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I’ve gone to hell and back in the last 48 hours. Self-doubt hell! Over-thinking hell! And time hell! I’ve settled my mind on making a parfait as my final dish (dessert) of the @docsmith handmade knife competition. Parfait is French word that means perfect. I wanted my dessert as perfect as it’s name. While relatively simple from a recipe perspective, pulling up every aspect of the recipe was a real challenge. And to make life more complicated, on Friday, my husband managed to convince me to create handmade fairy floss as a side to the dessert. And 262144 fairy floss strands later and I think I’ve mastered the science for making cotton candy! I’ve also created some homemade coconut snow and mango puree to complement the dessert. I wanted everyone reading this to be not just hungry but visually hungry.

Over the last 48 hours I’ve wasted just over 2kg of sugar and other ingredients in my attempt to make sugar cotton candy or sugar syrup or just attempting to create a tuile cone. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong! It is as if all the elements in the universe had conspired to make that last challenge last a little longer. But as I am sitting here in my living room, the laptop on my lap and going through the motion of what the last couple of days have been I can’t be be happy with what I’ve achieved. It’s been hard but I got through it and hopefully the judges will be satisfy with what I’m presenting to them.

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I’ve started my preparation early. When I first read the parfait recipe I thought it would be a walk in the park. I didn’t envisage much trouble pulling it together. But I always knew that I would be running against time. On Saturday I had my friend’s daughter 2nd birthday in the morning. In the afternoon, it was my husband’s godson 15th birthday. So between these two events and the need to provide my daughter with a proper midday nap I was really running thin on time. Therefore I planned ahead and started to prepare some of the elements on Friday.

I started shortly after Seven on Friday morning. I tackled the easier stuffs first. The mango jelly was the first one to be done and wrapped and stored in the fridge. Then I attacked the coconut snow which I knew would take me all day as whilst the recipe was relatively easy to follow once I had it in the freezer I had to go back to it every hour and grate the mixture so that it turn into snow. I also worked on preparing the dough for the tuile. I had this idea of having the tuile on top of the sorbet. And I was preparing the mixture I thought that I could even have some to make some tuile cone. The last item on my list for Friday was the sorbet. By that time my daughter was getting a little bit grumpy. I then thought I would include her in the fun. I pulled her little white table closer to a power point, plugged in the ice cream maker, poured the sorbet mixture into it and we both sat down to watch the machine goes round and round, round and round!!

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As my daughter was having her nap I’ve messaged some pics to my husband to show him the progress. He returned serve with this cotton candy video he came across. For some reasons he was convinced that we needed it. I had a look and thought that it was quite daunting but feasible. To appease his concerns I told him that I might consider it at some point. On his way back from work he stopped at the grocery shop and got some corn flour and vinegar; two ingredients for the cotton candy. When he got it we did the initial syrup and allow it to rest overnight. The candy was still a fifty fifty chance of making the cut. On Saturday morning when I woke up I went straight to check on the syrup. It was a disaster. It didn’t set properly. At that point I thought we will do it a later stage.

I started the day with the tuile which I shaped with the back of a spatula. My first attempt was successful but I didn’t like the shape. Too big I thought! I gave it to my daughter to it. After that I tried making the tuiles 7 times in a row and each time failed miserably. Between removing it from the oven, cutting it and attempting to shape it I had 10 seconds before the dough would go hard. After the 7th attempt I gave up. But the remaining mixture in the fridge and got ready to go to the first birthday party. On my return I tried doing the Parfait. One of the main aspect of the recipe is to mix the hot sugar syrup with the egg yolk. I tried six times to make the syrup and all six times I burned the sugar. But eventually I got it done. Just in time to go to the second birthday of the day.

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By the time we got back home I was determined to get one thing right for the day. Just before leaving I did another batch of the sugar syrup for the cotton candy. I quickly checked on it to see if it was in a better state that the Friday’s batch. I was really happy to see that it was just as per the video. My husband used the first one to start making the fairy floss. He made good progress but then blisters started appearing on his thumb. He didn’t have enough power in his thumb to keep working the candy and instead started the force of his palm. This resulted in him breaking the circle and being unable to complete the candy.

I took it as a personal challenge to try and make something of the second batch. So I got on cracking. Based on the recipe I’m supposed to stop after making fifteen 8 out of the sugar mixture! And this would result in a cotton candy with 16000 strands. Instead I was on a roll and it was turning out really nicely I pushed it to eighteen 8 (or if you want 2 to the power of 18!). My final cotton candy had 262144 fairy floss strands!! A quarter of a million!!! I was so happy and so proud that all the issues I’ve encountered during the day was forgotten.

