When I was a child, in front of our house we had 3 sour cherry trees. The sour cherry was abundant in our household. We made them into jams, cordials, compotes, we ate them raw straight from the trees as an afternoon snack, made cold soup with them, and we baked them into sweets and cakes. One of the bakes were poppy seed and sour cherry strudel. I was a child in the 1990s, ready-made filo pastry was not available on the supermarket shelves yet. Making strudel dough from scratch is an art itself (and takes a village), so strudel was a luxurious summer treat that took a day to make and disappeared in 5 minutes.
Sour cherry and poppy seeds are a beautiful marriage. (Providing that the cherries are pitted!) Traditionally the cooked poppy seed filling is dominant, and the strudel looks very rustic.
However, I created my own version of this dish that I put on our dessert menu. Between the crispy filo sheets are vanilla crème pâtissier, and sour cherry and poppy seed gel. The mille feuille is topped with icing sugar and served with poppy seed ice cream.
Eating poppy seed this way is very unusual for most western Europeans, so I wanted to be careful about how much I use. Both the texture and colour can be very off-putting if you are not used to it. In the cherry gel I used it more like a spice and in the ice cream I infused the liquid that I later passed through a fine sieve to get rid of the gritty poppy seed. The result is a silky-smooth poppy seed flavoured ice cream.
I am very proud of this dessert. So far, the guest feedback has been very positive. A few of them said ‘it was incredible’, and they enjoyed trying something “new” and “different”.
Cherry and Vanilla Filo Mille Feuille, Poppy Seed Ice Cream
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