Gordon Ramsay’s Roasted Peaches with Lemon, Lime and Basil Crème Fraiche
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 150g ready-made white marzipan
- A little icing sugar, for rolling and sweetening
- 200g granulated sugar
- 1 small lemon (juice, optional)
- Bunch fresh basil, about 50g
- 4 large fairly firm peaches, halved and stoned
- Crème fraiche
- 1 lime, zest only
- 1 lemon, zest and juice
- 250g fresh raspberries, plus 125g extra for serving
- 1-2 tbsp Grand Marnier
- Toasted flaked almonds to serve
Method
1. Dust the worktop lightly with sifted icing sugar and roll the marzipan out to the thickness of a £1 coin. Cut out eight circles using a 10 or 11cm cutter (use a small saucer as a template if you don’t have a large enough cutter), re-rolling the marzipan trimmings if necessary.
2. Using a blowtorch, brown each marzipan disc evenly until it turns a caramel colour. Set aside.
3. Heat the sugar and 500ml water slowly in a saucepan until the sugar starts to dissolve, stirring once or twice. Meanwhile, peel 3 or 4 strips of zest from the lemon using a swivel peeler, and drop into the sugar and water. When the sugar has dissolved, bring the mixture to the boil, then boil for about 5 minutes so you have a medium-strength syrup. Pick out a good handful of small basil leaves and reserve for the crème fraiche. Put the rest of the basil leaves and stalks into the hot syrup.
4. Slip the halved peaches into the syrup. Poach on a low heat for 5 – 6 minutes. Remove from stock. When cool enough to handle, peel the skin off each peach and the stone should fall out, place in an ovenproof frying pan over a med heat and drizzle the Grand Marnier over and boil then sprinkle with icing sugar. Transfer to the oven and bake for 6-7 mins.
5. Mix the crème fraiche with the lemon and lime zest. Roll the remaining basil leaves together, slice finely and mix into the crème fraiche.
6. Whizz the raspberries in a blender. Start on low and gradually increase, adding 4 tbsp syrup to thin a little. Pour through a fine sieve into a bowl, rubbing with the back of a spoon. Add lemon juice and icing sugar to taste if needed.
7. To serve, spoon a little crème fraiche onto the plates and use it to ‘fix’ the marzipan discs to the plates so they don’t slide around. Spoon more crème fraiche on top of the discs. Arrange a peach half, cut side up, on top of the crème fraiche and sit another half, cut side down on top – so you now have a whole peach. Repeat for the remaining plates. Finally spoon around the raspberry coulis and sprinkle over the flaked toasted almonds.
