Pain Perdu, Pineapple and Coconut

We haven't been to Marcus Wareing's eponymous restaurant since it was re-branded.  It's a little art-deco jewel-box of a restaurant, but the atmosphere seemed just as hushed at lunchtime as before... Still.  The food was good, and I was particularly enamoured with this dish - a little chef's joke...  The pineapple tastes of coconut, which initially confuses the senses, especially as you try to work out how... I pressed the waitress, it's clearly compressed, because of the texture, but what with? And then of course it struck me - Malibu - the scent led me by my nose to my teenage years.  Malibu.  When was the last time you tasted Malibu?  Well, rest assured, in this dish it's absolutely delicious, as long as you like coconut and pineapple.

Coconut Milk Creme Patisserie [Thermomix]

I use the standard Creme Patisserie recipe on the blog a lot, but in a recent recipe (which contained a coconut curd), I thought I might make a coconut milk variation - after all the fat content of coconut milk is quite high, and the consistency can be similar to milk.  I altered the recipe slightly, but that was because I included 30ml of Malibu, and an increased quantity of flour - I wanted to be able to pipe the creme pat into quite stiff peaks on the plate, for a specific dessert.

Coconut Cream Ice-Cream, with Lime Zest [Thermomix]

There are lots of recipes for coconut milk ice-cream, especially with the rise of the "raw" diner (where a dish is not cooked in any way), and the number of vegans (who can't eat any dairy).  My own persuasion of 'pescetarianism' is supposed to mean that I don't eat dairy (because of my osteo-arthritis), but the reality is that I will have the odd cappuccino, the odd ice-cream, and the occasional bit of chocolate.  Luckily I've was put-off cream for life whilst working for six months in a bakery on Saturdays - there's nothing like free cream slices for your break to put-you-off forever!

Tribute Dish - the Roux Pre-Dessert - panna cotta, jelly and granita... [Thermomix]

At Roux Parliament Square, the pre-dessert is a panna cotta, topped with a jelly, and then a refreshing granita. On the day I went we had a coconut/passion fruit/lime, but I notice from trawling reviews that they also do apple/apple/cucumber (yum!), pineapple/coconut/kaffir lime, strawberry/strawberry/meringue.  So it's a very successful formula, onto which you can put your own twist.  If you're going to do this regularly, you'll need some better glasses than mine, I'm on the lookout for something far prettier, a little like this...