From Jacques Pepin's Kitchen: Cooking With Claudine

We served a variation of this for a Missions Dinner at our church. We upped the recipe to serve 200, embedded sliced banana in the pastry cream and omitted the apricot preserves and Grand Marnier. We served it with Margaret's Scotch Shortbread. It was the hit of the dinner. This version serves four and takes about 20 minutes to prepare.

Pastry Cream 1 vanilla bean 3 tablespoons sugar 1 cup milk 2 egg yolks 1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch

Garnishes 1 ripe mango 1 kiwi 1/2 cup apricot preserves 2 tablespoons Grand Marnier 1 tablespoon unsalted pistachio nuts pound cake or cookies (optional)

For the pastry cream: Break the vanilla bean into pieces, and place it with the sugar in a spice grinder or mini-chop. Process until the mixture is reduced to a powder. Bring the milk to a boil in a saucepan. Meanwhile, combine the vanilla sugar with the egg yolks in a bowl, and stir well with a whisk for about 1 minute. Add the cornstarch, and stir well. Pour the boiling milk on top of the sugar-yolk mixtures, incorporate it with the whisk, then place the mixture back in the saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly with the whisk, and boil for 10 seconds. Place in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and cool. Meanwhile, prepare the garnishes: Peel the mango, and cut it into slices. Peel the kiwi, and cut it into slices. In a small bowl, mix the preserves with the Grand Marnier. When the pastry cream is cold, spread it in one layer about 1 inch deep in a nice gratin dish or another attractive serving dish. Arrange the fruit slices on top in one decorative layer. Using a spoon, coat the fruit with the preserves and Grand Marnier mixture, and sprinkle the nuts on top. Spoon the fruit and pastry cream onto individual dessert plates at the table, and serve as is or with a slice of pound cake or cookies.