This is one of my favourite springtime desserts: a sort of trifle made with Grand-Marnier soaked Amaretti biscuits, topped with a creamy mascarpone cream and stewed rhubarb. You can prepare the verrines and the rhubarb a bit ahead, but only top them with the rhubarb at the moment of serving.
This recipe was created as part of my “Recipes for Staying Home” show, you can watch the episode here.
This is a recipe from my cookbook ‘Flavours of Home’.
500g rhubarb
40g sugar
For the cream:
2 eggs
70g sugar
1 tbsp vanilla sugar
250g mascarpone
200ml cream
a pinch of Salt
75ml Grand Marnier
75ml water
200g Amaretti biscuits + extra for crumbling
Serves 6
Preheat the oven to 180°C fan.
Trim the rhubarb ends and cut into 3cm pieces. Put in a baking tin and add the sugar. Toss and spread out the rhubarb in one single layer. Cover the tin with foil and bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, until the rhubarb is soft. Take out and leave to cool.
Meanwhile, prepare the cream. Separate the eggs, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff. In a large mixing bowl, beat the egg yolks with the sugar and vanilla sugar. Add the mascarpone and beat again.
Add the stiff egg whites to the mascarpone cream, but don’t mix yet.
Pour the whipping cream into the bowl used for the egg whites, whisk until stiff. Fold the whipped cream and the stiff egg whites into the mascarpone cream.
Pour the Grand Marnier and the water into a little bowl.
Dip each amaretti in the Grand Marnier so that they soak up the liquid and put them into 6 serving glasses. Crush the amaretti a bit with a spoon and drizzle over any Grand Marnier liquid that might remain.
Top the amaretti with a layer of mascarpone cream, then top with rhubarb.
Crumble a few extra amaretti over the rhubarb before serving.
