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The musician

The musician

This trifle-style crema Catalana has an assortment of dry roasted nuts and is served with sweet wine. It is very common to find this on the menu in restaurants nowadays.

The musician

Serves 4
Cooking Time Prep time 15 mins, cook 5 mins (plus setting)
To serve:   mixed roast nuts and dried fruit, such as pistachios, almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, apricots, figs and whole prunes
Moscatel jelly
375 ml   moscatel (see note)
2   gelatine leaves (titanium strength), soaked in cold water
Crema Catalana
1   litre (4 cups) milk
35 gm   cornflour
7   egg yolks (from 60gm eggs)
200 gm   caster sugar
1   lemon, finely grated rind only
1   cinnamon quill


1 For moscatel jelly, bring moscatel to the boil in a saucepan over high heat. Squeeze excess water from gelatine and add to pan. Remove from heat, stir to dissolve gelatine and pass through a fine sieve. Cool to room temperature, then divide between four 1-cup capacity serving glasses. Refrigerate until softly set (3-4 hours).
2 Meanwhile for crema Catalana, combine 100ml milk with cornflour in a heatproof bowl. Stir to dissolve, add yolks, whisking to combine, and set aside. Combine remaining milk, sugar, lemon rind and cinnamon in a saucepan and bring to the boil over high heat. Pour over egg mixture, then return to pan and cook over low-medium heat, stirring continuously until mixture thickens (2-4 minutes). Pass through a fine sieve into a bowl, cool, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.
3 To serve, top moscatel jelly with crema Catalana, scatter dried fruit and nuts over and around and serve immediately.

Note Moscatel is a sweet wine made from muscat grapes, available from good liquor stores. If unavailable, substitute with another sweet muscat wine, such as moscato.

RECIPE Javier Codina PHOTOGRAPHY Ben Dearnley STYLING Lisa Featherby and Vanessa Austin

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