Whisk Wednesdays—Savarin aux Kiwis et aux Fraises (Rum Savarin with Kiwis and Strawberries)

"Tell me what you eat: I will tell you what you are."
— Brillat-Savarin

Today…
I am a bowl of cheerios with brown sugar and low-fat milk.
I am a venti non-fat latté with an extra shot {and sometimes whip} sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.
I am crunchy granola and vanilla yogurt.
I am an original Tim Tam.
I am a curried salmon salad on a homemade toasted sesame seed bagel.
{I am an A&W Teen burger, no pickles or onions.}
I am a glass of deep yellow vanilla chardonnay with tropical notes.
What are you?
A savarin is a French cake, similar to brioche since it contains yeast, but not as rich. It's named after Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin who was a famous politician, writer and gastronome from 18th century France. Brillat-Savarin wrote The Physiology of Taste, which has been called a "masterpiece on the subject of cooking as an art and eating as a pleasure" (according to Link).

Like brioche, the savarin ingredients are mixed to form a soft, sticky and shaggy ball that is left to grow under a damp cloth until doubled. Before baking, butter is slapped into the dough with "the fingertips of both hands." After putting it into your mold, it rests for another 15 minutes before baking.

While the savarin is cooling, you lovingly brush it with the melted syrup of sugar, rum and vanilla and then glaze it with warmed apricot jam.

Delicately placed slices of strawberries and kiwi garnish the dessert. And finally you add a spoonful of Chantilly cream or crème Chantilly, otherwise known as whipped cream, but according to ochef, "you have to dress up to eat it."

In the end you have a fancy, dense version of strawberry shortcake.

Recipe

Serves 6

For the Savarin:
1 cup all-purpose flour
¼ ounce fresh yeast or ¾ teaspoon dried yeast
1/3 cup warm milk
2 eggs, room temperature
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
Pinch salt
1 tablespoon sugar

For the Syrup:
1 cup sugar
¾ cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup dark rum
¾ cup Apricot Glaze (1-2 tablespoons water heated with apricot jam)

2 kiwifruit, peeled and sliced thin
½ pint basket small fresh strawberries, hulled and halved

For the Chantilly Cream:
1¼ cups heavy cream
3 tablespoons confectioner's sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Unsalted butter, softened, for savarin mold (I used a bundt pan.)
You can find the recipe for Savarin aux Kiwis et aux Fraises (Rum Savarin with Kiwis and Strawberries) in the book Le Cordon Bleu at Home. To see how the rest of the Whisk Wednesdays group fared with their recipe, click here (or check out the sidebar) and then click on each blogger!

Tasting Notes
This yeasty cake needs to be drenched and drowned in the rum syrup. Using homemade apricot jam and freshly-picked local berries would help improve the taste of this dessert. If you love strawberry shortcake, you'll enjoy this dessert but expect a little more chew in each bite of this clean, simple cake.

I am not a Savarin, but I am a dollop of crème Chantilly with a splash of rum syrup.
Links
• Baking Bites: Champagne Savarin
• Food History: Savarin Cake and the Celebrated Gourmand Brillat-Savarin
• Cannelle et Vanille: Lemon, Orange and Almond Savarin Cakes with Grapefruit Sorbet
• The Well-Seasoned Cook: Peaches and Dream – Peach Rum Savarin
• Gourmet: My Day on a Plate: Jacques Pépin

Next Class
• Menu 3, Part 1: Civet de Lapin à la Française (Rabbit Stew with Red Wine) pages 452-453

. . . . . . . . . .

Running total: $1,376.56 + $7.96 = $1,384.52
($1.33 per serving)

Butter used so far: 12 pounds, 11.5 tablespoons

. . . . . . . . . .

::Whisk Wednesdays::
We're cooking our way through a cooking school curriculum using the Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook. The "classes" are based on the Le Cordon Bleu curriculum found online and used as a guideline. Not all the items in the curriculum are in the cookbook, but most are. Where the items are not in the book, we try to find a suitable substitution. Find out more here.

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