It's been swethering hot for the entire week and all I wanted was something really refreshing. What can be more refreshing than summer melons? I've decided pretty early on that I want to feature a medley of melons for one of the desserts this month. A favourite summer fruit of mine is cherries. In fact, I look forward to July every year because of all the different cherry desserts that I can indulge in.
Sorbet of Summer Melons: a medley of four different summer melon sorbet served with coconut honeydew sauce and lemon tuile.
Cherry Clafoutis with Pistachio Mousse: cherry clafoutis served with pistachio mousse, mascarpone amaretto cream, and cherries marinated in kirsch.
I don't think the description of the melon sorbet did it justice because it looked so amazing (I really don't shy away from bragging, don't I?). I used a ring mold to set four layers of melon sorbet (orange, white, red, green). On top of the sorbet, I used tiny cubes of the melon to hold a piece of lacy lemon tuile upright. The sauce was dotted with tiny pearls of tapioca and star-shaped honeydew melon pieces. The presentation looked so whimsical.
The cherry clafoutis baked up quite nicely in individual sizes. I also liked the pistachio mousse although I think the texture could be more delicate. One unexpected thing did happen with the mascarpone cream though. My original idea was to serve the cream on top of a round of hazelnut sable and stud the cream with the marinated cherries. Unfortunately, when I tried to pick up the sable from the baking tray, they all fell apart on me. That was really too bad because without the sable, the cream with cherries looked a little odd on the plate.
Since I only could make a limited number of the summer melon sorbet, I decided to bring along the coconut honeydew tapioca dessert soup just in case. This is a dessert soup that my mom used to make in the summer and it just brings back so much nice memories. I made a huge batch on Saturday and I thought that it would be great to share it at the staff meal. The dessert soup is a blend of coconut milk, evaporated milk, honeydew melon puree, simple syrup, melon liqueur, tapioca, grass jelly, and honeydew melon pieces. Just to make it more fun, I cut the melon pieces using a star-shaped cookie cutter. Once I ran out of the melon sorbet, I served the dessert soup in a martini glass with a quenelle of honeydew melon sorbet and a couple pieces of the lemon tuile. The pale green colour of the soup looked so inviting in hot summer evening.
We sold out early in the evening. What a great feeling of accomplishment!
