Coffee Cream

15 August 2010 23:11

This pudding isn’t exactly exciting looking, it is after all beige and it’s what granny would have called “a shape”. I adapted this recipe from a Margeurite Patten one which was actually in the section of “food for the elderly”. It uses up half a can of evaporated milk and as I often have exactly that much left over from doing a particular pasta dish, I thought I would give it a try.

1/2 large can evaporated milk
2oz sugar
3 heaped dessertspoons cornflour
water
1 tsp instant coffee granules

Make the evaporated milk up to one pint with water. Blend the cornflour, sugar and coffee with some of the milk. Bring the rest of the milk to the boil. Pour onto the blended mixture and stir well. Return to the saucepan and bring to the boil again. Continue cooking, stirring all the time until it has thickened.

Pour the mixture into a mould. Leave to cool and set which will take several hours.

If you can remember Symington Table Creams, this pudding tastes and has a similar texture to those puddings. I read somewhere that you can still get the Symington ones but I haven’t seen them for years.

Basically it’s a very thick custard mixture which sets when it is cool. The sky’s the limit flavour-wise with this sort of recipe because you can add any kind of flavouring you fancy.

The original recipe called for vanilla essence but I tried coffee, in future I’m going to add some booze, probably Bailey’s Irish Cream. I’ll also try cocoa and I’m going to have a go at Maple and Walnut which was my favourite Symington one, I’ll use maple syrup instead of sugar but I’m not sure about the walnut flavour. Is there such a thing as walnut or pecan essence?

This is a very simple store-cupboard dessert, but it’s still tasty.

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Chocolate, Banana And Toffee Pie

1 March 2010 23:57

This one went down well with the whole family. It will serve 6.

For the base:
65 g/2½ oz unsalted butter
250 g/9 oz chocolate digestive biscuits

For the filling:
397 g/13 oz tin of condensed milk
150 g/5 oz plain chocolate
120 ml/4 fl oz creme fraiche or single cream
1 tbsp golden syrup

For the topping:
2 bananas
250 ml/8 fl oz creme fraiche
2 tbsp strong black coffee

Melt the butter in a pan. Crush the biscuits using a rolling pin if you don’t have a food processor. Put the crushed biscuits into a bowl and add the melted butter. Mix well and press onto the base and up the sides of a 23cm/9in loose-based flan tin. Leave to set.

To make the filling: Place the unopened can of condensed milk in a saucepan of boiling water and cover with a lid. Lower the heat and simmer for 2 hours. Do not allow the pan to boil dry. This caramelises the condensed milk and you can buy this ready made in tins if you don’t want the faff of doing it yourself.

Remove the pan from the heat after 2 hours and leave it until it has completely cooled. Do not open the can whilst it is still hot, it is very dangerous as the contents are under pressure due to the heat.

Melt the chocolate with the 120 ml creme fraiche or single cream and golden syrup in a heatproof glass bowl over simmering water. Stir in the caramelised condensed milk and mix well, then spread the mixture over the biscuit crust.

Slice the bananas and arrange them on top of the chocolate filling.

Mix together the 250 ml creme fraiche and coffee then spread the mixture over the bananas.

Decorate with grated chocolate or chocolate curls. The easiest way to make chocolate curls is to use a potato peeler on the edge of a bar of chocolate.

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Magimix Le Glacier Ice Cream Maker

7 February 2010 23:01

We were lucky enough to be given vouchers for Lakeland Plastics at Christmas. As the weather has been so bad, we haven’t managed to use them until this week.

So we headed north to Perth and had a mooch around the Lakeland shop there. I’ve always fancied being able to make my own ice-cream so that is what we ended up buying and we’ve been trying it out this week-end.

We started off with the vanilla and then branched out to mint with crushed up Aero mint chocolate added to it. They were both really lovely and I’m looking forward to experimenting with lots of different flavours.

You get a basic recipe book with the machine but I think you can be really adventurous and make it up as you go along. There is a great Italian ice cream shop in St Andrews which has dozens and dozens of different flavours, I think my favourite is the Scottish Tablet one and that should be really easy to replicate.

I’ve got Turkish Delight left over from Christmas too and I think I’ll chop it up and add it to the basic vanilla with some rose-water, that should be lovely.

I hate cheap commercially made ice-cream. To me it is just like sweetened margarine and at least if you make it yourself, you know exactly what is in it.

The bowl of the ice-cream maker has to be in your freezer for about 12 hours before you can use it, but after that it only takes about 20 minutes to make the ice-cream.

So the ice-cream maker has been a great success and I would recommend it to anyone who is thinking about buying one.

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Sparkling Rosé Jellies

7 January 2010 23:13

Rose jellies

We couldn’t stand the thought of a heavy pudding on Christmas day, especially since we had had the Girdlebuster Pie for my husband’s birthday the day before. Sparkling rose jellies seemed to fit the bill as they are light and refreshing after a big meal.

They are very quick and easy to make and obviously can be done the day before you need them.

