When we created the Ikea Swedish Tapas menu 6 months ago we started with a line of what the Spanish call “Leche Frita” which means Fried Milk. It is a very traditional dessert all over Spain and is very typical to eat at home.

It is made using Eggs, Milk and flour. Obviously to make it taste good you need to add some sugar, but that is it. It is like a set egg custard which gets floured and fried. Normally it has a real form about it and this is achieved through using flour. I love the flavor but I am not overly thrilled with the texture, so I made some changes.

The first one which I created was a Orange marmalade version which turned out fantastic as the acid slowly broke down the structure once it was already frozen, so when fried it turned out amazing! Once bitten into the cream slowly flowed to where it was broken and is like silk on your tongue. But as it was very fragile I needed to find a stronger way to hold it inside when cooking. To achieve this I used an amazing product which I didn’t know anything about before which is a bread flour, Bread crumbs which have been milled to weight of flour and once a product is coated in this it will hold in liquid. I will write a separate post on this at a later stage. The next coating on top of this is cornflakes as the crunch provides the ultimate contrast in texture and a welcome addition to the taste.

So this time I changed the flavor to one which I believe is even better……..

Elderflower! So I used the syrup which is available in Ikea and is one of the best I have ever tasted. A funny story is that I first learnt about this product Last year when I was in El Bulli, they also use it for an amazing dish that I love called Amber.

This time I also made some adjustments to the recipe as Ikea reported to me that although the texture was amazing, they were having many breaking in the cooking process. So this time I added some methylcellulose to ensure the gel would hold the liquid in while hot and melt to a liquid when the people are eating it. So mission achieved! And if I can say a result that is even better than the 1st as the perfume from the Elderflower is beautiful!

This entry was posted on Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 15:07 and is filed under Food, Techniques, Wisdom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.