I finally made it! One of my favorites from Pierre Herme’s class in Chicago was his Ispahan Fetish. In this creation called Emotion, which is essentially, a verrine  - a multilayer extravaganza served in a glass – we delve into his combination of rose essence, litchi and raspberry.

The recipe I have included is for a single recipe, but really the amounts are huge. I cannot say that I’ve divided the recipes in half across the board. The joconde, I definitely divided it by 4 but I still had some leftover after I baked it on a half-sheet pan. I do not have some of the ingredients like the sorbitol and emulsifier and left them out. The invert sugar used in the joconde makes the cake moister than if you use just regular sugar. I used all- purpose flour. If you want to make the equivalent of flour type 55 it is 1/3 bread flour and 2/3 pastry flour.

The resulting joconde was surprisingly moist even after being stored in the refrigerator for 24 hours. I really love the resulting texture and lightness of this cake and could see many uses for it.

The gelatin for the gelees should be considered guidelines because the end product will depend on the consistency of your puree. My raspberry was very pulpy and the specified gelatin was perfect for it to be thick but still pourable. But my litchi puree was very runny and impatient as I was – started adding more gelatin to it and ended up with a very set litchi layer. At a temperature below 60F it goes from runny to set pretty quickly – so you need to play around with this.

The rose cream was very easy to make but you have to prepare this when you are about to assemble the verrine as it needs to be used immediately.

I did not use the PH macaron recipe but followed the one here and just added red food coloring to it. Instead of piping I flattened the macarons on a round stencil with a scraper. The disks were too small for the glass and were obscured by the rose petal.

 Even though the recipe was very sparse with its instructions it was not difficult to make but did involve a lot of components. It’s all worth the effort especially after digging one’s spoon into this refreshing dessert. Despite my very set litchi layer, its taste was very vivid and blended very well with all the other layers. My hubby hates floral tastes but agrees that the litchi complements the rose essence and the tartness of the raspberry rounds out the entire sweet creation.

 

Emotion Ispahan

by : Adapted from Pierre Herme Chicago Class

Composition

• Joconde biscuit
• Rose macaron biscuit disk
• Rose cream
• Raspberry gelee
• Litchi gelee
• Fresh Raspberries

Joconde biscuit

1000 g  eggs

750   g  almond powder

600   g            confectionary sugar

15     g liquid sorbitol

60     g  invert sugar  (trimoline)

20     g   emulsifier

200   g   flour (type 55)

150   g   melted butter

660   g   egg white

100   g   sucrose

Mix almond powder, trimoline, emulsifier, liquid sorbitol, confectionary sugar and half the eggs and whisk for 8 minutes. Add the remaining eggs in 2 additions and whisk for another 10-12 minutes. Mix a little of this mixture with the melted butter.

Make a meringue with the egg white and sucrose and fold into the first mixture. Fold in the flour and lastly the butter mixture.

Weigh 530 g of the mixture and place on a silpat-lined tray and spread the mixture using a palette knife to 2mm thickness. Bake at 230C for 8 minutes. Once cool, turn it over on a sugared silpat, take off the first silpat and sprinkle with some more sucrose.

Cut out discs of 3.5 and 4.5 cm and store in fridge or freezer.

Rose ganache

250  g   white chocolate couverture

250  g   cream

15    g   rose syrup

2      g  rose essence alcoholic

Melt the chocolate and boil the cream. Pour the crea over the chocolate and add rose syrup and rose essence alcholic. Blend and let cool.

Rose Cream

450  g rose ganache

300  g  cream

Whip the cream soft. Use the rose ganache at 30C, add the cream in 3 additions. Use immediately.

Raspberry gelee

500 g    raspberry puree

75   g    sucrose

10   g    gelatin leaves gold quality (200 blooms)

Soak gelatin leaves in cold water. Warm ¼ of the raspberry puree to 45C to dissolve the squeezed gelatin leaves. Mix well with the rest of the puree and sucrose.

Litchis gelee

600   g  Litchi puree

72     g sucrose

60     g  lemon juice

10     g  gelatin leaves gold quality (200 blooms)

Soak gelatin in cold water. Warm ¼ of litchi puree to 45C to dissolve the squeezed gelatin leaves. Mix well with the rest of the puree, lemon juice and sucrose.

Assembly:

Place 3 raspberries on the bottom of a glass. Top with 40g of the litchi gelee and 35 mm disk of joconde. Pour 40g of raspberry gelee on top. Place a 45 mm disk of joconde on it and finally 35g of rose cream. Garnish with a macaron biscuit disk, 1 rose petal (use glucose to attach it).