6 oz sugar.
pork gelatine as directed on the packet.
1 bottle sparkling rosé wine.
1½ pints of water.

Make up the gelatine as directed on the packet, calculating how much you will need for the amount of fluid in the recipe. If you use powdered (beef) gelatine then you just sprinkle it into the sugared boiled water. However we haven’t eaten beef products since before the media got hold of the BSE story so I used pork gelatine, which comes in thin sheets which you have to dissolve in a bowl of water over a pan of hot water. Snip the sheets up first.

Pour the 1½ pints of water into a pan and add the 6 oz of sugar. Stir and bring up to boiling point, making sure that the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat.

Now add the dissolved (or powdered) gelatine into the sugared water. Whisk well together and place the pan in a cold place to set the jelly. After about 1 to 1½ hours the jelly should be on the point of setting. Now carefully add the bottle of wine and stir it into the jelly mixture. Ladle the jelly into pretty serving glasses or dishes and leave to set again, which should take about 3 hours.

The bubbles from the wine should be trapped within the jelly, giving a lovely texture to the dessert.

This recipe can be made with something like Schloer or a similar sort of grape juice, if you are making it for people who need to avoid alcohol. It would be especially popular for young teenagers whom you don’t want to feed booze to, but who have grown beyond the jelly and ice-cream stage.

The quantities which I have given will feed about 10 people. As you can see from the photograph, I added raspberries to mine when the jelly was setting this time. In future I won’t bother doing this as the raspberries tasted very tart compared to the jelly. It might work if you soaked the fruit in some more booze beforehand, but that would make it quite alcoholic.

I have tried this recipe using a white sparkling wine but I much prefer a rosé one as the fruitiness of the wine really comes out when it is very cold.

I added some raspberry juice to whipping cream to top them off.

With raspberry cream topping

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Girdlebuster Pie

31 December 2009 00:34

As I mentioned in a previous post that I was going to be making a Girdlebuster Pie for my husband’s birthday cake, I thought you might like to see how it turned out.

Girdlebuster Pie

I would be the first to admit that the photograph doesn’t look great, the ice-cream bubbles to the surface in places making a strange effect but crucially, it tasted yummy.

I used tiramasu ice-cream as I couldn’t get coffee flavoured but it worked really well anyway. The great advantage of this dessert is that it can be made so far in advance and frozen until it is needed.

It is very rich and I would say that it is enough to give 12 portions. Five of us managed to get through half of it, and the rest I put back into the freezer until next week.

The recipe can be found at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1059850/Girdlebuster-pie.html.

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Chocolate Pudding

3 September 2009 23:10

chocolate up and over pudding

chocolate up and over pudding

Everybody loves chocolate pudding, especially in the colder weather which I can feel coming already and this is a great recipe for those times when the whole family is asking – What’s for pudding? and you haven’t had time to think about it. All of the ingredients are what I would call ‘store cupboard essentials’, nothing fancy, but it tastes great.

Pudding

75g/3oz self-raising flour
1 rounded tablespoon of cocoa powder
125g/4oz soft margarine
125g/4oz granulated sugar
2 eggs

Topping and sauce

1 rounded tablespoon cocoa powder
125g/4oz demerara sugar
300 ml/ 1/2 pint hot, strong black coffee. Instant is fine – use 3 teaspoons added to the water.

Grease an oven proof dish of 2 pint capacity.

Put all of the pudding ingredients into a mixing bowl at the same time and with a wooden spoon or electric mixer, beat until smooth.

Tip the mixture into your greased dish and smooth flat.

Sprinkle 50g/2oz demerara sugar over the top.

Add the remaining 50g/2oz demerara sugar to the hot coffee and stir well. Carefully pour the coffee over the pudding mixture.

Bake at gas mark 4, 350 F, 180 C for about 50 minutes or an hour.

As if by magic the sponge rises over the coffee mixture during the cooking and a sauce is formed underneath.

It’s lovely served hot with ice-cream or cream.
It should serve 4 people.

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Peanut and Chocolate Tart

10 June 2009 20:19

This dessert goes down very well with the family, but it’s really a special occassion thing as it must be very fattening. My lot are all at the stage where they are only going to grow out the way as they have stopped growing up, and this pudding recipe is very moreish.

Peanut and chocolate tart

Peanut and chocolate tart


200g chocolate chip cookies (crushed)
100g melted unsalted butter
200g cream cheese (Philadelphia)
200g peanut butter
100g sugar
120 ml. double cream

For the topping:
125 ml. double cream
80g sugar
70g plain chocolate
60g unsalted butter

Crush the chocolate chip cookies in a plastic bag, giving them a good bashing with your rolling pin. Mix the melted butter into the crushed biscuits until well incorporated. Then tip the biscuit mixture into a 20cm loose-bottomed cake tin. Smooth it out and press well down around the edges. Place the tin in your freezer for 20 – 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, stir the sugar into the cream cheese and the peanut butter and mix well, until it is smooth. Whip the cream to the stiff peak stage and carefully fold it into the peanut mixture.
Spoon this mixture onto your chilled biscuit base, and smooth it level.

