Monthly Archives: August 2015

Hot chocolate mousse and raspberry ripple ice cream

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Filed under chocolate, desserts, easy puddings, hot choclate mousse, Ice cream, raspberries

hot choc mousse fiddled twice

It’s dessert week on Bake Off tonight and in honour of that I’m posting my hot chocolate mousse recipe. And because it’s so utterly delicious it will knock your socks off. And because it’s really REALLY easy to make.

Ingredients for chocolate mousse (serves 4):

  • 125g plain cooking chocolate
  • 35g unsalted butter (softened)
  • 3 eggs (separated)
  • 40g caster sugar

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 180 c (fan).

  1. Break chocolate up into small pieces and put into a mixing bowl with the butter and melt over the pan of barely simmering water.
  2. Remove from the heat, add the egg yolks and stir well.
  3. Whisk the egg whites until they form stiff peaks, then gradually whisk in the sugar until glossy and stiff (like a meringue).
  4. Fold the meringue gently into the chocolate mixture and pour into oven-proof tea cups or ramekins. Chill in the fridge until time to cook (at least 20 minutes).
  5. When ready take the mousses out of the fridge and place them on a baking tray. Bake them at 180c for 8 minutes until the mousse has risen to the brim of the moulds and is beginning to firm up on the sides but still gooey in the middle. Serve immediately before they collapse.

Ingredients for raspberry ripple ice cream:

  • 200g raspberries
  • 3 tablespoons of icing sugar
  • 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
  • Ice cream in an ice cream maker:
    • 200g double cream
    • 200g full cream milk
    • 150g caster sugar
    • Pinch salt
  • Ice cream without an ice cream maker:
    • 600ml double cream
    • Half a 397ml can of condensed milk
    • 1 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

  1. Make the coulis – put the raspberries, icing sugar and lemon juice into a blender and whizz to a smooth sauce consistency. Pass through a sieve to remove the pips.
  2. Make the ice cream:
    1. In an ice cream maker: mix together the milk, cream, salt and sugar in a jug. Pour into a cooled down ice cream maker bowl and churn for 30 minutes or until thick.
    2. Without an ice cream maker: whisk the 600ml of double cream, tsp of vanilla and condensed milk until it’s very stiff. Line a loaf tin with cling film.
    3. For both methods once cream is churned/thick:  In either your loaf tin or a shallow plastic tub, add a layer of the cream, add a layer of the coulis, add another layer of cream and another layer of coulis, then a final layer of cream and the rest of the coulis on top. Use a knife or metal pronged stick to ripple the coulis around and through the cream, leaving a lovely swirly pattern on the top (this photo is of some blackcurrant ripple I made recently but you get the idea).

rippled ice cream

Serve the mousses straight away with a scoop or slice of raspberry ripple, which is nice with some chopped pistachios and honeycomb on top (you can make your own or just chop up a Crunchie bar if you can’t be bothered). I made this in the second round of Masterchef for the past winners (without the pistachios and honeycomb) and they and Greg all declared it yum!

hot chocolate mousse with rasp ripple iced cream

(Wonderful photo by Blanche Hughes, who has many more brilliant photos and recipes on her blog: Blanched. Check it out. x)

Easy lemon curd mousse with lemon arlettes

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Filed under Arlettes, Baking, dessert, Dinner party pudding, Easy recipes, Lemon curd

mousse sharp

On tonight’s Bake Off the technical challenge was a biscuit called an Arlette which involves making a sort of puff pastry from scratch. Whilst on holiday in Devon two weeks ago I saw a Rose Prince dessert in a newspaper magazine which I thought sounded easy to make and tasty. I thereby unwittingly made these very same biscuits. (Well, sort of, anyway). I had no idea they were called Arlettes; I thought they were more of a Palmier (shows how much I know). Of course I didn’t make my own puff pastry and I suspect Paul and Mary would have issues with my thickness (and not having any cinnamon in them) but nevertheless they were delicious and went beautifully with the gorgeous lemon mousse, so, with a small amount of alteration, here they are. (Serves 4 – 6 depending on the size of your ramekins).

