Desserts and Indian Sweets
Domain 7 covers custards, puddings, mousses and traditional mithai. The exam looks for correct setting and thickening temperatures, the role of gelatine, and the specific technique behind a named Indian sweet.
Custards and puddings
Stirred custard (crème anglaise) thickens at 82–85 °C; above that the egg coagulates and curdles. Baked custards are cooked in a water bath at 150–160 °C so the egg sets gently. Starch-thickened pastry cream must boil for about a minute to cook out the starch and lose its raw taste.
Mousses and creams
A mousse is a base plus an aerator (whipped cream or meringue) plus a setting agent. Gelatine blooms in about five times its weight of cold water, dissolves at 45–60 °C, and sets in the refrigerator; boiling destroys its setting power. Chantilly cream is 30–35 % fat cream whipped with 8–10 % sugar.
Indian sweets
- Gulab jamun: khoya or milk powder dough, fried at 150–160 °C; hotter oil browns the outside while the centre stays raw. Soak in one-string syrup at 104–105 °C.
- Rasgulla: chenna curdled from milk with citric acid, kneaded smooth, cooked in one-string syrup; the syrup should stay light so the balls swell.
- Halwa, kheer, ladoo, barfi and jalebi depend on controlled stirring and sugar concentration.
Worked example
You are setting 500 g of mousse with gelatine at 1.5 % of total mass: 500 × 0.015 = 7.5 g gelatine. Bloom it in five times its weight of cold water: 7.5 × 5 = 37.5 g water. The bloomed mass is then 45 g, so if the recipe is tight on liquid, deduct that water from the milk in the base.
Traps that cost marks
- Boiling a custard and curdling it instead of stirring to 85 °C.
- Adding gelatine to hot mixture without blooming, giving lumps.
- Making jamun syrup too heavy, so the sweets turn hard and shrivelled.
- Letting kheer catch on the base of the pan and scorch.
- Over-draining chenna, which makes rasgulla tough.