DaveGamble

FWIW, I pushed a poorly set version of the sauce,cream,meringue recipe above through the whipper, and resulting consistency was perfect. Seemed to stay fairly well set too.

Hi, I'm working on making a butterscotch mousse which resembles Angel Delight, which is a powdered custard which sets to a set foam. Closest recipe I've found online is: http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/butterscotch-mousse--1395 which is a mixture of a butterscotch sauce (3:4:4 mix of butter:brown sugar:cream), whipped cream (:8) and French meringue (:3); the recipe calls for simply folding all three together avoiding deflation. It's fiddly, but mostly works, (doesn't set great) but it seems a clumsy strategy when there's a whipper around. Also, there's a notable absence of egg yolk (or gelatine for that matter), which would make it a 'proper' custard. Does anyone have any advice on strategies for making a quick set foam based on a sauce (like the butterscotch here)? I'm considering trying something like: Blend warm Butterscotch sauce:cream:yolk (11:8:2), into whipper, charge, shake and serve. (Possibly tempering the yolk into the sauce) I'm just not sure what each ratio adjusts in the final recipe. I've seen strategies like: blend sauce:xanthan:soy lecithin (100:100:1:1) charge and serve, which will obviously be less creamy, though I'm always a little concerned as to whether the final consistency will be too thick to dispense. So, if anyone has any thoughts/ideas/experience they'd be happy to share, I'm all ears!

Ought I worry that adding the stabilisers will make it harder to dispense from the iSi? I'm going to keep balancing the ratios and see where I get to, and then have a go at adding the stabilisers.

It /appears/ that the trick here is to use the cream and water to prevent it from turning to glue. I've previously tried puréeing potato without water/cream and it does just turn to unchargeable goop, so your intuition is correct. There's balancing going on in this recipe to stop that from happening.

Hi all, Potatoes used are Vivaldi, which are apparently lower in carbohydrate content than typical potatoes. This may be at issue. Nonetheless, I ventured on with reducing water content. Quick summary: My direct version of Adrià: 250g diced, boiled potatoes 100g water the potatoes were cooked in 125g double cream (50.5%) Process: Blend all ingredients until fine, funnel into 1L iSi, charge with 3 shots, shake vigorously, transfer to 70º bain. That was the method from thread start. Just retried it with: 250g diced, boiled potatoes 60g water the potatoes were cooked in 125g double cream Resulting foam was a lot more firm - scary moment (should I have expected this?) on first pull of the trigger on the iSi where I wasn't entirely sure that the foam would actually emerge. I suppose that's to be expected. Blending was a little harder with the reduced water content (previously turning up the speed was enough), but a spatula and some care fixed that. Also 2g or so of salt to season, which I really don't believe affected the firmness, but helped the flavour as you'd expect. Further, I think 2 charges might well be adequate. From here, I'm going to experiment with reducing the cream to 87g, which equates to the matching fat content in Adrià's original recipe (125*0.35/0.5). Will post results. Will also try using two charges (as a separate try). Cheers all!

Hi, I'm attempting to perfect a hot potato foam, and was hoping I could get some advice! I'm working from Adrià's recipe here: http://www.foodsfromspain.com/icex/cda/controller/pageSGT/0,9459,35868_6908153_6910167_4459102,00.html Because it's very short, I'm pasting the recipe here: Ingredients: 250 gr potatoes for mashing 100 gr potato cooking water 125 gr cream, 35% fat content 35 gr extra virgin olive oil 500 ml ISI siphon 2 N2O chargers salt Preparation: Peel and cut the potatoes and place in cold, salted water. Bring to the boil and cook for approximately 20 minutes. When cooked, drain and reserve the water. Place the cooked potato and 100 g / 3 1/2 oz cooking water in the Thermomix at 60ºC / 140ºF. Blend and gradually pour in the cream. Do the same with the oil until a very thin, smooth emulsion is formed. Season with salt. Strain and fill the siphon using a funnel. Charge the siphon and place in a bain-marie at approx. 70ºC / 158ºF. The problem I'm having is with the consistency of the foam - I'd like it to be a little more set, as it is in the picture on the page. The changes I'm making to his recipe are: - Replacing thermomix with regular blender (though the blending is pretty quick, and then it's straight into the bain marie) - Using 1l siphon (with 3 charges: using 3, I think I can hear the pressure equalizing) - Amount of shaking is not specified in the instructions. I've tried different degrees of shaking, to not much avail. - Excluding the olive oil seems to make no difference to the texture. Tried both with and without. - I'm using 50% fat content cream instead of 35%. That last point sticks out to me as the most likely to be problematic... but it's the opposite of my intuition - I'd expect a higher fat content cream to yield a thicker, more stable foam, not a thinner foam. A post on the MC forums suggests being careful not to overblend the mixture - but this is also in contrast to Adrià's recipe, and also the MC recipe involves explicit use of thickening agents. So... has anyone any experience with this? Is the cream the issue? Should I ensure a minimum length of time in the bain marie to compensate for the lack of a thermomix? Should I just throw in some Xanthan to help it out...? Ideally, I'd like to figure out how Adrià gets it to set!