Tag Archives: dessert

Quick Raspberry Ice Cream with Raspberry Compote

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Everyone is short of time.  So while I love to cook, I’m always looking for ways to produce delicious food in record time.  This ice cream recipe, which can be adapted and varied with different berries, is a real winner.  Whip it up a couple of hours before dinner and by the time you reach dessert time it will have firmed up enough to scoop.  You can use fresh raspberries instead of frozen, but the advantage of frozen berries is that it turns the rest of the ingredients into instant ice cream.  I have put 500-600g of raspberries so you know that if your supermarket sells them in half kilo bags you don’t need to buy two!

Quick Raspberry Ice Cream with Raspberry Compote

Ice Cream:
500-600g frozen raspberries
600ml thick Greek-style yoghurt
300ml cream
1 cup icing sugar, or to taste
Raspberry Compote: 
2-3 cups frozen raspberries
¼ cup sugar, or to taste

Place all ingredients for ice cream in food processor and process until mixed. Leave it a bit chunky with some bits of raspberries still visible. Place in freezer for an hour or two or until firm enough to scoop into balls with an ice cream scoop dipped into hot water.  If left in the freezer for longer you will need to remove it about 10 mins before serving so it’s not rock hard.  For the compote, mix raspberries with sugar and leave to thaw, stirring from time to time.  Serve chunky or if preferred, push through a sieve and serve as coulis.

Makes about 1.5 litres of ice cream

Passionfruit Tart

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Passionfruit vines grow well in Canberra, especially on a protected sunny wall.  Last year we had a bumper crop of over 100, so I froze the pulp in ice cube trays.  It freezes beautifully and when thawed is hard to distinguish from fresh pulp.  Unfortunately our passionfruit vine has since died – apparently they only last a few years – so we have just planted another one.

Planning a dinner party I suddenly remembered the huge sack of passionfruit cubes I have in the freezer and decided to make Neil Perry’s passionfruit Tart.  Here is the recipe with a few slight adjustments of my own.

Sweet shortcrust pastry:
200g plain flour
80g icing sugar
125g unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3 egg yolks
Filling:
9 eggs
350g caster sugar
350ml strained passionfruit juice
300ml cream
To serve:
icing sugar
pouring cream (optional)
some of the passionfruit pulp

For pastry place flour, icing sugar and butter in food processor.  Process until fine crumbs, then add egg yolks and continue to process until mixture starts to form a ball.  Tip out, form into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or at least an hour.

For the filling, beat eggs with a hand whisk or fork – just to break them up thoroughly, not to gain any volume – then mix in remaining ingredients and refrigerate overnight. When you have strained the passionfruit pulp, if you find you don’t have quite enough juice you can add some lemon or lime juice to make up to 350ml.  Keep the pulp to decorate plates when serving.

Next day turn oven to 170°C.  Spray a 25cm metal flan tin with fluted edges and a removable base with vegetable oil.  A ceramic dish won’t achieve the same crispness in the pastry.  Make sure you thoroughly spray the fluted sides which will make it easier to remove.  Roll out pastry thinly and use to line the tin, making sure you don’t stretch it, otherwise it will shrink in the oven and leave you with lower sides than you wanted.  Refrigerate for half an hour then line with a piece of foil, pressing it gently to fit snugly into the pastry case.  Pour in something to weigh it down – you can buy special metal “beans” for this purpose, but I use a packet of popping corn which I keep in a jar to use over and over again.  Bake for about 15 minutes until the edges of the pastry are turning golden and the pastry has set, then remove foil and beans and bake for a further 10 minutes or so until golden all over.

Turn oven down to 160°C.  Carefully pour in the passionfruit filling.  This is easier to do with the tart in the oven, so it doesn’t spill when you put it back in.  Tart can be very full to just below the pastry edge.  Any excess filling can be poured into a couple of small ramekins and baked with the tart – they won’t take long.  Bake for 40 mins or until filling has set in the middle but is still very slightly wobbly when you move it. Remove from the oven and when cool refrigerate until serving time.

To serve, carefully remove the sides from the tin – you may need to use a thin knife to loosen the edges of the pastry first.  Using a sieve, shake icing sugar evenly over tart, then cut into portions and place on serving plates.  Decorate each plate with a drizzle of passionfruit pulp and pass the cream separately.

