Guryevskaya Kasha

Ingredients

• 1 litre whole milk
• 500 ml double cream
• 160 g fine semolina
• 100 g caster sugar
• 3 tbsp caster sugar for the top
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 40 g butter, plus more for the dish
• 150 g walnuts and hazelnuts, mixed
• 3 tbsp honey
• 150 g apricot or sour cherry preserve
• 2 tbsp raisins

Before you cook

• Roughly chop the walnuts and hazelnuts.
• Weigh out the semolina and keep it beside the stove in a jug for easy pouring.
• Butter a deep 20 cm baking dish for assembling the kasha.
• Set out a plate for stacking the cream skins.

Steps

1. Heat the oven to 160C.
2. Pour the cream and 250 ml of the milk into a wide shallow ovenproof dish and slide it into the oven.
3. Bake it for about 12 minutes, until a wrinkled golden skin forms across the surface.
4. Lift that skin off with a fork and lay it flat on the plate.
5. Return the dish to the oven and keep lifting skins as they form until you have five or six, which takes around an hour.
6. Pour the remaining 750 ml of milk into a saucepan with the salt and bring it to a simmer over medium heat.
7. Rain the semolina into the simmering milk in a thin stream, whisking hard so no lumps form.
8. Cook it on low heat for 6 minutes, stirring, until it thickens into a soft porridge.
9. Beat in the 100 g of sugar, the vanilla and the 40 g of butter, then take the pan off the heat.
10. Scrape any cream left in the baking dish into the porridge and stir it through.
11. Warm the honey in a small pan and toss the chopped nuts in it until they are glossy.
12. Spread a third of the porridge across the base of the buttered baking dish.
13. Lay two cream skins over it and scatter over half the honeyed nuts and all the raisins.
14. Add another third of the porridge, then two more skins, the rest of the nuts and the fruit preserve.
15. Finish with the last of the porridge and lay the final skin on top.
16. Sprinkle the 3 tablespoons of sugar evenly over the surface.
17. Grill the dish for 3 minutes, watching it closely, until the sugar melts to a brown crust.
18. Serve it warm, straight from the dish, with extra preserve alongside.