Tuesday 20 April 2021

Chocolate fondant pudding, with white chocolate sauce


 Simplicity itself. Self-indulgent, luxurious, and deeply satisfying!

For two.

Ingredients: 1 egg; 60 g butter; 60 g soft brown sugar; 50 g flour; 1 tsp baking powder; 15 g cocoa powder; 50g white chocolate; half a cup of cream; 1 tsp vanilla essence; 2 squares dark chocolate.

Method.

1. Heat the oven to 180 degrees C. Grease two individual pudding basins.

2. Process together the flour, egg, sugar, baking powder, cocoa, and butter. Divide this mixture between the two greased basins. Press into each one a square of chocolate and cover with the mixture.

3. Bake for twenty minutes.

4. Meanwhile, in the top part of a double boiler, melt he white chocolate along with the cream and vanilla. Stir to blend.

5. Unmould the baked puddings onto dessert plates, and spoon he white chocolate sauce over the top before serving.



Sunday 18 April 2021

Mixed Berry & Peach Strudel


 Served here with bergamot cream.

This is another of those perfectly presentable last-minute desserts for when you have very little time or else have to deal for some reason with the unexpected. And it is delicious.

Serves Four:

Ingredients;

2 cups mixed berries, either fresh or frozen (I used redcurrants and blackcurrants, raspberries and blackberries); 1 peach, quartered,and then each quarter diced; 1 cup breadcrumbs; half cup sugar (or sucralose); 50g butter; three sheets phyllo pastry, each one 12" x 18".

Method:

1. Heat the oven to 180 degrees C.

2. Melt half the butter in a small pan, add to it the breadcrumbs and toast them for a minute or so over high heat. 

3. In a bowl, combine the toasted breadcrumbs with the fruit and sugar. It should adhere, to form a dense mass; if it needs some help to do so, add a tbs or so of milk.

4. Melt the remaining butter and use it to butter each sheet of the phyllo, layering them one on top of another as you go. Leave a spoonful or two of melted butter to use later.

5. Spread the fruit filling over the half of the the phyllo rectangle which is nearest to you, with the shortest side facing you. Leave a margin of pastry of about 2" at the end which faces you, and along each side. Fold the exposed end of the pastry over the filling, and fold in each of the uncovered lengths of phyllo along the sides. Then, starting from the end nearest you, roll the whole thing into a neat cylinder, tucking in the sides as necessary, as you go.

6. Place on a greased baking sheet, and brush the top of the strudel with the last spoonful or so of the melted butter. Bake in the pre-heated oven for twenty minutes or so until golden. Allow to cool slightly before serving.

For bergamot cream, mix the grated lest of a bergamot (or a lemon, if no bergamot is available) with two cups of mascarpone, and half a cup of sugar.