Serves 8-10

Variations: Lemon Tart or Lemon and Lime Tart – use 350ml strained lemon or lime juice or a mixture of the two instead of the passionfruit juice.

Coffee & Halva Ice Cream Cake with Hot Chocolate Sauce

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This cake makes a great dessert or birthday cake to serve a crowd.  It can be made a few days ahead and is always popular.  The coffee and halva flavours might be a bit sophisticated for small children, although our two and a half year old granddaughter Natalia loves olives, artichokes, radicchio and rocket, so you can never tell.  The recipe is adaptable – instead of coffee you could add chocolate chips and instead of halva you could add crumbled honeycomb or violet crumble bars.  Use your imagination.

Halva is a dense, crumbly Middle Eastern sweet containing nuts – a bit like a cross between fudge and nougat.

The chocolate sauce uses ingredients everyone has in the pantry (so you don’t need to rush out and buy a bar of chocolate) and keeps for at least a week in the fridge.  If preferred you can make a sauce by heating a cup of cream to boiling point, then removing from the heat and adding about 200g chocolate (milk or dark), broken into squares.  Stir till dissolved.

Coffee and Halva Ice Cream Cake with Hot Chocolate Sauce

Meringues:
4 large egg whites at room temperature
pinch salt
250g caster sugar
½ cup slivered almonds (optional)
Coffee Ice Cream:
2 litres good quality vanilla icecream (bought or home-made)
2 Tbs instant coffee powder dissolved in 1 Tbs hot water
Halva Ice Cream:
2 x 300ml sour cream
1 tsp vanilla essence
¼ cup icing sugar
250g (approx) halva (from delis and specialty shops)
Chocolate Sauce:
½ cup sugar
¾ cup water
4 Tbs cocoa powder
2 Tbs golden syrup
1 Tbs butter
1 tsp vanilla essence
½ cup cream
To serve:
Cocoa powder

Meringues: Line two baking sheets with baking paper and turn oven to 150°C.  Draw a 20 cm diameter circle on each sheet of paper.  With an electric mixer whip egg whites with salt until they hold their shape, then gradually add the sugar, beating constantly, until you have a thick glossy meringue.  Spread meringue evenly onto the circles you have drawn, leaving a little space all around as they will expand in the oven and you want them to fit into a 20 cm tin.  If liked, sprinkle almonds over one then bake the meringues for about an hour until firm but pale in colour.  Turn off the oven and leave them to cool in there.

Coffee Ice Cream: Remove ice cream from the freezer and let it soften for about 10 minutes then tip into a large bowl and stir until smooth.  Thoroughly mix in coffee mixture, then put back into container and refreeze.  Halva Ice Cream: Mix sour cream with icing sugar, vanilla essence and roughly crumbled halva.  Tip into a plastic container with a lid and freeze.

Remove the two ice creams from the freezer about 10 minutes before assembling the cake.  Place the meringue layer without the nuts in the bottom of a 20 cm springform cake pan, bottom-lined with baking paper.  If too big, carefully trim off the edges with a sharp knife and keep testing, till it goes in.  Spread a layer of coffee ice cream over the meringue.  There will be more of this ice cream than the halva one, so you may decide not to use it all.  Sprinkle the meringue trimmings over the ice cream – unless you’ve already eaten them – then spread evenly with the halva ice cream.  Top with the other meringue, nut side up and trimmed to fit.  Press down gently.  Cover with plastic wrap and place in the freezer for up to 3-4 days.  Remove from freezer about 15 minutes before serving so it’s not rock hard.  Run a knife dipped in boiling water around the outside of the cake to enable you to remove sides from cake tin.  Dust top of cake with cocoa powder through a sieve.  Slice cake with a knife dipped in boiling water and serve with the sauce.

Sauce: Choose a large pan because this recipe will boil over if the pan is too small.  Place all ingredients except butter, vanilla essence and cream in pan.  Mix then simmer for 5 mins without stirring.  Cool for 10 mins then stir in butter and vanilla.  When almost cold mix in the cream.  Serve warm with ice cream.  Keeps for at least a week in the fridge – reheat in the microwave and allow to cool a bit.  If piping  hot it will be too runny.

