cereal milk

a quick flick through the momofuku cook book made it abundantly clear that most of the recipes in here are multi-dimensional and time consuming. this cereal milk dessert is no exception, comprises four main components:

• cereal milk custard
• caramelised cornflakes
• chocolate-hazelnut thing (which requires you to make praline)
• avocado puree

however, with a cereal-loving boyfriend, adventurous friends expected for supper and a day off i decided to give it a try and kick the year off in style. so, how did i get on?

it went quite well. as expected the dish is time-consuming and you have to multi-task to make best use of your time – this took most of the morning to make.

the custard – this was a bit of a disaster as it didn’t set within the 30 minutes stated. i decided not to risk a semi-set disaster so put it in the freezer and served my guests cereal milk semifreddo, rather than a wobbly custard. this worked really well and i liked the soft, semi-frozen texture. the flavour is fabulous – toasted cornflakes give a  malty flavour which is very reminiscent of the slightly sweet milk you get at the end of your bowl of cereal.

caramelised cornflakes – the cornflakes are mixed with melted butter, sugar, salt and milk powder before being toasted so that they caramelise. these are very moreish and would be a great topping on iced vanilla cupcakes

chocolate-hazelnut thing (yes, it is called that in the book) – i didn’t follow the momofuku praline paste recipe as pouring hot caramel into my food processor seemed like a crazy idea. instead i just poured it over my toasted hazelnuts and then, after they had cooled, blitzed it to a fine powder. this was mixed with dark chocolate and various other ingredients to create a very rich and delicious flavoured chocolate.

avocado puree – this as the easiest bit, it’s exactly what it says, with a bit of sugar, salt and citrus added.

as a whole the dish was fabulous. the components all work well together, including the avocado, and the hint of salt that various components have (salt is added to every component) meant that the sweetness of  the dish was tempered. having said this, i still found it an incredibly rich pudding and only managed half of my portion.

it’s a real wow dessert and definitely worth the time and effort, especially if you want to make something a bit different.