Welfenspeise - Hanover, Germany

This two-layered dessert comes from the city of Hanover in Germany and is also known as a Welf pudding - the white and yellow layers are representative of the House of Welf, a German aristocratic family, and a European dynasty that included many German and British monarchs. The dessert was created in Hanover and served for the first time at the 200th anniversary of the rule of the house of Welf.

The dessert is a cross between a soft meringue, a custard and a sabayon or zabaglione. The white pillowy meringue layer at the bottom has a very soft and warming taste created by the addition of vanilla; and the top layer is sweet and zingy with the flavours of white wine and egg yolk. I searched everywhere for what kind of wine to use as most recipes just stated "white wine", I settled for a sauvignon blanc which was perhaps on the sweeter side of dry - and on reflection should have used a much dryer less sweet wine or reduced the sugar in the custard layer by about half. I guess the wine layer is how you can really personalise the dessert to your taste.

Also all recipes called for vanilla sugar which is sugar flavoured with vanilla which is available in Germany. While I think you could probably find this somewhere in England - quarantine is not the best time to go out looking for it - so I substituted with vanilla essence, and I'm sure vanilla bean would work absolute wonders here.

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Serves 3-4

Ingredients

For the Cream

• 3 eggs whites (you will use the yolks for the next layer)

• 375ml full fat milk

• 35g white sugar

• 1tsp vanilla essence

• 15g Corn flour / corn starch

For the custard (or wine foam)

• 3 egg yolks

• 60g sugar

• 190ml white wine (dry)

• juice of 1/2 a lemon

• 3/4tsp corn flour / corn starch

Method

1. Beat the egg whites to until they form stiff peaks, then set aside.

2. Place the milk into a saucepan over medium-high heat, keeping 5tbsp to one side. Then add the sugar and the vanilla, and stir until it is dissolved.

3. Add the corn flour to the 5tbs of milk that you reserved earlier and stir until the corn starch is dissolved and you have a smooth paste or liquid.

4. Pour the corn starch mixture into the milk and sugar mixture and with an electric handheld whisk, whisk until the mixture froths up and becomes thick.

5. Remove the pan from the heat and then gently fold the egg whites in. This step needs to be done quite quickly but taking care not to beat the air out of the whites, if done too slowly, the egg whites will cook unevenly and you will have some lumps.

6. Distribute the white mixture into your serving dishes, you can make this one large bowl or several small ones or even glasses. Refrigerate.

7. Put all of the ingredients for the custard into a saucepan over medium heat. With an electric whisk, whisk until the mixture has warmed through and become a thick foam.

8. Remove from the heat and cool until it is lukewarm. Spoon over the egg white layer and chill until you are ready to serve.