Serves at least 12

Variation: if preferred divide meringue into three to make three thinner layers.  This allows you to put one between the two flavours of ice cream.

Raspberry Cake with Raspberry Coulis: leave the first layer of ice cream plain vanilla, leaving out the coffee.  For the second layer place the two packets of sour cream in food processor with 2 cups frozen raspberries, 300ml cream and icing sugar to taste.  Blitz enough to combine but leaving the raspberries a bit chunky.  Serve cake with Raspberry Coulis instead of Chocolate Sauce.

Salted Caramel Ice Cream Cake with Hot Chocolate Sauce: Instead of slivered almonds on one meringue layer, use skinned and lightly toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped.  Instead of the coffee and halva ice cream layers, use three 470ml tubs of Connoisseur Murray River Salted Caramel Ice Cream with Chocolate Coated Hazelnuts.  Remove from the freezer to soften slightly then mix them in a bowl then spread over the first meringue layer.

Apple Strudel

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Peek celebrations are all about the food and those in the know rarely turn down an invitation to one of our gatherings.  A Dutch friend once told me that when Dutch people have guests coming they clean the windows.  My mother arranges flowers everywhere, while others spend hours cleaning and dusting.  I cook and so do our three offspring.  If it’s a choice between doing a quick gallop round with the vacuum cleaner before people arrive, or whipping up some mayonnaise to go with the prawns, the mayo will win every time.

Last Saturday our son James organised an afternoon tea party to celebrate his wife Karen’s 40th and their second son Luke’s 3rd birthday.  There were about 20 adults and umpteen kids coming, so I offered to make a couple of apple strudels and some egg, mayonnaise and chive sandwiches which always go down well with kids of all ages. Home-made mayonnaise is the secret.  James made some delicious morsels, including sausage rolls and mini yorkshire puddings with smoked trout pate.

When I was growing up in England my mother only had two cookbooks.  One was published by the makers of Stork margarine and contained basic recipes for the cakes and pies a British housewife needed in her repertoire.  It was my Mum’s bible in the early days of her marriage and she gave me an updated version when I got married and moved to Australia.  I still have it somewhere amongst my many cookbooks.

The other was called International Cooking and it had a chapter from several European countries. When I was about twelve I made the Austrian Apple Strudel.  It was a huge success and I’ve been making it ever since.  You can use fillo pastry instead of making your own dough, but it’s not really hard to make. If you use fillo you will need about 10 sheets.

Dough: 

250g plain flour

2 egg yolks

pinch salt

2 Tbs oil

About 150ml tepid water

Filling:

750g peeled, cored and sliced apples (I like Granny Smiths)

50g currants

50g raisins

80g fresh breadcrumbs (just whizz some bread in processor)

1 tsp cinnamon

100g unsalted butter, melted

125g sugar

60g melted butter, extra, for frying crumbs

50g melted butter, extra, for brushing

Dough: Place all ingredients except water in food processor and mix, then add enough tepid water slowly through the top with the motor running, until it forms a ball. It should be soft but not sticky. Stop the motor when it has started to form a ball.  Gather all the bits together and knead for a few seconds with floury hands to make a smooth ball, then wrap in plastic wrap and put aside while you make the filling.

Filling: fry bread crumbs until golden brown in 60g butter, turning, till they look like toasted muesli. Mix with remaining ingredients. Sprinkle a little extra flour over a clean tea towel and roll dough out as large as possible without tearing using a rolling pin. Then continue to stretch gently with your hands until you have an oblong about the size of the tea towel and the length of your baking tray.  Spread with apple filling, leaving about 2.5 cm all round. If you like you can cut the slightly thicker edges off, but I like to fold them in onto the apples.  It makes the ends of the strudel a bit thick and doughy, but it ends up crunchy and for some people that’s their favourite bit!

Roll up using the tea towel to assist, with the long end underneath. Tuck the short ends under and pinch to seal. Place on a buttered baking sheet and brush with some of the extra butter. Bake 15-20 minutes at 200°C, then 20-30 minutes or so at 180°C, brushing from time to time with melted butter. When golden brown remove and cool for 10 mins, then carefully remove with spatulas to a cake rack. You will need two people with a spatula in each hand.  Serve warm or at room temperature, dusted with sifted icing sugar and accompanied by whipped cream.

