Ok the thought of pasta for dessert will probably turn many of you away. For those of you who are a little curious, read on…..
For some time now I have been curious about a sweet ravioli with a lovely fruity filling and a sweet sauce over them all. I have made pasta tons of times, so why not add a good deal of sugar to the dough and just see what happens? Tonight I finally put my curiosity to bed and made a sweet ravioli with a sweet creme fraiche filling and a blueberry sauce.
The filling was simple, creme fraiche combined with a tbsp of sugar mixed well together. The blueberry sauce again was simple, blitzed blueberries with a tiny bit of water and a tsp of sugar. The pasta, fairly straightforward. 100g ’00’ flour, 1 egg and …… 50g of sugar!?!
Make the pasta dough as per usual, wrap in cling film and lay aside for an hour. Once rested, put the dough through a pasta machine through every thickness level until you have a very thin sheet. Cut 12 equal squares, and place a tsp of the creme fraiche in the centre of 6 squares.
With a pastry brush, brush the edge of the pasta and stick the 6 other squares on top to form ravioli. I have a special pasta cutter that my mum gave me, I used this to sedate the edge of each ravioli to sea the sweet mixtures inside. Sweet mixture? Am I mad?
Boil the pasta for 3-5 minutes max before placing in a serving dish. Top with a drizzle of the blueberry sauce and a sprinkling of Parmesan (well icing sugar). So my dish does actually have the key elements of a fine pasta dish, nice freshly made pasta, a nice filling and a sauce to cover. Now comes the tricky bit, eating it! Sweet pasta????
To be perfectly honest, it didn’t taste as ridiculous as i thought it would. The dough was a little weird, but the combo of the creme fraiche and blueberry sauce was really very nice. So although I will not be making this too often in the future, my curiosity has been satisfied. I do recommend you try this at least once. It may not be your cup of tea, but you never know.
Pasta will forever be a part of my life, my culinary DNA but it will most likely be savoury from now on. You just never know until you try things, so I am glad I tried this. And additionally, god I’m getting much better at making ravioli. Next time I will reunite this food for the soul with some ‘normal’ ingredients.
Anyway, I hope I have not lost your confidence. Traditional, rustic cooking will resume tomorrow and I can’t wait.
J
James Forrest Food 