strawberry mousse...thermomixed!

need i say that this is so easy? the most fiddly thing about this is sprinkling the gelatine over the water...

1 1/2 teaspoons gelatine
1/3 cup water
100 grams sugar
250 grams strawberries
300 ml cream

place the water in a bowl and sprinkle the gelatine over the water. place the bowl over hot water to allow the gelatine to swell. stir to dissolve the gelatine and set aside.

place the sugar, strawberries and cream into the thermomix bowl and blend together on speed 8 for 15 seconds. add the gelatine mixture and mix for 5 seconds at speed 5.

pour the mixture into your favourite glasses, ramekins or bowls and refrigerate until set.

banana fritters

i couldn't resist buying a box of bananas, but i knew i couldn't make another banana cake or five, so i needed a way to use them up deliciously. banana fritters. my fritter batter of preference is self raising flour mixed with cornflour and soda water - it's crisp and light. i use about equal parts of each flour and enough soda to make a batter similar to cream in consistency. i don't bother flouring the bananas and just dunk them in the batter and gently lower them into hot rice bran oil to deep fry. i have my oil not too hot, but hot enough to make sure the bananas bubble away - about 180 degrees celcius. i like cooking my bananas slowly for a longer length of time so they are nice and soft; you do yours the way you like to have them. if you want a sugar hit, sprinkle with castor or icing sugar!

lemon posset

lemon posset is something i've bookmarked for a long time. i've actually bookmarked many things for a long time, but this is something that got lucky (at least i hope so). it is simplicity itself. you only need three ingredients: lemons, cream and sugar. there is no baking involved and minimal cooking time.
make this when lemons are in season - that goes without saying. also, make this for those who like lemon desserts - that, also, goes without saying.
i like making small servings and find little espresso coffee cups and chinese teacups a perfect size - just enough to get a lemon hit and crave a little more.

300 mls cream
1/2 cup sugar
100mls lemon juice (about 2 lemons)

place the cream and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to the boil and allow to bubble gently for 3 minutes. stir to disslove the sugar.
remove from the heat, add the lemon juice and stir to mix thoroughly.
pour into your receptacle of choice - i manage between 6 and 8 small serves with the espresso cups.

pots of chocolate creamy stuff

i had sal over tonight on a spur of the moment thing. we had spent a good part of the day together, but i felt since she has such small windows of opportunity to hang with me, we should do dins as well.
in the meantime, because blutsie and golden one had taken wiggy, sly and acka dacks to the easter show, i had to collect engine from day care. i didn't factor anything in, except that i thought it would be nice to have sal over.
so i get myself to day care and one of the carers yacks to me for ages, and i'm thinking, "please let me take engine....i don't know why, but i have to take him". i still hadn't registered that i would have to make dinner (i was tired, but i knew i had to get home to do something).
eventually, i'm home and wondering what to do. i thought we could have a nibbly thing and settled on my old faithful - brazilian cheese puffs. sal wasn't in the mood for seafood (we have just finished easter), so my original plan of having prawns was not a good one, so i started thinking along the lines of meat...steak....so got some veal steaks and cubes. that was somewhat of a mistake - the veal cubes weren't uniformly tender - some bits were nice, and some bits were chewy....
hopefully, i redeemed myself with dessert....

3/4 cup cream
pinch salt
200 grams dark chocolate, chopped
2 eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons liqueur


put the cream and salt in a small saucepan (don't try this in anything anything bigger because this makes a small quantity....a small quantity which is very, very rich).
bring to the boil, and add the chocolate.
stir until the chocolate melts. do this over low heat.
beat the eggs with the liqueur and add them to the hot chocolate mixture.
remove from the stove and use a blending wand (i use my bamix) to combine the mixture.
pour into 8 or 9 espresso coffee cups. make sure the servings are small - this is rich.
cover with cling wrap and refrigerate for a couple of hours.

an alternative to the coffee cups is to pour the mixture into chinese soup spoons - with this confection, less is definitely more.

chocolate ripple cake

i finally had a chance to make this in september for will's birthday. i say finally because we have been meaning to get around to trying out the recipe for years now. sounds silly, doesn't it? you'd think that we would just make it and that would be that. well, it took some time because i didn't want to make it for no reason at all and have to eat it all by myself - in circumstances such as these miss c and miss k are absolutely no help whatsoever. and like i need to eat a whole chocolate ripple cake all by myself and make myself more jiggly than i already am.....ugh....let's get on with the recipe....

