Guryev Kasha

Heat the oven to 180C/350F.

Pour the single cream into a wide shallow ovenproof dish or roasting tin, to a depth of about 3cm.

Put it in the oven and leave it for 12-15 minutes, until a wrinkled golden skin has formed right across the surface.

Slide a palette knife under one edge and lift the skin off whole, then lay it out flat on a plate.

Lift them one at a time and lay each one out flat rather than piling them up. A hot skin folded onto itself welds shut, and when you come to separate them later they tear into shreds and the layering is the whole point of the dish.

Return the cream to the oven and repeat until you have six to eight skins, which takes about an hour in total.

Reserve 200ml of the leftover cream and keep the rest for another use.

Spread the almonds and walnuts on a tray and toast them in the same oven for 8-10 minutes, until they smell nutty and the almonds have coloured faintly.

Chop the walnuts and half the almonds roughly, and keep the remaining whole almonds for the praline.

Put the 60g of praline sugar and the tablespoon of water in a small heavy pan over medium heat.

Let it melt and colour for 5-7 minutes, without stirring, until it is the colour of dark honey.

Do not stir it while it dissolves. Stirring throws sugar crystals up onto the side of the pan and they seed the whole thing back into grit.

Stir in the whole almonds, tip the mixture onto oiled baking paper and leave it to set hard, then crush it coarsely under a rolling pin.

Pour the milk and the reserved 200ml of cream into a heavy pan with the vanilla seeds, the split pod and the salt, and bring to a bare simmer.

Rain the semolina in with one hand while whisking steadily with the other.

Rain it in slowly and keep whisking. Semolina tipped in as a heap sets into lumps within seconds, and nothing you do afterwards breaks them up.

Cook over the lowest heat for 6-8 minutes, stirring, until it is thick enough to hold the track of the spoon for a moment.

Take it off the heat, fish out the vanilla pod, and beat in the softened butter and the 100g of caster sugar.

Let it cool for 5 minutes before the yolks go in, or they will scramble into threads on contact.

Beat in the egg yolks one at a time, letting each disappear before the next.

Butter a 22cm baking dish.

Spread a third of the semolina over the base in an even layer.

Lay two or three cream skins over it, trimming them with scissors to fit.

Scatter over a third of the chopped fruit, chopped almonds and walnuts.

Repeat the sequence twice more, finishing with a layer of skins.

Warm the apricot jam in a small pan for a minute, until it runs off the spoon, then brush it over the top.

Scatter the crushed praline over and dust the icing sugar across the surface through a sieve.

Bake at 180C/350F for 25-30 minutes, until the top has set firm and caught brown at the edges and the sugar has melted to a glassy sheen.

Rest it for 15-20 minutes before serving so the layers settle enough to cut.

Serve it warm, straight from the dish. Guryev kasha collapses into an ordinary milk pudding once it is cold, and it does not reheat into anything better.