Egyptian layered pumpkin dessert with pumpkin bechamel, biscuit base and nut topping
Middle Eats · ♥ 3.3K likes · 59.1K views · 9 min video
Read about cream, custard and chess pies in the BrightCulinary Book
Timestamp
Ingredients
Method
Techniques
- 140 g walnuts
- 150 g hazelnuts
- 150 g butter
- 500 g digestive biscuits
- 40 g flour
- 50 g sugar
- 8 g salt
- 36 g desiccated coconut
- 2 g cinnamon
- 500–650 g sugar
- 135 g butter
- 100 g flour
- 400 ml milk
- 200 ml cream
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
- 50 g sultanas
- 25 g light brown sugar
- 1 tbsp desiccated unsweetened coconut
- 1 g cinnamon
- 36 g melted butter
Toast walnuts and hazelnuts in the oven 5 to 10 minutes until golden; cool.
In a food processor blitz digestive biscuits, toasted walnuts, flour, sugar, salt, desiccated coconut and cinnamon to a sandy texture, then stream in melted butter with the machine running until a pinch forms clumps.
Blitzing the biscuit base
Line a 10 inch springform pan with parchment and brush the walls with leftover butter. Press half the base into a thick wall around the sides with a ramekin, then press the rest into the bottom, evening the height.
Pressing a thick wall in the springform
The night before, peel a sweet pumpkin, cut into small cubes, add a quarter of its weight in sugar and leave to macerate overnight so the flavor is drawn into a syrup.
Cook the pumpkin covered in its liquid over medium heat at a simmer 15 to 20 minutes, until a fork goes in without it disintegrating.
- 500 ml pumpkin syrup
- water
Strain, keeping the liquid; set the pumpkin aside and measure about 500 ml of liquid, topping up with water. No more sugar is needed.
In the same pan melt butter over medium heat, add flour and cook a few minutes, stirring, until it smells a little nutty.
Reduce to low and whisk in the milk slowly, then the pumpkin syrup a bit at a time until smooth. Raise the heat and whisk constantly to a simmer until it thickens.
Spoon the pumpkin into the cooled base about two thirds of the way up, flatten, and pour the bechamel over.
- salt
For the topping, roughly chop the toasted hazelnuts into large, mixed-size pieces; mix with sultanas, light brown sugar, desiccated coconut, cinnamon and a pinch of salt, then bind with melted butter.
Cool about an hour to an hour and a half until set before cutting; it was chilled overnight here. Serve warm with the topping.
Cooling, slicing and tasting