In every place I work there is at least one dish that I take with me. Even in shitty ones, like Francesco’s, where I learned to make meatballs with fresh mint and make them this way ever since. Current place lacks a bit in terms of excitement, but profiteroles are on the menu and today Oluta has made profiteroles. I used the recipe from GF website, I found it easy and enjoyable.

For the choux pastry I used 50 g of butter, 2 tsp of sugar, which I melted with 150 ml of water and then took off the heat and added 75 g of strong flour, mixing vigorously. When it was getting off the sides of the pan easily, I transferred it to the kitchen aid and made it do the further work, slowly adding 2 beaten eggs. And when ready, with the help of a piping bag I got them ready to bake in 220 degrees for about 18-20 minutes.

When cooled, I filled them with whipped cream, done in my usual way, with some vanilla paste, icing sugar and a touch of lemon juice.

The chocolate sauce- 35 g of cocoa powder sifted into a bowl, about 100 ml of water with 100 g of sugar, when melted and boiling I added it to the cocoa and returned to the pan, mixing until smooth. I added a bit of butter, just to balance the cholesterol with the cream( ha!) and a touch of Kahlua, for coffee flavour.

Very pleased with the result. Tasty, not sickly sweet. Will be done again.

Took me ages to do this, I’ve been moving around the GF magazine all over the place, open on this recipe, yesterday, finally, I made it. I made two, one went to Ewa’s and in spite of having suffered a small incident in the car, it got there in one piece and was enjoyed.

Lots of work, lots of patience, lots of chilling in between the layers. I started by making the thin sponge, the recipe said to use the shop bought madeira, I thought I’d make my own. From the same recipe as always. When it was out of the fridge and cooling, I prepared the tins, lined them with cling film, generously, as smooth as I could, it later makes the whole thing look pretty and makes it easy to release from the tin holding its shape.

The cream layer: 200 ml of double cream heated up with 3tbsp of icing sugar and 3 tbsp of sherry or cherry liquer, in my case. When hot, 2 gelatine leaves go in and 100g of mascarpone, all this whipped together and poured into the tin to chill in the fridge.

The custard layer took 3 tbsp of custard powder, 2 tbsp of icing sugar  and 400 ml of milk, with 2 gelatine leaves added at the end. Onto the set cream layer. In the meantime the one that takes the longest to set- the raspberry jelly was prepared  according to packet instructions and left to cool.

On the custard layer I placed some defrosted raspberries and jelly on that. Long time later, the sponge went on top and I tightened the whole thing with  overflowing cling film on both sides. And left to cool overnight.

Before serving, I whipped yet more cream with some lemon juice and icing sugar, used a piping bag to finish the dessert off, after flipping it upside down and releasing from the cling film. The very final touch is some popping candy.

It’s sweet, rich and yummy. Looked like that…

This was a success and was all eaten and enjoyed, just as I like. Nothing wasted. I made it for Ewa, who came over the other Sunday with her new squeeze, called Rich.

I started with making a fruit jelly to the packet instructions, as it takes forever to set and the timing is crucial here. The base was a simple sponge, Bozena’s recipe, usual, on that I sat some chopped pears, that I had previously cooked with some pear liquor and cinnamon. When the jelly was well chilled, I whipped the cream and added half of that jelly to it, which made it quite runny, carefully poured it onto the sponge and pears and left in the fridge to set. An hour or so later, when the remaining jelly was beginning to set, I topped the cake with it and left it in the fridge overnight. It was light and enjoyable.