Artist's Palate: Salvador Dali's Timbale Elysée Lasserre

(Image credit: press)

last updated 18 October 2022

The imperfect genius of Dali was to take the Surrealists's Freudian fixation with the unconscious mind and focus it on the naughty bits in his own psyche to make art. So it is fitting that this recipe for The Museum of Modern Art's Artists' Cookbook should have been so gloriously globular. Think of it as Dali's conflicted cake - a fruity, creamy treat laden with booze, desire and irrational fears, and topped with spun sugar.

Ingredients (serves 8)

For the dough:
100g flour
100g sugar
1 egg
50g butter, melted
vanilla to taste

For the timbale:
Genoise cake
Kirsch syrup
Vanilla ice cream
Fresh raspberries or strawberries
Gooseberry jelly
Whipped cream
Spun sugar made of 200g of sugar and 40g of glucose
Kirsch

Method
Mix dough ingredients together. Roll out dough and make thin circles by cutting with a floured glass. Bake on a buttered and floured cookie sheet at 200C. Remove pastry and place while hot on a dome shaped soup ladle or ramekin and let cool. Shells should be dome shaped.

To make the timbale, soak genoise in kirsch syrup and cover bottom of pastry crusts with layer of the cake. Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream, over with fruit. Add a tablespoon of jelly mixed with kirsch. Cover the inside border of the pastry shells with a piping of whipped cream. Cover whole timbale with a ‘cage’ of spun sugar in a lattice work design. Serve.

Note: This recipe is not for the amateur chef!

INFORMATION

Recipe taken from The Museum of Modern Art ‘Artists’ Cookbook, by Madeleine Conway and Nancy Kirk

Melina Keays is the entertaining director of Wallpaper*. She has been part of the brand since the magazine’s launch in 1996, and is responsible for entertaining content across the print and digital platforms, and for Wallpaper’s creative agency Bespoke. A native Londoner, Melina takes inspiration from the whole spectrum of art and design – including film, literature, and fashion. Her work for the brand involves curating content, writing, and creative direction – conceiving luxury interior landscapes with a focus on food, drinks, and entertaining in all its forms