Double Boiler for Italian Dessert Tartlets

Video Transcript

"I have set up kind of a makeshift double boiler. You can buy one of these, and I know my mom had one of these growing up. You just need a big pot with a fourth to a half an inch of water, and you'll just need a nice glass bowl to put on top. The point of a double boiler; the heat from the boiling water is going to be an indirect source of heat on your bowl. You don't want a direct source of heat for this. You can't put this in a microwave, or on a stove, it?s just too much heat for this dish; it?s really, really delicate; but you also don't want the boiling water to be touching it. That's why we only have a very small amount of water in there. So that we just have the steam coming up. That creates a double boiler. I already have the Marsala wine measured and set off to the side. When I'm working with this on the double boiler, I want to be able to work continuously. Whisking continuously, while pouring Marsala wine into the eggs and sugar. I don't want to have to stop to pour it into the measuring cup, and put it down; that's too long. I want to be able to work continuously at the double boiler. We're adding the Marsala wine very slowly. The point of putting this over the double boiler and getting that heat; we want to cook the eggs so that you're not eating raw egg. However; you do need to stream this in and whisk consistently, I mean, sorry, continuously because you don't want a scrambled egg; that's gross. You want to be whisking the entire time. That's why it was so important to have this pre-measured. I'll tell you what you're looking for; when you know it'd done. Two things; one is color, and I'll be honest, that's a little bit...that can be variable. I use a little bit darker color of a sugar. That's just the sugar I like to use, so mine is going to come out a little darker than normal, but it's typically a pale yellow. Again, mine is a little darker because of the color sugar I use. The other thing that you're looking for is the consistency of it. Right now, it's pretty liquidy, from the wine. What you want is when you're whisking it, once you get to the point where you can pull your whisk through it, or pull a spoon through it and it creates just a slight little river, you're done. Take it off right then. I've made the mistake before. Don't think, oh, just a little bit longer; I need a little bit bigger river through the middle of it. Don't do it, because you'll overcook the egg. I've done that before. As soon as it makes just that little parting way through there, and you'll see it when it happens; see how it's not doing it yet?, It just all streams together; it's still too liquidy. We're going to keep whisking it, and you want to get it off the heat. When you're ready to take it off, you'll want to take it off quickly because there's still going to be heat in the bowl, so it will actually continue to cook. So if you have to err on either side, err on the side of undercooked, if you think it is. Simply because it will continue to cook, and you don't want to overcook it. We're right on schedule. I can tell it's getting just a little bit thicker; I can just feel it in my whisk, of course, it's very foamy. You see how it's moving just a little bit slower across there? We're getting there. Patience is a virtue. As you can see, the color is a nice light yellow, it's a beautiful color. Once it starts to thicken it thickens pretty quickly, so we're about to that point. See how thick it is? Look at that. It's starting to leave a little bit more of a trail when I go across it. That's about where you want it, so I'm going to remove it right now before it gets overcooked. Be careful, the steam will get you; I like to step back a little. I'm going to go ahead and remove that all. Again, there's still heat in the bottom of that bowl. Now actually whisking this without the heat is releasing a lot of the heat in there, so this is actually to help it cool down. Next, I'm actually going to put it in a separate container so it can cool a bit quicker. I'm going to stick it in the fridge. You can't just put some..well, I would put it in a separate container. I was about to say that you could leave it in this container to cool, but it makes me nervous for it to keep cooking in that hot container. I would remove it, which I'm going to do. You can even see it's even thickened since I've taken it off the double boiler. Look at that, just in the last thirty seconds. Look at that, it's much thicker. Now it's like a nice custard, and we don't want any more. At this point, if it cooks any more it will just taste like egg, and that's not good, but right now, it's yummy."