Tag Archives: pudding

Lime friand recipe

31 May

I have two sources of inspiration for this recipe. The first is 15 year old Conor McLean who beat me to win Britain’s Best Dish. He made a fantastic vanilla friand dessert and during the process, I realised that I had never made one. The second inspiration is The Flavour Thesaurus by Nikki Segnit. This book gave me the idea for my dessert on Britain’s Best Dish. I love it. Literally weeks before it was released, I was wishing that I could have a book that would tell me what flavours go together. Then, voila, it appeared.

The complete idea for my dessert was lime friand with lemon and ginger sorbet, candied ginger and a tuille biscuit. In reality, making such a dish for two people isn’t really worth it but its an idea that i’ll hold onto for future dinner parties!

I started making the elements of the dessert about a month ago. First was the candied ginger, then the lemon and ginger sorbet. I never got around to making the friand, much to my boyfriends annoyance – he has asked me at least twice a week over the last month where his friand is. I couldn’t make any more excuses so I set to work in the kitchen and I’m so glad to say that it was easier and took less time than expected. It was one of the best things I have baked in a long time!

Unfortunately, I didn’t store the candied ginger in a good enough air tight container so I had to throw it away and I didn’t make the tuille biscuit. But, the friand and sorbet dessert was a delicious end to dinner.

Lime Friand

Lime friand

Ingredients (Makes 6)

2 egg whites
60g butter, melted
65g ground almond
40g icing sugar
20g plain flour
1 tsp lime zest
1 tsp lime juice
6 blanched almonds

Method

Pre heat the oven to 200 degrees and grease a small cupcake pan

1. Whisk the egg whites until slightly stiff and foamy
2. Add melted butter and ground almonds
Sift the icing sugar and flour into the bowl, add the lime juice and zest and mix until just combined
3. Pour the mixture into the moulds and place an almond on the top of each cake
4. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, or until the top has browned. Make sure that a skewer comes out clean when inserted

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Decadent Chocolate and Ginger Mousse

8 Apr

Easter is upon us and all I can think about is chocolate. But, rather than settling for a shop bought Easter Egg this year, I’ll be making a delicious, rich and decadent chocolate mousse. Why not try it yourself – enjoy as a dessert or a very naughty sweet treat.

Ingredients

250g dark chocolate (I used 70% Lindt)
50g unsalted butter, softened
9 eggs whites
6 egg yolks, beaten
50g golden caster sugar
1 tsp ground ginger
Extra chocolate shavings to sprinkle on top

Method

1. Melt chocolate in bain marie. When melted, stir in the softened butter until smooth
2. Whisk egg whites until frothy but not stiff. Add half the sugar and whisk until stiff. Add the rest of the sugar and whisk until the egg whites stiffen further. Fold in the beaten yolks using a metal spoon.
3. Whisk half of the egg whites into the chocolate until thoroughly mixed, then fold in the second half until evenly combined
4. Pour into glasses and leave to set
5. Sprinkle chocolate shavings onto the top before serving

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Lime, Vanilla and Almond Madeleines

2 Feb

My first memory of Madeleines is on my family holiday in Ibiza. Bet you didn’t expect me to say that did you?

Well, there was a little bakery next to the hotel that we stayed in every year and most days I would take a wander down with my brother, buy a sweet treat for the family and take it back to the swimming pool.

They sold the most delicious Cream Cakes and Madeleines. I also had fun making my way through large packs that you could buy in the supermarket. I found them delicious – rich and sweet with a fantastic vanilla taste.

So I am surprised that I only baked them for the first time last week. I guess I had never got around to buying the special tin – until Lakeland had an offer on just before Christmas time. I spotted it and thought I’d give them a go.

I also received a great present through the post last week, which spurred me on even more. When I was on holiday in Australia, I baked some Chocoalte Chip Cookies and I was telling my boyfriend’s grandma how much I love to bake. I opened my post last week and she had sent me the brand new ‘Baking Made Easy’ by Lorraine Pascale with a little note saying that she had been watching her new TV programme and that she thought I’d like her book. I do, I love it.

Lorraine has a great recipe for Lemon and Hazelnut Madaleines but I didn’t have any Hazelnuts in the house so I substituted this for Ground Almonds. I also swapped the Lemon for Lime to mix things up a bit.

They turned out well with a lovely zesty lime flavour. I couldn’t really taste the Almond and I have a feeling that it had made them slightly heavier than they were supposed to be so next time I’ll make sure I stick to Hazelnuts.

Ingredients (Makes around 30)

I used sunflower oil for oiling the tin

4 large eggs
100g golden caster sugar
80g melted butter
1/2 vanilla pod, deseeded (you’ll need to use the seeds)
Pinch of salt
100g Nature Friendly plain flour
40g ground almonds
Zest of 2 limes

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180degrees and oil the madeleine tin

1. Whisk the eggs in a bowl (an electric mixer is very helpful here) until almost doubled in volume
2. Still whisking, tip sugar down the side and keep going until the mixture is light and mousse like. Stop whisking
3. Tip the melted butter down the side of the bowl, followed by the vanilla. Fold the mixture carefully so that you do not knock too much air out of the mixture
4. Add the salt and the flour little by little (I didn’t sift this and it was fine) and fold until a batter is formed
5. Add the ground almonds and lime zest and stir to combine (again making sure that you don’t knock any air out)
6. Pour into the madeleine tin and bake for 10 minutes or until they turn a golden brown colour
7. Unless you have a few tins, you’ll need to empty the baked madeleines onto a cooling tray, cool the tin with cold water, re oil and add the next batch of batter. I did this 3 times

Enjoy with a cuppa or a steaming mug of Hot Chocolate.

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Chocolate soufflé recipe

1 Nov

I have had the fear of God put into me about making soufflé. I have often wanted to try one but been put off by countless disasters that I have seen on TV.

My boyfriend needed a couple of egg yolks for dinner a couple of weeks ago and rather than seeing the egg whites go to waste, I decided to bite the bullet and make a chocolate soufflé.

Chocolate Souffle with Vanilla Ice Cream

It was probably one of the easiest puddings that I have made in a while. Chocolate soufflés are notoriously harder to manage as the chocolate is so dense that it can ruin the whipped egg white. The way to get around this is by taking a small amount of egg white out and adding the chocolate to this before folding it back into the rest of the egg whites.

I’d suggest to serve with Haagen Daaz Vanilla Ice Cream.

Ingredients
Serves 4

100g good quality dark chocolate (I always use Lindt. This time I used 50% Cocoa)
50g Golden Caster Sugar
4 Egg Whites
2 Egg Yolks
Butter (to grease)

Method
1.Pre-heat oven to 150 degrees c
2. Grease ramekins
3. Melt chocolate by sitting a bowl on top of a pan of simmering water. Do not let the bowl touch the water
4.Whisk the egg whites in a bowl. Once thick, start to slowly pour in the sugar while whisking. You can stop whisking once the eggs form stiff peaks
5. Take the melted chocolate off the heat and mix in your egg yolks, then stir in one spoon of your egg white mix
6. Add the chocolate mix to the egg whites and fold in slowly until combined. Do not beat the egg white mixture because it will knock the air out of it
7.Spoon into your ramekins and smooth the edges with your thumb (this helps them rise evenly).
8. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 25 minutes. Make sure you don’t open the oven door because they will collapse!

Enjoy!

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