Tag Archives: dessert

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 photograph 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.

I made it as my contribution to a gastronomic family dinner 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 which went on top.  Since then I’ve managed to cut down considerably on the preparation time and used bought vanilla ice cream instead of home made pear ice cream. The result looks impressive and everyone agrees it tastes fantastic. Start making this the day before.

Amber Jelly
5 Tbs sugar
1½ Tbs water
1 cup white wine
1½ cups water
¼ cup sugar
1 vanilla pod, split and scraped or 1 tsp vanilla essence
4 tsp powdered gelatine + 2 Tbs water
Crème Caramel
Go to this link to make this component.
To serve:
150ml cream, whipped
Home-made or top quality bought vanilla ice cream

Crème Caramel: Make this in a shallow square or oblong lasagne-type dish. Chill overnight, covered.

Amber Jelly: place the 5 Tbs sugar and the 1½ Tbs water in a non-stick saucepan and cook, swirling the pan, until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture has turned a dark caramel colour. Add the wine, water, sugar, vanilla pod and the scraped seeds or vanilla essence and heat to dissolve the sugar and the caramel.

Place gelatine in a small bowl with 2 tablespoons cold water, then zap in microwave to dissolve. Add to pan and mix well then pour through a sieve (to remove the vanilla pod and seeds) into a shallow lasagne-type dish. Jelly should be one to two centimetres thick. Refrigerate overnight, covered.

To serve: this recipe is best served in 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. Place a heaped tablespoonful of whipped cream in each glass on top of the jelly. Then a large scoop or square of the Crème Caramel. Drizzle with some of the caramel from the bottom of the dish. Top with an egg-shaped scoop of vanilla ice cream and serve immediately.

Serves 8-10

 

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.

Mum’s Bread Pudding

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When I was growing up in England, my mother usually had a freshly-baked cake waiting for us when we arrived home from school.   Sometimes it was a butter cake, baked in a slab tin then iced with white icing and cut into rectangles with a glace cherry on each piece.  Sometimes it was drop scones (pikelets), which we ate with butter and golden syrup.  One of my favourites was bread pudding – quite different to bread and butter pudding, which uses cream and eggs and is served as a dessert.  Although it’s called a pudding, we ate it as a cake, still warm from the oven.  It’s an old recipe from World War 2, when nothing was wasted and many things, including eggs, were rationed.  For a modern twist use chocolate chips instead of the dried fruit or a combination of the two.

Mum’s Bread Pudding

9-10 slices stale bread
125g mixed dried fruit
1 Tbs mixed peel (optional)
1 egg
1/4 cup brown sugar
4 tsp mixed spice
2 heaped Tbs softened butter
2-3 Tbs white sugar

Soak bread in cold water for half an hour. Squeeze bread to expel as much water as possible, then beat with a fork to remove lumps. Mix all ingredients together and spread into a shallow baking tin about 20x30cm in size, lined with baking paper.  Bake at 180°C for a good hour or until nicely browned. Sprinkle liberally with white sugar, cut into squares and serve warm.