiful creamy panna cotta with lemon curd as a yolk. I used my normal panna cotta recipe, but made half the amount.
Panna cotta
– 5g of butter, for greasing
– 150ml of double cream
– 12g of castor sugar
– One/two drops of vanilla extract
– ½ teaspoon of gelatine powder
– ½ teaspoon of water
Butter 4 small saucers. Place the cream, sugar and vanilla extract in a heavy bottomed saucepan over a gentle heat. When the cream is just about to boil and all the sugar is dissolved, take the pot off the heat. In a small bowl dissolve the granules of gelatine in a teaspoon of water. Put some boiling water into a saucepan and place the bowl of gelatine over the saucepan and place on a gentle heat. Heat until all the gelatine has melted and becomes sticky and translucent. Take one dessert spoon of the warmed cream and mix into the melted gelatine. Once it is well mixed in, add the rest of the cream and whisk until smooth. Pour the mixture into your prepared saucers and leave to cool. Once cool, cover the saucers with cling film and place in the refrigerator for at least three hours, overnight if possible. Removing the panna cotta from the saucer was a bit tricky. I turned the saucer onto a plate and rubbed a hot cloth over the underside of the saucer, which slowly eased the panna cotta from the saucer onto the plate. I had 2 success and 2 failures. I happily ate the ones that didn’t turn out exactly right 🙂
Lemon curd
Once again this is something that I have made before. For the purposes of this dish I only used a small spoonful of curd, but I saved the rest in a jar in the fridge. Lemon curd is great with natural yoghurt or on biscuits.
– 25g of butter
– 50g of caster sugar
– Finely grated zest and juice of one unwaxed lemon
– 1 large egg and 1 small egg yolk – well beaten together
On a low heat, melt the butter. When it has fully melted add the sugar, lemon juice and rind. Make sure the heat is very low. Next stir in the beaten egg and continue to cook over a very gentle heat until the mixture thickens slightly and coats the back of the spoon. Take off the heat and leave to cool. Once cooled, transfer the curd into a clean jam jar and leave in the fridge. The curd will keep for a few weeks in the fridge.
I took out a small spoonful of the curd and put it in a bowl. I added one small drop of yellow food colouring to make it a stronger yellow colour, that looked more like a yolk. I put this small dollop of curd on top of the panna cotta. I then put the whole plate in the fridge to set until ready to plate up. To give the egg the look of a real fried egg, I made some caramel pieces by melting sugar and water in a saucepan until it became caramelised. I placed the molten caramel on a sheet of silicone paper. Once set, I broke the caramel pieces up into small shards. I placed a couple of the shards around and on the panna cotta to make it look like a fried egg.
Sausage – or – Caramelized Peanut butter Sponge
The sausage was simply some sponge cake, cut into a sausage shape. I then rolled it in smooth peanut butter, before rolling in a sheet of rice paper. To get that crispy skin, I covered the rice paper with icing sugar and used a blowtorch to caramelize it until brown and sizzling. Sugared toasted rice paper is surprisingly delicious! The texture was sweet and crispy with lovely peanut butter sponge underneath.
Streaky bacon – or – Brandy Snaps
Ok, so they may be a bit holey, but this is the closest I could get to making sweet streaky bacon. They are made of sweet brandy snaps. I tried a number of different approaches from jellies to toffees but this was the best. Half the mixture was coloured with red food colouring and the rest of the mixture was left natural.
Brandy snaps
– 50g of butter
– 50g of castor sugar
– 2 tbsp. of golden syrup
– Juice of ¼ of a lemon
– 50g of white flour, sifted
– pinch of ground ginger
– Few drops of red food colouring
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.
Melt the butter, sugar, and golden syrup over a gentle heat in a large saucepan. Once all ingredients are melted and combined, take off the heat. Next, stir in the lemon juice, flour, and ginger. Take half the mixture out and place in a separate bowl. Add the red food colouring to the mixture in this bowl. Leave both sets of mixture to cool.
I used two disposable piping bags and filled one with the red mixture and the other with the natural coloured mixture. I then piped a line of red mixture onto the baking sheet with a line of the natural mixture beside it and continued piping small lines of streaky bacon onto the baking sheet, leaving a gap of 3 inches between each one. Bake in the preheated oven for 5 to 6 minutes. You need to watch them like a hawk though as they burn really quickly.
Meanwhile I had lined up a group of 4 pencils for shaping at the end. Once the brandy snaps are out of the oven, you have very little time to play with. Leave them to set for about a minute, and then carefully lift them off the tray using a spatula. They will now be really malleable however they dry very quickly, so you have to act fast. I placed my streaky bacon pieces onto the row of pencils and squeezed into shape. As soon as one was done, I continued with the rest, using the same pencils to mould. The pencils create small waves in the brandy snaps that resemble wavy streaky bacon.
And that concludes the recipe for Breakfast for Dessert. All easy recipes, all normal store cupboard ingredients… but definitely a dessert that will get people talking.
