The idea is Jamie Oliver’s. Nice and quick and eggless. And with no coffee. So perhaps the only common thing with tiramisu is mascarpone, that I mixed with some milk, a tea spoon of vanilla paste ( what an awesome invention!) and some icing sugar. It went onto the biscuits soaked in… orange juice. Jamie recommends orange juice as well as some limoncello, that I happen to dislike, it reminds me of washing up liquid.

On top the cheese I put some raspberries and lots of chocolate flakes to disguise the taste of January raspberries. And some icing sugar on top.

The first dessert ever to be served in the dishes I got from my Mum for Christmas.

I had a few friends over for dinner on Monday night and got an unexpected present from Nikosia, ” The Art of Pastry” cookbook. Really nice present, I hope it will genuinely get me off my arse and make my own pastry more often. I did tonight.

From 125g flour,20g ground almonds, 15g icing sugar, 75g buter, an egg yolk and a bit of cold water I made a pastry and blind baked it for about 15 minutes, trimmed when it cooled and patted myself on the back. 🙂

THE CUSTARD WORKED AS WELL!!!!! 2 egg yolks,150 ml fat milk,25g of icing sugar and some vanilla paste, as well as a tea spoon of…potato flour ( didn’t have any cornstarch as the recipe required). I’ve beaten the eggs with sugar, vanilla and flour and then poured very warm milk while still beating it, then transferred back into the pan and heated up slowly until it thickened. Patted myself on the back again, jumped twice and left it to cool.

I filled my tartlets with some berries, which I first defrosted and heated up with some honey, topped it up with custard and chilled for 3 hours. The book recommends caramelising the icing sugar on top right before serving, but icing sugar doesn’t really do the magic like caster sugar…! Not to worry, 2 more tartlets in the fridge.

Here’s a light ( ish ) dessert that was a nice finish after pizza.

Some quickly fried apples with sugar and cinnamon, cooled.

Double cream whipped with a mixture of apple juice, a juice of freshly squeezed lemon, sugar and yet more cinnamon, some people like their cinnamon…. I whip it not too much, I want it quite runny, which makes the whole thing quite light. And then I layer apples with cream, apples and cream again, finish with apples and on the top some lightly toasted almond flakes.

Chill before serving.

Ewuta is coming over today, so I thought something nice and sweet for the coffee perhaps…

I baked off the simple sponge- 2 eggs, separated, whites whipped up with half a glass of sugar, yolks added by the end, 2 tbsp of plain flour and 1 tbsp of potato flour with some baking powder added and folded in, then baked for about 30 mins.

The walnut creme is my Mum’s recipe; some ground walnuts just covered with boiling milk, chilled. In a separate dish about a 3/4 of a baking margarine, softened, 3 tbsp of icing sugar, a spoon of cocoa, some vanilla sugar – all this beaten up with an electric mixer, walnuts added one spoon full at a time.

The sponge is then cut in half, some of the creme spread in the middle, some on top and on the sides. Best to chill the whole thing for about 2 hours before serving.

Hope she likes it! 🙂

Yessss!!!!

The whole weekend has been full of nice food, lovely ravioli last night, sushi tonight, after which we decided a dessert would be nice. I quickly looked up a chocolate souffle recipe and decided to try again, all there was to lose were 2 eggs and chocolate and more washing up, right?

For 2 souffles I used 2 egg whites, whipped up with 25 g of caster sugar, 50 g of quality chocolate, melted and one egg yolk mixed in- not too sure if that was the way, as the yolk seemed to have cooked in the chocolate, the texture was not incredible.

The oven temperature- strictly 150 celsius ( Florian looked to it), 25 minutes and not a single peek while they cooked. And they cooked beautifully, nothing was left in the ramekins!

Success!!! To be repeated with mango again! 🙂