How can I get a more homogenous Bavarian cream?

Question

I recently made a pineapple Bavarian cream using this recipe:

Put a soaked gelatin sheet in warm (60°C) 75 ml pineapple juice. Beat half a yolk and 20 g sugar together until creamy. Put in the juice while beating and add 2 slices of pineapple in small pieces. Let this cool down (25°C). Whip 50 g of cream with 17 g of powdered sugar until soft peaks. Add this to the cooled down mixture. Whip half of an egg white and fold it in. Put this in two ramekins and let set in the fridge until firm.

Everything went well, it was set. When eating, the top 3/4 of it was very airy, like a mousse. The bottom 1/4 reminded me more of a pudding. In the bottom part were also all the pineapple pieces. Bad picture where you can see the airiness and an even worse picture where you can see the separation.

Why was there this difference in texture? Did I not whip the whites and/or cream enough? Was it because the pineapple pieces are heavy and wet? Something else?

Is there also a way to get the pineapple pieces distributed evenly throughout the Bavarian cream? I guess this is quite hard to achieve, but I would like to know if there's something that might work.

Answer 1

Pinapple + gelatin should raise red flags.

Pineapple contains bromelain, a protease enzyme similar to papain in papayas. This enzyme when active will prevent gelatin from gelling. Heat will deactivate that enzyme. Canned pineapple is usually cooked enough that it isn't a problem.

If you are using fresh pineapple (or suspect your canned pineapple wasn't cooked enough) you should cook it to at least 65C to ensure that it doesn't eat your gelatin.

Protein-devouring-pineapples aside...

The gelatin mixture is going to be much denser than the whipped cream. The pineapples will be even denser than that. In order for the two liquids to stay mixed they will have to be well gelled. Make sure the gelatin mixture has cooled enough to be very viscous. When adding the whipped cream you should fold (even though the recipe doesn't say to).

To keep the pineapples from sinking you should cut them into smaller pieces. Additionally, you might let the mixture partially set before folding in the pineapple.