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It was time to assemble the Parfait and this was done early on Sunday morning. I wasn’t sure where I was going from a presentation point of view but I knew that with the addition of the mango puree I could add some colours to the recipe and another layer of flavour. Once again I had to work quickly as it was a cold morning we had the heater on for the little one which meant that at every step we had to mindful of not allowing neither the parfait nor the sorbet to melt. It was a challenge in itself but I’m glad I’ve pulled. I didn’t plan the final presentation but what I’m presenting today is exactly what I wanted and I’m glad to say that all the elements worked well together.

I hope you enjoy it too!

Bon appétit!

And good luck to everyone.

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INGREDIENTS

MANGO JELLY

1 Cup Mango fresh or frozen (thawed)
¼ Cup Rapadura Sugar
2 Tbsp Gelatin
2 Cups of Coconut Water

METHOD

Blend Mango and sugar together until combined
Add Gelatin to ¼ cup of the coconut water, stir and leave to bloom. Once gelatin has bloomed add it and the pureed mango liquid to a small saucepan and heat on low until the gelatin has dissolved.
Pour back into blender with the rest of the coconut water and blend on low until all combined.
Pour into a greased Jelly mould or moulds, dish or container and allow to set in the fridge.

COCONUT SNOW

350ml of coconut cream, canned
100ml of coconut oil, melted gently to room temperature
200ml of coconut water
140ml of water
140g of caster sugar

METHOD

Pour all of the ingredients into a clean plastic container and place in the freezer. Every 20–25 minutes, use a fork to break up the parts that are beginning to freeze, making sure you go deep into the corners and sides too. The aim is for the mixture to freeze in a frozen powder-type formation as opposed to a solid block.
Once it has formed a fluffy snow powder, you can leave it alone for a while but make sure that if you leave it overnight that you give it a good forking before serving.

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FAIRY FLOSS

2 cups sugar
1/4 cup corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon vinegar
1 cup water
A lot of cornstarch for coating

METHOD

In a saucepan, combine all ingredients and heat on medium-high. The mixture needs to heat slowly for about 20-25 minutes, until it reaches 269°F, so monitor your heat to adjust as needed. Once it reaches temperature, immediately remove the saucepan from the burner and allow to cool to at least 212°F. Transfer to plastic quart containers to cool until it turns into a firm disk.
Place cornstarch on a baking tray or large bowl. Release the candy by pressing around the plastic container. Use your thumbs to create a hole in the centre. Coat generously in cornstarch and begin forming a donut shape, rotating the disc and using your hands to stretch it, making sure all sides are even. Once the ring is about 1 foot wide, twist into a figure 8 shape and continue stretching and making a uniform ring. Be sure to constantly dust with cornstarch to prevent sticking. After about 18 loops, you'll end up with over 260000 strands.

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TUILES

3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 large egg whites
1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

METHOD

In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar and egg whites until well combined—you’re not beating in air and the whites shouldn’t be foamy. Add the melted butter and whisk until combined. Add the flour and vanilla, and whisk to combine; the mixture should be smooth. Refrigerate the batter for at least 4 hours. Heat the oven to 175°C. Line a very flat, level baking sheet or cookie sheet with a nonstick baking mat (or with parchment sprayed liberally with nonstick cooking spray). Spoon a small amount of tuile batter on the baking sheet. Spread as evenly and thinly as possible into a circle the size you want (the size won’t change much during baking).
Bake until the cookie is golden brown all over, 9 to 10 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and immediately start to manoeuver a spatula under the edge of the cookie. I made a Tuile Cone and a Corkscrew shape with it.

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MANGO PARFAIT

6 egg yolks
100g of caster sugar
375ml of double cream
250ml of mango purée
Coconut Sorbet
425ml of sugar syrup
400ml of coconut milk

METHOD

For the parfait, whip the cream until soft peaks form and return to the fridge. Using a whisk attachment, beat the egg yolks on a high speed with one tablespoon of warm water until they double in size.
Next, heat the sugar to 121˚C and slowly pour down the edge of the mixing bowl to combine with the yolks while mixing. Once the sugar, yolk mix has cooled, add the mango purée until combined. Fold in the cream, place in the moulds and set in the freezer for a minimum of 4 hours.
While the parfaits are setting, whisk the sugar syrup and coconut milk together, strain and churn in an ice cream maker until you reach the desired consistency. Freeze to set.
Once all the elements are ready, assemble the parfait by adding a layer of the mango jelly. Serve up each parfait with a quenelle of the coconut sorbet - you can also serve with a small dice of tropical seasonal fruit, extra mango purée and some toasted coconut to really top the dish off.

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After the drama it was a relief to be able to dig into the Mango Parfait and the sorbet and the rest of the elements. We started with a spoon to look classy but ended up breaking the tuile cone and used it to dig into the parfait. Even the fairy floss was used to scoop the Parfait around and straight into our mouth. So much so that we once again forgot to provide a proof alongside the picture. But this time we just had enough left overs to add the inscriptions to the picture.

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