Day 157: Bavarian Cream

Every now and again, I get the urge to open my copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and try my hand at one of the many fancy recipes therein. Tonight, I tried a dessert: a chocolate bavarian cream.

As you can see, this was not entirely successful. Some of the chocolate sank to the bottom (the top, in the picture), some of it set nicely, and some of the frothed egg whites would not fully incorporate (the foamy stuff at the bottom). However, I was still incredibly proud of my work on this bavarian cream because, as you can see, it molded and set and unmolded again. Sure, it's not perfect. But I have a terrible record with desserts that need to thicken, set, etc. They generally don't turn out at all. But for a first shot at a bavarian cream, this came out nicely. Maybe next time, I'll get it right. Right or not, this dessert was delicious.

Here's my problem with Julia Child's recipes: they're hard to follow. If you're making the chocolate bavarian cream, you have to read and understand the recipe for orange bavarian cream. If you're making the orange bavarian cream, you have to read and understand the recipe for creme anglaise. Julia doesn't repeat herself, you see. She just tells you to refer back to another recipe, which can be quite confusing.

Anyway, next time I'll read more carefully. I can't blame all my failures on Julia, can I?