For the topping.
Place the remaining sugar and cream into a heavy pan and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes, without stirring. Remove from the heat, and after a minute or two, add the remaining chocolate and butter. Stir until it has all melted, then leave it to cool slightly before pouring carefully onto the peanut mixture.
Chill it in the fridge for at least 2 hours, or overnight.

Serves 6 – 8 people, depending on how greedy you are.
Obviously this is a great recipe for preparing the day before your guests come, leaving you free to get on with the main course.

This recipe is based on one from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s column in The Guardian. His has a baked base which I tried and didn’t like, it was too soggy for my taste.

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Peachy Chocolate Bake

25 May 2009 22:21

Peachy Chocolate Bake

Peachy Chocolate Bake

We had this for our pudding yesterday for the first time, and I’ll definitely be doing it again.

7oz/200g plain dark chocolate, broken into squares
4oz/115g unsalted butter
4 eggs, separated
4oz/115g sugar
15oz/425g tin peach slices, drained
serves 6

Preheat the oven to 160C/325F/Gas 3

Melt the chocolate with the butter in a glass bowl over simmering water. Remove from the heat.

In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until thick and pale.

Beat the egg yolk mixture into the melted chocolate and butter mixture, until well combined.

In a clean, grease-free bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff.

Fold in the beaten egg whites.

Fold the drained peach slices into the mixture, then tip into a buttered ovenproof dish.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until risen and just firm. Serve hot with cream or ice cream.

This pudding has a serious amount of chocolate in it, and as there were only 3 of us again for Sunday dinner, I halved the quantity of everything except the peaches. It worked out perfect for 3 people who don’t want to end up like elephants. I baked it in the oven for about 20-25 minutes, which gave a nice slightly dried out, crisp texture to the surface.

I got this recipe from a book called Heavenly Chocolate by Christine France.

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Chocolate Mousse

19 May 2009 12:04

cropped-choc-cream-cloud-good
This is a real favourite with my family. I can’t remember where I got the recipe from but I do recall that it was called Chocolate Cream Cloud but it is really just a lovely easy mousse.

6oz or 150g of dark chocolate
4 large eggs (separated)
4 tsp. sugar
1/2 pint of whipping or double cream
alcohol of choice (optional)

Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl over a pan of hot water. Separate the eggs and whip the whites until stiff. Remove the bowl of melted chocolate from above the pan and stir with a wooden spoon until it is smooth and a bit cooler. Add the sugar to the egg yolks and stir until smooth.
Then add the egg mixture to the melted chocolate. Mix together well with the wooden spoon.
Using the metal spoon fold a small amount of the beaten egg whites into the chocolate mixture to loosen it, then add the rest of the beaten egg whites. Now whip the cream until stiff.
If you are going for the wickedly adult version – add a dessertspoon or more of your choice of booze to your dessert glasses (Tia Maria, Baileys or Grand Marnier are all good.)
Now spoon a quantity of the chocolate mixture into the glasses.
Fold about half of the whipped cream into the remaining chocolate mixture. Spoon some of this into your glasses. Then spoon in some cream and keep layering it all until your glasses are full.
Decorate with grated chocolate. The easiest way of doing this is to use a potato peeler on the edge of the chocolate. Not nearly such hard work or messy as a grater.
For a mocha version add a heaped teaspoon of instant coffee granules to the cream before whipping it. Yum.
Obviously you should use fresh eggs for this but in over thirty years of making this dessert with raw eggs I’ve never had any problems – even with toddlers eating it.

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Lemon Posset

17 May 2009 21:22

I got this recipe out of The Guardian newspaper’s Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall column just the other week, and as we are all keen on citrus things I thought I would have a go at it . So, I did it for Sunday pudding today and I’ll definitely be doing it again. It was really scrummy.

I’ve just noticed that the recipe says that it serves 6, so we must be really greedy devils because this week there were only 3 of us for Sunday dinner, and we scoffed the lot.

Lemon Posset

Lemon Posset

600 ml double cream
150g caster sugar or vanilla sugar
juice of 3 medium-sized lemons

Pour the cream into a large saucepan and add the sugar. Warm gently, stirring to dissolve the sugar,then bring to the boil and boil for exactly 3 minutes, without stirring.
Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon juice. Give it a good stir and then strain into a jug. Pour into 6 ramekins or small glasses. Cool, and refrigerate for 3 hours before serving.

I used vanilla sugar in this recipe, just because I always have some which I make using ordinary sugar. I never bother with caster sugar, but if you are pernickety that way, the cheapest way to do it is to whizz it up in a food processor.

Next time, I think I will do a lime version of this posset, or maybe lemon and lime layers. That would certainly look more interesting.

If you are trying to gain weight, then this would obviously be right up your street. I used to be a real skinnymalinky, and I know that it is much more difficult to put on weight than to take it off.

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