Goxua (Basque burnt cream)
- Portion size: Makes 6
- Prep time 25 min, plus cooling. Cook time 35 min
- Difficulty: easy
Goxua is an irresistible dessert from the Basque Country in northern Spain. Rum-soaked sponge, whipped cream and cinnamon-scented pastry cream are layered in glasses before being sprinkled with sugar and blowtorched until bruléed. There is literally nothing to dislike here!
- Potted history: “A little bit tiramisu; a little bit crèma catalana – this layered dessert was invented in the 1970s by a Basque pastry chef in Vitoria-Gasteiz,” says delicious. Head of Food, Tom Shingler.
- Make-ahead dessert: The sponges and pastry cream can be made up to 24 hours in advance and kept separate in the fridge. The assembled desserts will hold in the fridge for another 24 hours, but the sponge will be softer the longer you leave it.
- How to serve: You ideally want straight-sided serving glasses for this dessert (a wide robust tumbler or whisky glass is ideal). That way, you can use the glass to cut out the sponge and know it will fit flush in the glass. They also can’t be too big or you’ll struggle to blowtorch the top.
Take a look at more make-ahead summer dessert recipes.
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Ingredients
- 4 medium eggs
- 120g caster sugar
- 1 vanilla pod, split and seeds scraped
- 120g plain flour
For the pastry cream
- 500ml whole milk
- 1 cinnamon stick
- Finely grated zest ½ lemon
- 3 medium egg yolks
- 70g caster sugar
- 2 tbsp cornflour
To serve
- 200ml double cream
- 100ml dark spiced rum
- Caster sugar to sprinkle
Specialist kit
- 2 x 20cm cake tins
- Cook’s blowtorch
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Method
- Heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/gas 4 and line the cake tins with baking paper. Mix the eggs and sugar together using an electric whisk until pale and foamy. Add roughly half the vanilla seeds (reserve the rest), then gently fold in the flour. Divide between the cake tins, then bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer pushed in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool a bit, then remove the sponges and leave to cool completely.
- Meanwhile, to make the pastry cream, pour the milk into a saucepan, add the remaining vanilla seeds (throw the split pod in there too), the cinnamon and lemon zest and gently heat (don’t allow it to boil). In a mixing bowl, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until smooth, then add the cornflour and whisk again.
- Pour a little of the hot milk into the eggs, whisking as you do so. Keep gradually adding the hot milk while whisking constantly. Once it’s all been added, pour the custard back into the pan. Put back over a medium-high heat and cook, whisking constantly, for 2-3 minutes until thickened and almost boiling. Remove from the heat, then strain through a fine sieve into a bowl (discarding what’s left in the sieve). Cover with baking paper (ensuring the paper is touching the surface of the custard) and leave to cool. Once completely cool, transfer to the fridge until needed.
- When ready to assemble, use your serving glass to cut out 6 rings of the sponge from both cakes. Carefully halve them horizontally so you have 12 thinner discs of sponge in total. Put a disc in the base of each glass, then use a pastry brush to generously brush the sponge with rum.
- Whip the double cream to soft peaks (that flop over when you lift out the beaters/whisk), then divide among the glasses. Top with another disc of sponge and brush liberally with more rum. Top up each glass with the pastry cream, smoothing the top, then sprinkle generously with sugar and use a blowtorch to lightly caramelise the top (keep the flames away from the glass at the edges). Keep in the fridge until ready to serve.
Nutrition
- 510kcals Calories
- 26g (14g saturated) Fat
- 11g Protein
- 56g (36g sugars) Carbs
- 0.9g Fibre
- 0.3g Salt
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