Tim Cooper is Bourke Street Bakery's pastry chef. Having moved here from Britain, the peach melba is one of his first memories of Australian sweets.
1 punnet raspberries
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 lemon, juiced
10 egg yolks
100g castor sugar plus 1 tbsp
250ml 35 per cent cream
700ml 45 per cent (thickened) cream
2 vanilla beans, split and scraped
3 peaches
1 tsp rosewater
6 puff pastry circles, cut to 70-mm diameter and baked (use your own puff pastry recipe or buy a quality brand from a supermarket)
2 tbsp pistachios, blanched and roughly chopped to garnish
For raspberry puree, wash raspberries and puree in a food processor with sugar and lemon juice. Force through a fine sieve to remove seeds.
For vanilla cream, whisk together yolks and 100 grams castor sugar in a stainless steel bowl. Mix creams and vanilla beans in a saucepan and bring to the boil.
Pour cream onto yolks and whisk well. Return to a medium heat and stir continuously until mixture thickens. Do not allow to boil. Pour cream mix through a fine strainer and refrigerate overnight.
For peaches, preheat oven to 150C. Cut each peach in half and slice each half into 12 wedges. Lay wedges on a baking tray and sprinkle with 1 tablespooon castor sugar and rosewater. Bake for five minutes. Allow to cool.
Place baked puff pastry discs on six plates. Place a teaspoon of raspberry puree in the middle of each disc. Spoon 1.5 tablespoons of vanilla cream over the raspberry puree. Place the baked peach slices in a circle, imitating petals of a flower, over the vanilla cream. Spoon a little extra raspberry puree onto the plates and garnish with a few pistachios.
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