Couer à la Creme gone wrong
Well, I bought the special little pan with the holes in it; I bought all the calorie-laden ingredients; I stayed up until 3:00am after I finished watching a movie and made the recipe even though I REALLY wanted to go to bed. I just have wanted to make this forever and was having guests over tonight so I figured we would have this beautiful dessert . . . well, something went wrong. It never really firmed up, even though it chilled in the fridge until 8:00pm tonight. When I unmolded it, it was just BARELY a heart shape and really runny in the middle. All the pictures I have seen look like the heart is quite firm. My ingredients were cream cheese, whipping cream, vanilla bean, powdered sugar and lemon zest. Does it maybe need a bit of gelatin so it will firm up more like a panna cotta? The recipe said to line the mold with a damp paper towel, although most recipes I have seen call for using cheese cloth. Could that be part of the problem, maybe it didnt drain out enough moisture? Help me figure out what I did wrong!
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6 Comments:
Without seeing the full recipe, I think you might just have needed more time to let it finish draining. Usually you need a good full 24 hours of draining.
Amandarama at 7:13AM on 02/23/09
You need to beat the heavy cream and cream cheese until they are quite stiff so that the couer is firm before you put it in the mold.
gutreactions at 10:25AM on 02/23/09
i also think cheesecloth would be a better bet for draining purposes than the paper towel.
cybercita at 12:06PM on 02/23/09
for me its most important that 1) the cream cheese is room temp, 2) the cream is cold and 3) the mixuture is drained overnight....
I don't mean to be insulting if those are things you already knew/tried. Was it a humid day/evening?
mhurst826 at 10:17PM on 02/23/09
No, it wasn't particularly humid. The more I think about it, I just really don't think that paper towel liner was the way to go (even though that particular recipe called for it). Maybe my paper towels are too thick? So . . . . I'm going to get some cheesecloth for the next go round. Also, the mixture just seemed REALLY fluffy from all that whipped cream--it seemed to just be a sweet fluff even after it had chilled for almost 16 hours. So frustrating!
gourmetgal at 12:19AM on 02/24/09
Maybe it got mad at you because you spelled it wrong......Coeur, not couer. Sorry, self-appointed spelling nazi here. ;)
I second the cheesecloth/muslin for ultimate drainage. I'm thinking paper towel would just soak up the moisture and kind of "glug" at the bottom rather than drain.
vegemite at 1:21AM on 02/24/09