Note: It’s nicer and more authentic using home made pastry. If using fillo pastry, stack 10 sheets, brushing each one liberally with melted, unsalted butter. Place filling along one long edge rather than spreading it all over. Roll up and proceed as above.

Crème Caramel with Amber Jelly

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I love reading recipe books and often borrow them from the public library.  If I get to the end and feel the need to copy out lots of recipes, then I go online and buy the book!

This delicious recipe is loosely based on one by Peter Gilmore who owns Quay restaurant in Sydney and which appears in his book Quay: Food Inspired by Nature.  My adaptation is quicker than the original recipe, which requires you to make three separate batches of caramel and is served with a home-made pear ice cream.

I made it as my contribution to a gastronomic family weekend when we all had to make something from that book.  We weren’t supposed to adapt, change or cheat, but unfortunately I can’t help myself.  Whenever I’m making a recipe for the first time I’m always thinking “how can I do this more quickly?”  To be honest I did stick quite closely to the original recipe the first time I made it and even made the pear ice cream.  Since then I’ve managed to cut down considerably on the preparation time by making only one batch of caramel and used bought vanilla ice cream instead of home made pear ice cream. The result looks impressive and so far everyone agrees it tastes fantastic. Start making this dish the day before.

Crème Caramel with Amber Jelly

Amber Jelly
1 cup white wine
1½ cups water
1 vanilla pod, split and scraped or 1 tsp vanilla essence
¼ cup sugar
4 tsp powdered gelatine
About ¼ of the caramel (see below)

Caramel
1½ cups sugar
½ cup water

Crème Caramel
About ½ of the caramel (see above)
5 eggs
1 tin condensed milk
1 cup cream
1½ cups milk
1 tsp vanilla essence

Caramel Cream
About ¼ of the caramel (see above)
300 ml cream, divided in two

Vanilla Ice Cream
Home made or top quality bought

Amber Jelly: place wine, water, sugar and vanilla (pod and the scraped seeds) or essence in a pan and heat to dissolve sugar. Place gelatine in a small bowl, mix with 2 tablespoons cold water, then zap in microwave to dissolve. Add to pan then put aside while you make the Caramel, below. Add a quarter of the caramel to the jelly, being careful to stand back as it will spatter, heat and stir to dissolve the caramel then remove vanilla pod (leaving any seeds in) and pour into a shallow Lasagne-type dish. Jelly should be one to two centimetres thick. Refrigerate overnight, covered.

Caramel: place sugar and water in a small heavy-bottomed pan. Heat gently to dissolve sugar, swirling the pan, then cook steadily until you have a rich brown caramel, but don’t let it overcook or it will be bitter. Pour about half over the base and sides of a shallow pyrex dish which holds about 2 litres, topping the dish to get even coverage. This dish is for the Crème Caramel. Pour about a quarter of the caramel into the Jelly mixture and leave the remaining quarter in the pan to make the Caramel Cream.

Caramel Cream: in the pan where you have made the caramel you should have about a quarter left. Add half the cream (150ml) and return to the heat (be careful it will spatter) stirring until caramel has dissolved into the cream. Pour into a small bowl and refrigerate, covered, overnight.

Crème Caramel: Preheat oven to 170°C. In a medium sized bowl, beat eggs, condensed milk, cream and vanilla with a balloon whisk. Pour mixture through a sieve into the pyrex dish you have lined with caramel, discarding any bits left in the sieve. Place the dish in a deep roasting pan and pour in boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the dish of crème caramel. Bake for 45 mins, remove from the oven and cool, then refrigerate, covered, overnight.

To serve: serve in tall glasses or martini glasses. Dice amber jelly in the dish by making parallel cuts about a centimetre apart in both directions. Place a heaped tablespoonful of jelly cubes in the bottom of 8 serving glasses. Whip the remaining 150ml of cream until thick, then fold in the Caramel Cream. Place a heaped tablespoonful in each glass on top of the jelly. Then a large scoop of Crème Caramel. Drizzle with some of the caramel from the bottom of the dish. Lastly top with an egg-shaped scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Serves 8

 

Baked Quinces

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Yesterday I gave a cooking demonstration to ten members of a women’s group I belong to.  We take it in turns to host our monthly meeting which takes the form of a cooking demonstration, followed by lunch.  Conversation is all in Spanish.  In case you are wondering what on earth we were drinking it was cranberry juice with soda water!