1 packet chocolate ripple biscuits (these are a plain chocolate biscuit without a chocolate coating)
600 millilitres thickened cream, whipped, with a little sugar
sherry

dip a biscuit into the sherry and spread with some cream. place on plate. repeat with another biscuit and sandwich the two biscuits and stand them on the plate sideways. repeat with all the biscuits and place the biscuits next to each other on the plate until you get a log. cover the entire log with cream and cover with cling wrap and place in the refrigerator overnight.

i made the one for will's birthday without the sherry and from what i've heard, it was fine. instead of the log, i arranged the biscuits so they resulting cake looked like a round cake with little bits of the biscuits just peeking out from the cream. another way of arranging the biscuits is to curve them around as the log is forming to make a ring cake. the ring cake needs to be made with double quantities of biscuits and cream and looks fabulous with mixed berries overflowing out of the centre.

lyn's spiced fruit compote

my friend, lyn, and i go back some 22 years now. i met her in april, 1986, so in a way, more than 22 years. when i was first getting to know her, she made this for dessert when i had her over to my place. i've enjoyed it over the years, with lashings of cream. make sure you also eat the orange slices, rind and all. that and cream.....yum.
more recently, in 1996 (march 28, to be precise), i made this, and in an effort to give the impression of being "healthy", i bought yoghurt from harris farm fruit markets. at the time, really thick, heavy yoghurt was new on the scene and the selling point was that it only had 4% fat and it still had a rich and wicked mouthfeel. so there i was flogging this fantastic, low fat, good for you yoghurt to people at the table - "have this with the compote; it's low fat".

1 cup dried apricots
1 cup prunes
1 orange cut in thin slices
1 cooking apple, peeled and sliced
1 stick cinnmon
3 whole cloves
1 cup red wine (not too heavy or dry)(i often use 1/2 cup muscat or port)
2 cups water
1/3 cup honey

microwave on high for 15 minutes and stand for 15 minutes.
remove cloves and cinnamon before serving.

and now for dessert - something smooth and crunchy and hot and cold...all at the same time...

got your attention?

that's how i like to introduce this dessert and all it is is glorified ice cream. not fried ice cream, although now that i think about it, it is hot and cold etc, but i like to think my version might be a bit more sophisticated. yeah...that's right...me and sophisticated go hand in hand.....okay...you can stop laughing....NOW.....

sophisticated or not, i like this dessert and whether you do or don't doesn't matter - just take your cursor to the little "x" at the top right hand corner of this window and click....

remember the brandy snaps? well, make a couple in the shape of baskets.

remember the hot chocolate fudge sauce? well, make some of that.

rememeber sara lee or connoisseur ice cream? well, go get some.

put a couple of scoops of your favourite connoisseur or sara lee ice cream in a brandy snap basket, top with a healthy dollop of hot chocolate fudge sauce and if you really want to be tres sophisticatated, garnish with berries.

there you go - smooth (ice cream) and crunchy (brandy snap basket) and hot (hot chocolate fudge sauce) and cold (berries...okay, okay.....ice cream).

everyone i've served this to has loved it (or loved me so much they pretended to like it so as not hurt my feelings.....). i hope you love it too (you don't have to pretend anything though).

hot chocolate fudge sauce

this is something for true chocolate die hards. also, very simple, and microwavable, if a stovetop isn't available or too much trouble. try it on ice cream, as if u needed to be told.

1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 milk
125 grams dark chcoclate
125 grams butter
4-6 marshmallows

place everything in a saucepan over low heat and stir until smooth, adding sugar to taste. serve immediately once sauce boils.

brandy snaps

brandy snaps are one of those things which have always posed a mystery to me because whilst they are called brandy snaps, they don't have any brandy in them. why are they called brandy snaps? because you chomp on them whilst having a brandy? because they are brandy coloured? because someone called brandy dreamed them up one day (or night)? (my english teacher would be having a fit right now - you don't start sentences with because!!!! and where's the punctuation???) if anyone knows the true story, enlighten me now!!!

