Many avoid recipes with gelatine. The handling of animal protein is easier than many think. Tips and tricks so that nothing runs off the dessert spoon.
Munich (dpa / tmn) - The cream should be cut-resistant. Otherwise, it will swell out of the cake when it is cut. Or the dessert runs off the spoon. To prevent this from happening, gelatin is often required.
"Gelatin is also suitable for a shiny glaze for fruit cakes, traditionally for strawberry cakes," says Paula Rinnerer from the Munich start-up "Kuchentratsch". Here gelatin scores with the fact that it covers the fruit, protects it from oxygen and thus makes the fruit last longer.
But be careful: "There are some fruits that don't go well with gelatin," warns Franziska Engels from Backen.de, the digital baking assistant from Dr. Oetker. Fresh pineapples, figs, papayas and kiwifruit have enzymes that hinder the effect of gelatin. This enzyme is destroyed by heating the fruit. "For example, canned pineapples can be easily processed with gelatin," explains Engels.
Gelatin is available ground or as leaves
Important to know: gelatin is not just gelatin. They are available in ground form and as leaves. "They differ only in the application, but not in the result," says Engels. Both firm liquids and creams alike.
What speaks for leaf gelatin: "It is easier to dose," says Rinnerer. You can take individual leaves and thus stabilize even the smallest amounts of cream. A whole packet (usually 27 grams) is often used for ground gelatin. Because with smaller quantities it is often difficult to dose them exactly.
In the case of ground gelatin, it is soaked in a liquid that is processed at the same time. With leaf gelatin, however, the amount of liquid does not have to be taken into account. After soaking, the leaves are pressed out and processed.
When it comes to firming a cream consisting of cream, curd cheese, mascarpone or cream cheese, less gelatin is required due to the firmer consistency of the starting mass.
Before the gelatin is dissolved, it is allowed to swell. A bag of ground gelatin is mixed with six tablespoons of water or another liquid and must then swell for five minutes. Leaf gelatin comes in a bowl of cold water, swells there for about five to ten minutes and is then well expressed by hand.
Gelatin works with hot or cold masses
Then it depends on whether the gelatin is processed in cold or hot masses. If something cold, such as cake cream, is used, the gelatin is dissolved over low heat with stirring. "It is important that the gelatin does not boil, otherwise the structure of the gelatin that stands is destroyed and the cream does not become really firm," warns Engels.
In the next step, the temperatures of the cream and the gelatin are slowly adjusted. "To do this, add two to three tablespoons of the cream to the liquid gelatin and mix everything together," explains Rinnerer. This is repeated until the gelatin-cream mixture is at room temperature. Then stir the mixture into the rest of the cream. "Temperature compensation is important because otherwise threads will form," says Rinnerer.
In hot masses, such as when preparing a panna cotta or the classic coating of strawberry cake, gelatin can simply be stirred into the hot, non-boiling liquid until it has completely dissolved.
If you want to do without gelatin when preparing meals or baking, you can use vegetable variants such as agar agar and pectin.
Recipe for cheese cream cake with blueberries
The recipe "Cheese Cream Cake with Blueberries" comes from Dr. Oetker. Allow 50 minutes for preparation, another 25 minutes for baking and 3 hours and 45 minutes for cooling and resting. Please use a springform pan with a diameter of 26 centimeters.
Ingredients:
170 grams of wheat flour, four level teaspoons of baking powder, 350 grams of sugar, 2 packets of vanilla sugar, 1 pinch of salt, 170 grams of butter, 4 eggs (size M), 2 packets of ground gelatin, 150 milliliters of water, 1 kilogram of quark, 1 packet of grated lemon peel, 15 milliliters of lemon juice, 70 grams of blueberry powder, 500 grams of whipped cream, 360 grams of blueberries, a little powdered sugar.
Preparation:
1. Clamp a sheet of baking paper with the edge of the springform pan - so that the cake base can be easily removed from the mold later. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees top and bottom heat (160 degrees convection).
2. For the dough, put 170 grams of wheat flour and four level teaspoons of baking powder in a mixing bowl and mix well. Add 170 grams of sugar, 1 packet of vanilla sugar and 1 pinch of salt. Then add 170 grams of soft butter and four eggs - mix together for two minutes at the highest setting so that a smooth dough is created. Pour the dough into the springform pan, smooth it out and bake in the lower third of the oven for 25 minutes.
3. Then carefully remove the baked cake base from the springform pan with a knife and place the cake base on a rack covered with baking paper. Let cool for 45 minutes. Then remove the baking paper from the bottom and cut the bottom horizontally with a bread knife.
4. Now put 2 packets of ground gelatin together with 150 milliliters of water in a small bowl and let the gelatin swell for about five minutes. In the meantime, stir 180 grams of sugar, 1 packet of vanilla sugar, 1 kg of curd cheese and 1 packet of grated lemon zest in a mixing bowl with a whisk.
5. Now put the gelatin mass in a small saucepan and heat up on the stove. Stir carefully until the gelatin begins to dissolve. Then add 15 milliliters of lemon juice.
6. In the next step, seven tablespoons of the curd mass are added to the dissolved gelatin in the small saucepan. Mix everything well with a whisk. Now add the gelatin mass from the small saucepan to the remaining curd cheese mass and stir thoroughly with a whisk until a smooth mass has formed.
Next, add 2 tablespoons of blueberry powder to the curd cheese mass. Mix everything well. Set the curd cheese aside and beat 500 grams of cold whipped cream until stiff. Carefully lift the whipped cream under the curd mixture using a whisk.
7. Wash 360 grams of blueberries and drain well in a sieve. Use a dough scraper to carefully lift the blueberries under the curd cheese mass - but do not crush them.
8. Next, place the bottom of the two trays on a cake plate. Place the clean edge of a springform pan or a cake ring around the bottom. Spread the curd mixture evenly on the floor and smooth out with a spatula. Then place the top bottom on the cream and press gently. The cake must now be in the fridge for 3 hours. So the cream becomes nice and firm and the cake gains stability.
9. Then carefully cut with a knife along the edge of the cake and remove the springform pan edge. Sprinkle the cake with some icing sugar and some blueberry powder. Finally, mix a little powdered sugar and some blueberry powder with a little water in a small bowl and drizzle with the top of the cake. Decorate with blueberries.