As you can see from the photo, we started off with a Tomato, Mozarella and Pesto Tian, which was the first recipe to appear on this blog.  This was followed by Maggie Beer’s Baked Quinces served with Labneh – a delicious alternative to whipped cream to serve with desserts.  If preferred you can leave the skins on the quinces – just rub off the “fur” – but the texture will be slightly different.

Baked Quinces with Honey and Labneh

4-6 quinces, peeled, quartered and cored
4-6 Tbs honey
1/2 cup fruit juice (e.g. apple, orange)
1 cinnamon stick, broken in two
50g unsalted butter
To serve
Extra honey or golden syrup
Labneh
1 kg plain Greek-style yoghurt

Pre-heat oven to 150C.  Place quinces in a heavy iron casserole with a lid, such as Le Creuset.  Add remaining ingredients, then bake in the oven for 2-3 hours or until the quinces are tender, but still hold their shape and are the colour of burnished pumpkins.  Stir and turn the fruit once or twice during cooking time.  Serve warm (two quarters per person) with a dollop of labneh.  If liked drizzle with a little extra honey or golden syrup.

Labneh
Line a large sieve with a piece of muslin or a man’s handkerchief and place over a bowl, allowing space under the sieve for liquid to accumulate.  Tip the whole container of yoghurt into the sieve, then cover – I find a shower cap is ideal for this job.  Leave in the fridge overnight or longer.  Discard the liquid (although I have to say that our Golden Retriever loves it) and store the labneh in a covered container in the fridge.  Serve as an alternative to whipped or thick cream.  If liked you can sweeten the labneh with a little icing sugar and add some vanilla paste, but I like it plain.  Keeps in the fridge for a week or two.

Serves 8-12

Margarita Ice Cream

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The reason I’ve been a silent blogger for the past couple of weeks is the following. My family brought my dear friend Elaine in from Chile as a surprise for my birthday. As I was greeting the guests at the party she rang on my daughter’s mobile. And as I was speaking to her and saying how I wished she could have been there, in she walked. What a great birthday gift! Anyway I’ve spent the past fortnight doing touristy stuff in Canberra and Sydney with Elaine and having an absolute ball.

Elaine has now returned to Santiago and over the four day Easter break I will be doing some cooking. Am having fun using my new iPad to take photos of the dishes. This recipe for Margarita Ice Cream is another from Nigella Lawson and it’s delicious. As you can see it looks great served in Martini glasses with the rims dipped in a mixture of caster sugar and salt.  We had a full house for lunch today and the ice cream had started to melt by the time we got organised with a camera, so it’s not the best photo!

Margarita Ice Cream

500ml thick/double cream
1/2 cup fresh lime juice (125ml)
3 Tbs Cointreau or Grand Marnier
2 Tbs Tequila
150g icing sugar
To serve:
Lime zest
A Tbs each of salt and caster sugar, mixed

With electric beaters, whip cream until thick but not stiff, then gradually whip in the remaining ingredients. Pour into a plastic container and freeze for several hours or overnight. Due to the alcohol content it will not set rock hard, so there’s no need to remove it from the freezer 10 minutes before serving time, as you usually do with home-made ice cream.  Use an ice cream scoop dipped in hot water to make balls and serve in Martini glasses, the edges dampened with a little water, then dipped in a mixture of salt and caster sugar. That sounds like a lot of salt to go with ice cream, but you won’t use it all. Garnish with lime zest. Serve on its own or accompanied by fresh fruit.

Baked Cheesecake with Sour Cherry Topping

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Nigella Lawson has a recipe for an unbaked cheesecake with a cherry topping and another recipe for a baked cheesecake with no topping.  I decided to combine the two for this recipe and use less sugar and a thinner biscuit crust.

Nigella’s system of baking the cheesecake in a water bath, using a piece of foil to stop the water from getting into the spring form pan, gives a very creamy result.  It’s not at all dry and cloying like some baked cheesecakes.  Nigella adds extra egg yolks to the filling, but I found that it set perfectly using 3 whole eggs.  I put a thicker sour cream layer on mine because I wanted the cheesecake to be nice and deep and come almost to the top of the pan when finished.