that said, i always thought brandy snaps were supposed to be difficult to make because the first time i came across a recipe for them was in a margaret fulton cookbook and she put three dots against the recipe. she had this way of grading recipes whereby she would put dots next to her recipes to indicate the level of difficulty, and three dots was the most difficult. well, brandy snaps are not difficult at all, so banish all thoughts of difficulty out of your head and just make them. if anything, they make anything look special, so if anyone eating them wants to think they're difficult, go ahead and let them think just that. but between us, we know that is just not so.

even the recipe quantities are so easy - equal quantities of melted butter, golden syrup, sugar and flour are mixed together with a teaspoon of ground ginger added for every 1/2 cup of flour. if you need measurements, here they are:

125 grams butter, melted
1/2 cup golden syrup, eyeball this if you're like me
1/2 sup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon ground ginger

preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius.

mix this all together and place teaspoonfuls (or tablespoonfuls, if you want larger brandy snaps) of the batter onto baking sheet lined with baking paper. don't try to fit too many rounds of batter on each baking sheet or the resulting snaps will run into each other because they will spread as they bake.

bake for 5-10 minutes or until golden. remove the tray from the oven and allow to cool for a few moments. this will allow the snaps to set a little so you can lift them up with a knife or spatula; quickly either wrap the snap around a tube or handle of a wooden spoon to form them into tubes. alternatively, drape them over an upturned bowl so as to form brandy snap baskets. should the snaps become firm before shaping, just pop them back into the oven for a few moments to soften so you can shape them as you like.

strawberry mousse

for one reason or another, i have always avoided making mousse. i don't know whether it was the gelatine aspect, the cream whipping aspect, having to use the blender then having to wash it up, or in this case, the use of fresh, luscious berries in a dessert, when i often wonder why people don't just eat the berries just as they are, rather than fiddle with something so perfect. however, now i know why one would make a strawberry mousse - because it is soooo delicious, and oh so easy, especially the way i do it. and what made me take the plunge? it's strawberry season now and perhaps i couldn't justify not making a mousse anymore.

1 punnet (250 grams) strawberries, washed and hulled
1/2 cup sugar
300 mls cream
2 teaspoons gelatine
1/3 cup boiling water

place the gelatine in a small bowl and pour the boiling water over and stir until the gelatine has completely dissolved. set aside while the straberry mixture is being prepared.

place the strawberries, cream and sugar in the beaker of a 1 litre capacity coffee plunger and use a bamix (or other kitchen wand) to blend the contents together. once smooth, pour in the gelatine liquid and blend again.

pour the resulting mousse mixture into 150ml capacity serving glasses or ramekins. the size of your glasses will determine the number of servings you get; i usually get about 5-6 servings and find that this is ideal - any bigger, and one could experience mousse overload, and any less may not be quite satisfying enough.

refrigerate for a couple of hours, or overnight, if time permits. we tend to go through these mousses very quickly (read they are eaten as soon as they set, if not before), however, i did find one behind some other containers in the fridge which was a couple of days old and still very delicious, so i can say they do keep a couple of days quite happily.

sago with mango and grapefruit

this is inspired by a delicious dessert i had when i was in kowloon a few years ago. it was served chilled and was very unusual with the grapefuit scattered through the liquid. chinese sago desserts have tended to have coconut milk as their liquid normally (which i am also very fond of), however, replacing it with orange juice makes the conclusion to the meal much lighter and very refreshing.

sago
4 litres water
1 cup sago

sugar syrup
1/2 cup sugar, or to taste
400 ml water
400 ml orange juice

fruit
1 red grapefruit
1 firm mango

sago
bring the water to a rapid boil. while stirring the boiling water, slowly sprinkle the cup of sago into the water. make sure none of the sago sticks to the bottom of the pan by stirring. once you have poured in all of sago continue stirring and let it boil for 1 minute. turn off the heat and put the lid on and let it sit for 5 minutes. stir the sago and turn the heat back on full for 1 more minute then turn the heat off and let it sit until the pearls are translucent, about 10 minutes. don't worry if you have a few pearls that are still white in the middle. pour the sago into a sieve and rinse under runnng water until the pearls have cooled.

sugar syrup
disslove the sugar in the extra water, then cool the sugar syrup in a fridge.

fruit
peel the grapefruit, remove the pith and then break the segments into small chunks. peel and cut the mango into small cubes.

combine the sago, sugar syrup, orange juice, mango and grapefruit and chill in the fridge before serving.