If you need a hug from inside, you should definitely try zabaglione. Its silky texture made from egg yolks beaten over a bain marie with a little bit of sugar and wine make you instantaneously happy. Best eaten when it is cold and grey outside, it is an incredibly simple and fast dessert.
The original zabaglione in Italy is based on a fortified wine called Marsala. Marsala is rather on the sweet side and together with sugar it may be a bit too much. In Vienna, my mother-in-law Sissy taught me a less sweeter version of it called “Weinchadeau”. For this wine-egg cream you use a quite dry white wine with a hint of sourness. I even saw some recipes calling for Schilcher, which is an extremly sour wine typical from Styria, a region approximately 1.5 hours south from Vienna. At the end, it is up to your taste how sweet you like it and you can adjust the sweetness either with the wine choice or with the sugar. I can even think of an an alochol-free version with a high quality apple or grape juice. We opted for a mix of two parts sparkling wine and one part Marsala and it turned out exactly to our taste. The rest of the recipe is exactly as Sissy told us.
Be sure to use fresh eggs, as you do not cook the yolks. Do not by any means throw away the egg whites! You can use them for meringues, baiser or our hazelnut kisses. If you do not want to bake straight away, freeze them for later and thaw slowly at room temperature or in the fridge before you want to use them. Now let me introduce you to our wonderful 2020-21 New Year’s Eve dessert!
ingredients
For two:
- 1o0ml dry white wine (sparkling is also fine)
- 50ml fortified wine like Marsala
- 50gr sugar
- 3 egg yolks
- pinch of salt
instructions
- Bring water to a boil, either directly in a pan or in a waterboiler. In the later case pour it into a pan and leave it slightly boiling on medium heat.
- Separate the egg yolks from the egg white. If you are not confident in doing it use the three bowls technique.
- Pour the egg yolks in a heat-proof bowl which fits in the pan with hot water. The bowl should not touch the water!
- Add the dry and fortified wine, the sugar and the pinch of salt.
- Put the bowl over the slightly boiling water and immediately start whisking vigorously with an eggbeater.
- Keep whisking until the mixture blows up and is thick and creamy, easily tripling in volume.
- As soon as it has the right texture remove it from the boiling water and give it a last whisk, letting it cool down a little.
- Pour in a nice bowl or glass and enjoy. Eat it plain, with lady’s fingers or a simple shortbread.
- This dessert can not be stored at it will lose its texture quickly, therefore you can only make it Ă la minute.
Variations
This dessert is made only out of three ingredients, nevertheless there is some room for creativity. As I have told you in the intro your choice of alcohol (or alcohol-free version) is free to your taste and the amount of sugar can be adjusted. I am not sure if you could use honey instead because of the viscosity but if you’re brave enough give it a try. I would rather not go for a sweetener because it has a little aftertaste I do not like in such a puristic dessert. But if you really want to, it should work, especially if you use erythritol. For the chocolics out there: you can add 50 gramms nice high-quality really dark chocolate at the end. In this case I would rather use a fortified wine such as port wine. If you have even more ideas, please tell us in the coment section below! We are looking forward to it 🙂 .
Macros
One portion of delicious zabaglione as in the recipe has following macros:
- 282kcal
- 9,6g fat
- 28g carbs
- 4,9 protein
- approx. 7,6g alcohol
I was quite surprised that this dessert isn’t that heavy on the calorie side. It is very rewarding as its texture is so silky and smooth. I think it can fit in every non-contest prep diet, if you would like a little dessert.
If you have more ideas how to modifiy our zabaglione or if you simply did like it, please tell us in the coment section below! We are looking forward to it 🙂 .
Beary Strong 