Baked Cheesecake with Sour Cherry Topping

Biscuit base:
100g digestive biscuits (or other plain sweet biscuits which need using up)
50g butter at room temperature
Cream Cheese filling:
500g cream cheese at room temperature
125g caster sugar
1½ Tbs vanilla essence
2 Tbs lemon juice
3 large eggs
Sour cream layer:
500-600g sour cream (two tubs/cartons)
1 Tbs vanilla essence
3 Tbs caster sugar
Sour cherry topping:
1 can or jar of sour cherries in juice (I used a 680g jar from Aldi)
1 Tbs sugar (optional)
4 Tbs arrowroot + 2-3 Tbs water

Turn the oven to 170°C and line the bottom of a 20cm spring form pan with baking paper.  In a food processor blitz the biscuits until they form crumbs, then add the butter and process until the mixture sticks together. Tip into the pan and press down over the bottom using your hand or the bottom of a glass.  Place in fridge while you make filling.

Wipe out the food processor to remove any crumbs, then process cream cheese until smooth.  Add the sugar, then lastly the vanilla, lemon juice and eggs.  When smooth pour into the pan.  Place the pan on a large piece of tough aluminium foil and bring it up the outsides of the pan, crunching it down around the outside edges.  Place pan in a deep baking tin or dish and pour boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the cheesecake.  Bake for 30-40 minutes or until cheesecake is firm in the middle – test with the palm of your hand.

Meanwhile in a small bowl mix sour cream with sugar and vanilla.  When cheesecake is set in the middle, spread sour cream mixture evenly over the top and return to the oven for 10 minutes.  Remove from the oven, lift out of the water bath and allow to cool, then refrigerate.

Tip cherries and their juice into a sauce pan and bring to the boil.  Add sugar if you think they need it.  Mix arrowroot with cold water till smooth then add to the pan and cook, stirring, until mixture thickens.  You can use cornflour instead of arrowroot, but arrowroot is better as it doesn’t make the mixture turn opaque.  Allow to cool for a while so it’s not too hot, then spoon onto cheesecake and spread evenly.

Chill cheesecake for several hours or overnight.  To serve, run a knife dipped in boiling water around the outside to loosen it from the pan, then carefully undo the spring and remove the sides.  Cut slices using a knife dipped in hot water.

Serves 12

Variations:

  1. Use fresh strawberries, blueberries or raspberries to cover top of cheesecake instead of the cherry topping.
  2. Passionfruit topping: mix half a cup of fresh passionfruit pulp with a cup of boiling water.  Mix well then tip through a sieve.  Return 2-3 tablespoons of the passionfruit seeds to the juice and discard the rest.  Add 1-2 tablespoons sugar, to taste and stir to dissolve.  Place 4 teaspoons powdered gelatine in a small dish with 2 tablespoons water.  Zap in microwave to dissolve, then add to the passionfruit juice and stir well.  Tip onto the cold cheesecake and refrigerate until jelly has set.

Chocolate Cappuccino Mousses

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Ever since our daughter Catherine decided that the plural of chocolate mousse should really be mice, the name has stuck.  In our family everyone loves chocolate mice.  I make them in small glasses and if they’re not for a special occasion I put them in the fridge in a flat dish with a shower cap over the top.  Over a few days they quietly disappear.

I usually make them with dark or white chocolate, but decided to create one with a cappuccino flavour.  Nigella Lawson makes a chocolate mousse using marshmallows instead of eggs, so I used her recipe to develop one with a coffee layer on top of a dark chocolate layer.  The 250g packet of marshmallows I bought had both pink and white, so I divided them in half.  There were uneven quantities, so I had to put a few pink ones in with the white ones.  I think using mainly white ones for the coffee layer you end up with a nicer colour.

Chocolate Layer:
125g pink or white marshmallows
½ cup boiling water
75g unsalted butter
250g dark chocolate, broken into squares
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup (250ml) cream, lightly whipped
Coffee Layer:
125g white marshmallows
½ cup boiling water
2 Tbs instant coffee powder
75g unsalted butter
250g white chocolate, broken into squares
1 cup (250ml) cream, lightly whipped
To serve: whipped cream and grated or piped chocolate

Place all ingredients for chocolate layer, except the cream, in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan and heat gently, stirring until melted.  You don’t want the mixture to get too hot, so once the mixture is hot but not boiling, turn the heat off and let everything continue to melt in the residual heat.  By the time the marshmallows and chocolate has all melted the mixture should be fairly cool and beginning to thicken.  If not, wait until it is then thoroughly fold the lightly whipped cream into the mixture and divide between about 10 half-cup glasses.  They should be about two thirds full.

