Andalusia · Dessert
Tocino de Cielo
- Advanced
- 30 min
- roughly 1 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with a sweet edge rounding the corners, richness that coats and comforts, melting away silken.
Ingredients
- 12 egg yolks
- 250 g caster sugar
- 125 ml water
- 1 strip of lemon peel, no pith
- 60 g caster sugar for the caramel
- 15 ml water for the caramel
Equipment
Bain-marie
The skills inside
Sugar stages & caramelStraining & passing through a sieveThe wobble & the skewer: testing a bake
Allergen screen
Found: egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Cook the 60 g of sugar with its water to a light amber caramel and swirl it around a warm mould to coat the base and a finger's depth of the sides, then leave it to set hard.
- Boil the remaining sugar and water with the lemon peel to 105 to 110C (220 to 230F), the point where a cooled drop pulled between finger and thumb draws a short thread.
- Stir the yolks smooth without whisking air into them, trickle the hot syrup in slowly while stirring, then pass the mixture through a fine sieve.
- Pour into the caramelled mould, cover with foil and bake in a bain marie at 150C (300F) for about 40 minutes, until the centre wobbles as one piece and a skewer comes out with only a film on it. 40 min
- Cool, chill for four hours, then turn out so the caramel runs down the sides.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Sugar stages & caramel 53 recipes
- Nothing is stirred once it is boiling, and any crystals clinging to the side of the pan are brushed down rather than left to fall in.
- Judged by temperature or by a tested stage rather than by time: consecutive stages are a few degrees apart and look identical in the pan.
- Colour is read off the heat and in good light, remembering that sugar keeps darkening after the flame is out.
- Stopped decisively at the point wanted: off the heat and into the next liquid or onto a cold surface, rather than left to coast in a hot pan.
- The result is clear and smooth rather than grainy, cloudy, or seized into a solid mass.
Where it goes wrong It was stirred after coming to the boil, or a stray crystal from the side of the pan fell back in. One crystal seeds the whole pan and the syrup turns grainy within seconds, and once sugar has crystallised the only cure is more water and starting the whole thing again.
The wobble & the skewer: testing a bake 135 recipes
- Tested at the true centre and the thickest point, not at the convenient edge: the edge is done long before the answer is.
- The skewer comes out as the recipe describes, clean and dry or carrying the stated moist crumb, and it does the same on a second test in a different spot.
- The wobble is read in motion: nudged, the centre moves as one set mass with a faint tremble, rather than a liquid ripple travelling across the surface.
- The other signs agree with the test: risen and just shrinking from the sides, the top set and dry to a light touch with no wet gloss on it.
- Pressed lightly at the middle it springs back and leaves no lasting dent.
Where it goes wrong It was judged on the clock and on how the edges looked, so a centre still liquid went to the rack and sank as it cooled, a dense wet seam under a perfectly browned top.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Moscato d’Asti
- Also Right
- Late-harvest Riesling
- From the Taps
- Witbier
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling elderflower
Citrus desserts need a wine sweeter than they are, with acid enough to keep up: light, frothy, and low-proof wins.
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