Lorna McNee
My dessert: Address to a Cranachan
My Great Briton: Robert Burns
BBC
- Toby Earle
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The Great Briton I’d choose is the formidable Rabbie Burns, the famous Scottish poet, who’s celebrated with haggis, neeps, and tatties every Burns Night. He came from humble beginnings, this small-town poet who became famous all over the world, which makes him a real Scottish hero.
Haggis, neeps, and tatties wouldn’t quite work as a dessert; I’m sure I could try to make them work as one, but I’m not going to! Cranachan is the most famous Scottish dessert but, to me, it’s boring as it is – it’s just cream, berries and oats, which isn’t very exciting. Instead, I’d create a Burns Night take on it, called Address to a Cranachan, a Scottish dessert for a Scottish hero. This one would incorporate the haggis theme, because when you walk into the banquet room, you want to see some theatre. I would build a dessert with flavours all the way through the layers. Usually cranachan is made with raspberries, but I’d have a rhubarb centre in this dessert, because rhubarb comes into season around the same time as Burns Night.
I’d encase the rhubarb centre with a cheesecake mousse to give it a bit more body and depth of flavour. For a whipped cream to spiral around the outside of the dessert, I’d make a vanilla diplomat cream, which would almost make the dessert into a dome with a pretty spire and a crunchy base. I’ve made a similar dessert before in terms of structure, but not in flavour.
To add the oats, I’d have a piper enter the room, followed by others who would approach the table with what looks like a filled sheep’s stomach. They’d be reciting Burns’s Address to a Haggis and would then cut into the haggis, but what would fall out of the stomach would be lots of different oats and puffed rice – no sheep would be harmed in the making of this dessert! You’d sprinkle the sweet contents on top of the dessert to add a nice texture.
You could make this pretty quickly using a blast freezer, which the chefs have in Great British Menu, so the whole dessert would take about 1 hour and 45 minutes. If you were making this for a banquet, it would take longer, because you have more people to serve, but for the purpose of presenting to the judges, it wouldn’t take too long. You have to work fast!
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This would be an elegant dessert celebrating Scottish flavours, Burns Nights and Rabbie Burns, who’s celebrated worldwide whenever Auld Lang Syne is sung. If someone brought this dessert into the judges’ room, I’d say, “Come on! Let’s go, Rabbie Burns!” The chef would be straight through.
Authors
Toby Earle
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