Dissolve coffee in the boiling water, then place all ingredients for the coffee layer, except the cream, in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan and heat gently.  Again turn off the heat before the mixture boils and let the ingredients melt in the residual heat.  When mixture is fairly cool and thickening, thoroughly fold the lightly whipped cream into the mixture, then divide between the glasses.

Refrigerate several hours.  Serve decorated with some extra cream, whipped, or grated chocolate.  In the photo they are decorated with piped melted chocolate in the shape of a treble clef, as they were for a musical evening.

Serves about 10 or 12, depending on the size of the glass

Chocolate and Orange Gateau

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Friends hosted a New Year’s Eve party where everyone brought a plate.  I’ve heard lots of funny stories about new Australians not understanding this concept and turning up with just a plate.  Indeed my Greek teacher Michael Kazan told me that when he first arrived in Canberra from Athens and someone asked him to bring a plate, he thought to himself that if his hosts didn’t have enough plates, they probably didn’t have enough cutlery or glasses either.  So he took those as well.

As my contribution to the New Year’s party I took an Orange, Almond and Chocolate Dessert Cake – another recipe from the December edition of Delicious magazine.  I’ve renamed it Chocolate and Orange Gateau and made my own chocolate-covered orange slices rather than buying them.  My fan-forced oven is too hot at 180C for some cakes, especially ones which require longer cooking, so I set it at just under 170C which worked perfectly.

Chocolate and Orange Gateau

Chocolate-covered orange slices:
2 oranges
2 cups water
3/4 cup sugar
150g dark chocolate
Cake:
2 oranges
150g dark chocolate
5 eggs
400g caster sugar
350ml sunflower or canola oil (just under 1 1/2 cups)
1 cup almond meal
1/4 cup cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup orange liqueur
Ganache:
1 cup thickened cream
350g dark chocolate broken into squares
To serve:
Whipped cream (optional)

For the chocolate-covered orange slices, cut oranges into 1/4 inch slices, discarding the ends which have no flesh in them.  Heat sugar and water in a large frying pan, stirring until sugar dissolves.  Add orange slices, then simmer for 30-40 minutes, turning them from time to time, until the syrup thickens and disappears.  You will need to pay attention towards the end so they don’t stick or burn.  Remove orange slices with tongs to a cake cooling rack.  You can either leave them as whole slices or cut them in half.  They are best made the day before or several hours before serving so they have time to dry out a bit.  When they are dry enough, melt chocolate and dip half the orange slices into the chocolate, then leave to set on baking paper.

For the cake, place oranges in a large saucepan, cover with water, bring to the boil then simmer for about 30 minutes or until tender when pierced with a knife.  Drain and process to a smooth puree in a food processor, then cool.  Preheat oven to 170C.  Grease and line a 24cm spring form cake pan with baking paper.  Place chocolate in a bowl over simmering water (don’t let bowl touch water) to melt, then cool a bit.

In a large mixing bowl whisk eggs, sugar and oil then gradually mix in the orange puree, almond meal and melted chocolate.  Add flour, baking powder and cocoa through a sieve and fold in thoroughly by hand. Pour into cake pan and bake for an hour and 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.  Cover top loosely with foil if it’s browning too quickly.  Cool for 10 minutes in pan, then invert onto a wire rack.  Drizzle with liqueur then cool completely.

For ganache heat cream to boiling point in a saucepan, then add chocolate, turn off the heat and stir until smooth.  Allow to stand at room temperature until thick enough to spread over the cake, stirring from time to time.  Spread ganache over top and sides of cooled cake with a palette knife and decorate with chocolate-covered orange slices.  If liked serve with whipped cream.

Serves 16

Note: if you don’t have any almond meal you can make your own by blitzing some blanched almonds in the food processor.  If you don’t have any almonds you can substitute walnuts or even pine nuts.  You could substitute self-raising flour for the plain flour and baking powder.