Can you brûlée on top of a foam?

[Josho]

The topic title pretty much says it all. I want to make a chilled zabaglione-type foam and brûlée it, but I'm wondering if the foam is apt to deflate quickly under the heat of a torch.

Has anyone tried this? If so, did it work, and are there any tips you can pass along?

Thank you!

Josh

[mkayahara]

I haven't tried it personally, but there's a Ferran Adria siphon-based meringue that can be brûléed, so it is possible. I imagine having an ample amount of sugar is helpful.

[Josho]

Thank you so much! I'll give it a try tonight and see what happens. Should be interesting!

Josh

[pep.]

I tried this once with a foamed crème anglaise, but it didn't work very well. The foam deflated rather visibly before the caramel could properly form.

[pastrygirl]

Francisco Migoya can: http://www.thequenelle.com/

I guess much depends on the stability of the foam. I use the torch to pop bubble on my creme brulee base before I bake it, but that is not very stable. I feel like I have bruleed zabaglione in the past, but it's hazy.

Edited November 3, 2012 by pastrygirl (log)

[Tellus]

The past year I've made brulee'd zabaglione daily. The success of it depends on the ratios in your recipe. A higher ratio of sugar in zabaglione makes it easier to brulee, it also tends to make it denser. When you have a recipe with less sugar you can still get a brulee it just takes longer which gives the foam more time to deflate underneath the torch. It'd probably work to dust it with castor sugar before torching it, for some reason I never tried it though.

[Bojana]

I made tonight Migoya inspired chocolate mousse brulee. It worged great with exception of one thing - caramel took time to set and was still not britle when we started eating. I did not have Migoya's chill spray, and warm chocolate did not help. If your foam is cold, that may work better. I used castor sugar.

[Hendrik]

I saw someone do a creme brulee by first making a caramel (Don't remember if it was just sugar he put in it), let it harden and then blend it to a fine powder. He would then sprinkle the caramel powder through a sieve on top of the creme and he only needed to slightly warm the caramel till it was liquid again and let it harden. That way you decrease the time you need to use the blowtorch drastically which could be in favor of the foam.

[nickrey]

I'd be using a radiant form of heat rather than a torch as it doesn't have the gas being pushed out at pressure. Perhaps a traditional salamander might be best.