The table centerpiece so good you could eat it
Posted: 02 December 2023
Join the party at this month's Supper Club for Jenny's playful baguette magic—easy, chic, and loaded with ricotta, pear, prosciutto, and honeycomb.
Meet @jennys_table, an Australian based, Los Angeles raised, Russian born cook who had one of her recipes recently shared on The Drew Barrymore show. Jenny spends her days dreaming up recipes, sharing mainly salads, dips & cocktails recipes perfect for dinner parties or easy lunches on Instagram and Tiktok.
For this month’s Supper Club, Jenny shows us how to make this easy, dressed baguette that is both beautiful as a centerpiece on your table and delicious. As part of Jenny’s coastal Christmas menu and featuring ricotta, pear, prosciutto and honeycomb, you won’t believe how simple this is to make.
“A dressed baguette as a centerpiece is so Marie Antoniette. It’s giving let them eat cake, it’s giving, oh I didn’t feel like roasting a whole chicken, so I just whipped up this baguette as a centerpiece for my dinner party.”
- Jenny
Recipe: Baguette with pear, ricotta, honeycomb
A magical Christmas tablescape is styled with our Natural Ruffle Table Cloth and Ruffle Napkins in White
Ingredients
- 2 baguettes, sliced in half
- 2 pears, green, hard and unripe - sliced in half
- 150g unsalted butter
- 500g smooth ricotta
- 6-12 slices of prosciutto
- 100g honeycomb
- 6-12 basil leaves
- 2 tbsp neutral oil
Method
Preheat oven to 175C/345F fan forced.
1. Make brown butter: In a cast-iron skillet melt butter and stir constantly as it begins to turn a light golden brown. Once a deeper golden color appears, turn off the heat and pour out the excess butter into a bowl, leaving about 1-2 tbsp of brown butter in the pan.
2. To roast the pears: Place the pears, cut side down, into the pan. They should be nestled in there with the brown butter. Roast in the oven for about 20-25 minutes, or until they are soft and lightly caramelised. Remove from the pan and set aside to cool.
3. To fry the basil leaves: add neutral oil to a small fry pan and bring to a high heat. Once the oil is very hot, drop in basil leaves and fry on each side for 20 seconds, or until it looks crispy. Leave out to dry on a paper-towel lined plate. They will crisp up as they dry.
4. Toast the baguette: Using the excess brown butter from earlier, brush the cut side of the baguettes with brown butter, making sure to get all the edges so they get crispy and golden brown. Place cut side down on a baking tray and toast in the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until crispy and golden brown. Let cool slightly.
Cut the ends off two baguettes and cut one end off the other two baguettes. You should be left with one end on two baguettes, so that we can make one giant baguette. Spread ricotta evenly all over the baguettes.
5. Decorate the baguette: Place baking paper down along the center of the table where the centerpiece baguette will go. Place the baguettes down the center of the baking paper, organising them so that it looks like one big baguette.
Place pear halves down where the baguettes meet and add a spoonful of honeycomb in the center of the pear. Ruffle up prosciutto slices and place on either side of the pear. Garnish with fried basil leaves.
Note: the most efficient way to do this for a large group of people is to cut the baguette into smaller pieces before placing down on the table. Simply smear on ricotta, then cut into smaller pieces and decorate as you wish!
Create a dreamy table scape just like Jenny's
