Cherry and Kiwifruit Savarin

August 27, 2002

Having successfully removed the last traces of plaster dust from my house, I set to the other day to turn the place into something resembling the interior of Australia. Anyone who has visited the country across the ditch from New Zealand will know that outside the main cities there are vast tracts of outback land covered in red dust.

We have a staircase that is situated in a conservatory-like area. The stringers and banister are made of jarrah, a beautiful rich red wood. However, 12 years of sun beating in had bleached the polyurethane finish to something more resembling beech. There was nothing for it but to get down and dirty and scrape off the layers until the red timber re-emerged.

The builder and I scraped and sanded up a storm until every horizontal surface in the area was covered in red dust. Even the vertical surfaces held their share. The Spouse whiled away a couple of pleasant hours at the weekend cleaning up the new paintwork.

Unfortunately I had to head out of town for a funeral last week, and left the builder to repaint the wood. The smell of it was enough for me. He later confessed that by the time he'd got round to doing the fourth coat, sun beating in on his head, the fumes had made him pretty high.

It is good to be able to entertain friends again and brush up the formal cooking skills. I must have been out of practice because halfway through making a dessert for our most recent guests, I completely forgot the task at hand.

The Spouse called and suggested we go down to his lawn bowls club for a meal on Friday night. I leapt at the chance of eating someone else's cooking. Unfortunately there was no welcoming aroma of cooking food as we entered the clubhouse. Seems the cooks were away for a couple of weeks and this was one of them. We consoled ourselves with a packet of potato crisps and a drink before heading home to put a frozen curry in the microwave.

That was when I opened the cupboard where the underbench water heater resides and was greeted by the awesome sight of a yeast dough that had well and truly undergone its second rising. The water cylinder, the "warm place" I use for proving dough, was liberally draped in the stuff. Well, at least I knew the yeast hadn't passed its "use by" date.

I jettisoned the excess and there still seemed to be plenty of dough so I gave it a third rising and put it in the oven and fortunately all worked out all right. In fact it was one of the lightest, fluffiest savarins I have made.

A savarin is named after the famed French father of gastronomy, Brillat-Savarin, author of The Physiology of Taste: Or, Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy. It is a yeast cake soaked with rum syrup and served with fresh fruit and cream. I like it as a dinner party dessert as it can be made the day before - provided you remember to cook it!

I like to use a fluted kugelhopf mould for baking the savarin as it turns out a fancier creation. But you can use a ring tin, which is pretty similar to a traditional savarin pan.

You can vary the alcohol you use for soaking the finished dessert. Rum is traditional but as I had chosen to serve my savarin with canned cherries and fresh kiwifruit, I opted for a mix of brandy and amaretto - an almond flavoured liqueur.

By way of a change from the usual green kiwifruit, I chose the newer gold variety. It's less furry and more tear-shaped. The flavour is more mellow. You can read about how this new fruit was developed at http://www.zespri.com/zgold.asp?zgoldid=...

Cherry and Kiwifruit Savarin

1 tablespoon dried yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
150ml warm milk
3 eggs
275g flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
30g icing (confectioner's) sugar
90g butter
1 can pitted cherries
3 or 4 gold or green kiwifruit
1/4 cup brandy
2 tablespoons amaretto
orange juice

Sprinkle the sugar and yeast onto the warm milk and set aside for 10 minutes. Whisk to ensure the yeast is smoothly incorporated with the milk Whisk the eggs together lightly and add to the milk mixture. Sift the flour and salt and make a well in the centre. Pour in the milk and eggs and beat well until the dough is smooth.

Cover and put the bowl in a warm place for about 45 minutes.

Beat together the softened butter and icing sugar until well combined. Beat into the risen dough.

Liberally grease a kugelhopf mould or a ring tin with butter and spoon in the yeast dough. Cover and set aside again until the dough rises enough to almost fill the tin.

Preheat the oven to 225C and bake the savarin for 10 minutes then turn the heat back to 180C and cook a further 20 minutes. Inset a skewer through the savarin to check if it is cooked. Allow to sit for 10 minutes then unmould onto a serving plate.

Tip the cherries and liquid into a bowl and add the brandy and amaretto - or the liquor of your choice. When you are ready to soak the cake, drain off the cherry juice and make up to 300ml with orange juice or a sugar/water syrup. Heat the liquid and pour slowly over the cake.

Peel the kiwifruit and slice. Cut each slice in half. Place some of the cherries and kiwifruit in the hole in the centre of the cake. Save some for decoration. Pipe whipped cream rosettes on top of the cake and decorate with halved cherries and kiwifruit slices.

Serve with whipped cream.