Ingredients for the lemon Arlettes:

  • 1 block or sheet of all butter puff pastry (blocks are usually 375g and sheets 320g)
  • The zest of 3 lemons, grated (Prince says 2 but I think they needed a bit more lemonyness)
  • 2 tbsp caster sugar
  • 1 egg, beaten

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200C

  1. Unroll your sheet of pastry, or roll out the pastry to ¼ cm thickness if you have a block. (Prince says ½ cm but I’m thinking about Paul and Mary here).
  2. Scatter 2/3 of the lemon zest and a generous tablespoon of sugar onto both sides of your pastry  – you can do this by putting half (of your two thirds) of the sugar and zest onto a piece of baking parchment, placing your pastry on that and then scattering the remaining half of your two thirds of lemon and zest on top of the pastry. (Sounds complicated; really isn’t).
  3. Roll up the pastry (from the short end) into a log shape, wrap it tightly in baking paper and chill in the fridge for at least 30 mins (or 10 mins in the freezer).
  4. Unwrap and cut the pastry roll into thin slices.
  5. Gently roll the slices even thinner using a rolling pin.
  6. Place the slices on a baking sheet covered with baking paper covered in half of the res of your zest and sugar.
  7. Brush them with beaten egg and then dust their tops with the remaining lemon zest and sugar.
  8. Bake until golden – about 10-15 minutes. Leave to cool on the baking sheet for a minute or two then cool completely on a rack.

Ingredients for the lemon curd mousse

  • 1 jar of the best lemon curd you can afford (about 320g. You could make your own, but then the recipe wouldn’t be ‘easy’)
  • 300g double cream, whipped
  • The zest of 1 lemon, pared (if you can. I find this very tricky. But it does look nicer if the peel is pared not grated. Though grated will of course be fine).

Method:

Fold the lemon curd into the whipped cream until the two are amalgamated, then spoon or pour it into pretty ramekins. Scatter the pared zest on the top and chill until needed. Serve with the beautiful Arlettes. Simple as. Yums! (ps your Arlettes should look thinner than mine!)

mousses 3

Blackberry ice cream

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Filed under Autumn fruits, blackberries, Egg free desserts, Gluten free desserts, Ice cream

ice cream mix smartfixed

There are a lot of blackberry bushes at the back of my house. I’ve been eyeing up some early ripeners every time I get in and out of the car and this evening the children and I just couldn’t resist picking the first crop of big juicy berries. They were huge! I’ve wanted to make a blackberry ice cream for ages so set to as soon as we got back indoors. I used my preferred basic ice cream recipe. It’s a very straightforward formula – cold cream, cold milk, sugar, flavouring (vanilla, chocolate etc), churned in an ice cream maker (I use a Gaggia).  It makes a light and smooth ice (like an Italian gelato) which pairs exceptionally well with fruit. Actually it pairs well with anything, as it’s quite a basic background (I was going to say bland, but actually it’s not).  The chocolate version is dense and rich and moreish and the chocolate chip and salted caramel is one of my friend’s favourite ice creams (and Mr Arabella Cooks’ too). I’ll post that recipe in the near future, but for now, here is my magnificent, intense berry tang of a blackberry gelato. It’s lush.

Recipe

  • 500g blackberries
  • Caster sugar
  • Cassis (a blackcurrant liqueur. You can do without it if you don’t have any or don’t want to splash out on a bottle. I do use it all the time though so find it pays for itself, really. Makes a nice cocktail too)
  • Lemon juice (a good squeeze)
  • 200ml double cream
  • 200ml full fat milk
  • 130g caster sugar

Method:

  1.  Make a blackberry coulis: tip the blackberries into a pan (any will do – saute, saucepan or frying pan) with a good glug of cassis, a hard squeeze of lemon juice, 2 tablespoons of water and about 2 tablespoons of caster sugar. Cook on a medium heat till it bubbles a bit then simmer it gently until the berries break down and the sauce thickens a bit. About 4 or 5 minutes.
  2. Sieve the coulis into a jug, to remove the pips. Press down hard to get all the lovely sauce from the fruit and don’t forget to scrape the underside of the sieve. Leave to cool.

ice cream coulis

3. Make sure your ice cream maker is either cooled down if it has an internal cooling unit, or your bowl is chilled from the freezer if it doesn’t. (You can make this very easily without an ice cream maker if you don’t have one – just mix a can of condensed milk with 600ml of double cream and a bit of vanilla essence and whisk until it’s very, very thick. Mix the coulis into the cream, then put it into a loaf tin lined with clingflim and freeze. It won’t be quite as good as a churned version but thoroughly delicious all the same).

4. Mix together the milk, cream and sugar in a separate jug or bowl, then pour it slowly into the cooled coulis.

ice cream mix

5) Pour the delicious mixture into your ice cream maker and churn until thick. Then transfer to a tub and freeze until you can no longer resist eating large spoonfuls whilst standing at the freezer with the door open (yes I do). Yumbles.!ice cream last