Baking Mad with Eric Lanlard

Eric demonstrated some molecular gastronomy to the Sainsbury's bake club on Baking Mad

For the raspberry pearls

• 800g raspberries (to make 450g raspberry coulis)
• 100g stock syrup (100g sugar and 100ml water, heated until sugar dissolves)
• 15g calcium lactate
• 3g xanthan gum

For the alginate bath

• 1 litre water
• 50g sugar
• 8g sodium alginate
• 10 drops raspberry flavouring

For the cherry foam

• 250ml cherry juice (available from big supermarkets)
• 2.5g hy-foamer
• 2.5g xanthan gum
• 5 drops cherry flavouring

For the mini raspberry tarts

• Mini sweet pastry cases
• 250g mascarpone cheese
• 400g fresh raspberries
• 1 tsp vanilla sugar

To assemble

• Edible flowers
• Violet flavouring spray
• Bee pollen

1. For the raspberry pearls, make a coulis by blitzing the raspberries in a food processer then passing through a sieve to remove the seeds. Place the coulis in a pan and add stock syrup, calcium lactate and xanthan gum. Mix and heat to boiling point, then remove from heat and pass mix through a sieve into bowl. Place to one side and leave to cool.

2. Prepare the alginate bath by placing the water in pan and heating. Place sugar and sodium alginate in a separate bowl and set to one side. Once the water is hot, add the sugar mix and whisk until sugar dissolved, then remove from heat. Finally add raspberry flavouring to this mixture and place to one side to cool.

3. Once both mixtures are completely cold (don’t put in fridge though as the mixtures may set), take the raspberry coulis, scoop 1 teaspoon of mixture and carefully place into the alginate bath. Leave the raspberry pearls in the alginate bath for 10 minutes to set. Once set, remove and carefully rinse in cold water. These are now ready to eat!

4. For the cherry foam, place the cherry juice in a bowl, add the xanthan gum and hy-foamer and whisk with an electric mixer until foamy. Add the cherry flavouring and combine.

5. For the mini raspberry tarts, place the mascarpone in a bowl and mix in the vanilla sugar until smooth. Spoon the mascarpone into the bottom of the tart cases and decorate with lines of fresh raspberries.

6. To assemble, place a raspberry tart on the plate and add raspberry pearls to the side with any spare raspberries. Decorate the plate with a line of cherry foam, place some colourful edible flowers on the plate and sprinkle with bee pollen and a spritz of violet flavouring. Finally dust over some icing sugar.