Forever Nigella - Iced Dreams

This month's Forever Nigella is hosted by Soul Curry, a lovely blog I only discovered recently. Arthi's photos are gorgeous and the blog is beautifully written so it's one I really love reading (and check out her strawberry shaped macarons, how cute are these?!).


Anyway the theme is Iced Dreams, which suited me just fine as Nigella has lots of recipes for desserts that are meant to be served cold. The only problem was choosing just one. I flicked past ice creams and mousses and settled on one of my all-time favourite desserts which for some reason I haven't made in a really long time.

Flan!


Or, depending where you're from, creme caramel. But I've studied Spanish on and off for years and been to Spain lots of times, so in my mind it's definitely flan, and that's what Nigella calls it in her recipe.


Normally you'd make a kind of custard, but in her book Express, Nigella has a much quicker and easier way. You boil up a bit of caramel as normal, but for the custardy bit you just whisk together a tin of condensed milk, a tin of evaporated milk, some eggs and some vanilla, and bake it in a bain marie. I have to admit I overcooked this very slightly so it's not quite as wobbly as I'd like! But it's still delicious and this is definitely a recipe I'll be going back to again and again, I only wish I'd discovered it sooner!

Thanks to Arthi for hosting and Sarah of Maison Cupcake :)

We Should Cocoa - Stracciatella Ice Cream with Macerated Strawberries

The theme of this month's We Should Cocoa, hosted by Choclette at the Chocolate Log Blog, is strawberries. No problem - strawberries are one of my all time favourite foods, I can eat them by the bucketload. I should be able to come up with an awesome cake or other yummy baked item including chocolate and strawberries.

Except I can't eat it because, as you'll know if you read my previous post, I had a wisdom tooth extracted this week and am on a mushy food diet for a few days.

So I've cheated a little bit. I've still made something awesome with chocolate and strawberries, but it's not a cake. And in fact it reminds me of two really good holidays I've had to Spain and Italy, so it was worth cheating a bit just for the lovely rosy-tinted nostalgic feeling that eating this gave me.



When I was fourteen I went on an exchange trip to Granada in southern Spain. The mother of the girl I stayed with was a fabulous cook, and one of the things she made us was macerated strawberries. We had them for breakfast, eaten greedily from a large bowl with a spoon and sometimes even piled on top of buttered toast (is that weird? I don't care). Ever since, macerated strawberries have reminded me of that trip and of Lola's beautiful meals. You don't need a recipe for this one. All you do is take a punnet of strawberries, hull and halve/quarter them depending on size, throw them into a bowl and sprinkle over 2 tbsp caster sugar and 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar. Leave it for a few hours. The sugar and acid will draw out the liquid from the strawberries and turn it slightly syrupy, and the strawberries will taste sweeter, riper and more gorgeous than any strawberries you've had before. And I PROMISE it will not taste of vinegar. Trust me.



For the ice cream, you'll need a recipe. And an ice cream machine. I have neither the funds nor the space for an expensive one with a built-in freezer, so instead I have this little Kenwood thing which cost under £20 from Amazon, and as long as I remember to put it in the freezer the day before I want the ice cream, it does the job perfectly.



Now officially you're supposed to make a "proper" creme anglaise style custard for the ice cream, which involves heating it over a very low flame and stirring it for ages and ages till it thickens, while trying not to let it curdle. Sorry but life is just too short. So I use a little bit of cornflour which will stabilise the custard and stop it from curdling, so you can turn the heat up a bit and it'll thicken a lot quicker. Which leaves you with more time to spend learning to play Johnny B Goode on the guitar (if you're me, that is).

You will need:

300ml milk (semi-skimmed or whole is fine)
70g caster sugar
4 egg yolks (make meringues with the leftover egg whites!)
2 tsp GOOD vanilla extract
300ml pot of double or whipping cream (some pots are 287ml which is fine)
1 heaped tsp cornflour
70g plain chocolate

Heat the milk and vanilla in a saucepan till it just comes to a boil. Meanwhile whisk the sugar, egg yolks and cornflour in a bowl. Pour on the boiling milk - a little bit first to temper the eggs so they don't scramble, whisk it in, then pour on the rest and whisk it all together. Pour the whole thing back into the saucepan over a lowish heat and keep stirring till it thickens enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Pour the custard back into the bowl and stand it in a sink filled with cold water (with ice cubes if you have some) to cool it down quickly. Then chill it in the fridge for at least 4 hours or even until the next day. This lets the flavours develop.

When you're ready to make the ice cream, pour the cream into the custard and mix it all together. Churn this in your ice cream machine. Meanwhile melt the plain chocolate. When the ice cream is looking like it's almost ready, pour the chocolate in a slow, steady stream through the hole in the ice cream machine lid. When it hits the ice cream it will set almost immediately, and little bits of chocolate will work their way through the whole mixture. Lovely. When it's all looking nicely mixed together, transfer the ice cream into a container and put it in the freezer for a few hours before devouring.



My husband is a very discerning ice cream connoisseur and he gave this a very definite thumbs up. Ice cream is something that's more expensive to make at home but worth the extra money and effort because it's just a million times nicer than anything you buy in the shops.

Looking forward to seeing the other strawberry-related entries this month... and hopefully in a few days I'll be baking properly again.

Random Recipes - Just Desserts

The lack of posts lately is due to the sad, untimely death of my laptop. RIP Macbook, you will be missed. Hopefully it will be replaced under our contents insurance, but in the meantime I'm posting from a tiny netbook with a tiny keyboard so I can barely see the letters on the screen and there's bound to be lots of typos.

I do, however, have a new toy to play with: an iPhone! I know I'm very late to the party but I got there eventually (even if mine is only a 3GS, last-gen technology doesn't bother me). To celebrate, I've been snapping photos using Instagram, so you'll have to excuse the 70s style photos because the novelty hasn't worn off yet.


This months' Random Recipe challenge was to bake something lovely from a desserts/baking-related cookbook. Just for a change, I thought I'd pile up my current stash of library books (all sixteen of them, and all food-related!) and pick one at random. As luck would have it, I got Phil Vickery's Puddings, which is obviously very appropriate for this challenge :)



Every page had something I wanted to make, but I thought I'd keep it simple and make one of my husband's favourites: creme brulée. Yummy! Phil's recipe is simplicity itself, but is definitely one of the better recipes I've tried and it turned out perfect.



Ingredients:

6 egg yolks
600 ml double cream
55g caster sugar, plus more for sprinkling
1 vanilla pod
zest of 1 lemon, removed with a peeler (I left this out)

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees C.

Place the cream in a saucepan with the vanilla pod and lemon zest and bring to the boil.

Meanwhile whisk the eggs and sugar till well combined. When the cream boils, strain it through a fine sieve onto the egg & sugar mixture and whisk it all together.

Divide between four ramekins and place these in a deep roasting tin. Pour boiling water into the tin so it comes halfway up the ramekins (this is called a bain marie, by the way). Bake for around 30 minutes, or until set but still a bit wobbly. Leave to cool and chill for a few hours or overnight.

When ready to serve, sprinkle a teaspoon of caster sugar onto each dessert and use a blowtorch or a very hot grill to melt and caramelise the sugar.



The best bit of eating a creme brulée is shoving your spoon through the caramelised top and hearing the lovely satisfying CRACK!