Raspberry and yogurt sorbet

Even though July has not been so very summery as one could wish for, the summer generally is a good reason enough to make sorbet. A week ago I made the most incredible lemon yogurt sorbet with a good splash of limoncello..it was creamy, tart and refreshing in the same time. Inspired by that lemony goodness I decided to make sorbet again, still with yogurt because it really takes this otherwise quite icy dessert to a different level, this time with raspberries though.
I use liquid glucose in my sorbets and ice creams, it stops it from freezing rock hard and makes it more smooth and creamy. The addition of some sort of alcohol will also prevent it from freezing too hard. Liquid glucose can be replaced with white corn syrup and of course you can leave the booze out if there will be children eating the dessert.
I have an ice cream maker at home but for this small amount of sorbet I just make it by hand with the help of a plastic container and a freezer.
This recipe will make 6 good sized portions.

200 grams raspberries (fresh or defrosted)
200ml water
140 grams caster sugar
40 grams glucose
200ml yogurt
20ml limoncello

Combine water, raspberries and sugar in a pot. Bring to boil and let simmer for 10min. Strain through a fine sieve and add glucose, stir until melted and let cool down. Stir in yogurt and limoncello to the raspberry mix and freeze in a plastic container. Keep stirring the mix every 20min or so until the mix is frozen but not solid.

Strawberry, lemon and mascarpone tart

It has been quiet on the blog lately, apologies, but my time has been dedicated to put myself out of my non employed misery and get a job. Success; I am now the proud employee of a well known Italian/Irish company with a good few restaurants in Dublin. I can not explain the relief of getting back into a professional kitchen and do some hard work. Half time I will be working on pastry (yes I am one lucky girl with a job that also is my hobby) and the rest of the time will be spent cooking lovely Italian food.
It is stressful trying to get a job though, it takes a lot of time and energy. But I am still cooking and baking away at home. On Friday afternoon when I passed by a lovely fruit and vegetable shop in Rathmines on my way home from work the rain started pouring down. I took that as a sign to stop and seek shelter, also I wanted to see what this shop had to offer. Lucky me was in for a real treat, I left the shop with 3 punnets of Irish strawberries for only 5euro. They were absolutely amazing. I know, it was only strawberries but one can not wish for better strawberries than the ones I bought that day. They were small in size, glossy, juicy and perfectly sweet.
I decided to make the most of those strawberries and baked a pie crust with brown sugar and oat flakes (a crumbly and crusty melt-in-the-mouth story), filled it with lemon flavoured mascarpone and topped it with 2 punnets of strawberries and a lemon glaze. Oh I do not know where to start to try and describe this dessert, it was just delicious and a true pleasure to eat.
This recipe makes 8 portions.

Pie crust
75 grams butter
50 grams oat flakes
60 grams plain flour
20 grams brown sugar
2 squares dark chocolate

Combine all dry ingredients, rub the butter into the dry mix and bring together to a crumbly dough. Press the crumbles into a greased pie tin. Chill for an hour before pricking with fork and baking for 20min on 180C. Grate the chocolate on top of the pie crust when still warm. Let cool down.

Mascarpone filling
200 grams mascarpone cheese
20 grams caster sugar
zest of 1 lemon, juice of 1/2 lemon

Beat mascarpone, sugar, zest and juice together until smooth. Fill the pie crust with the mascarpone. Top with 400 grams of halved strawberries.

Lemon glaze
3 tbsp lemon marmalade
3 tbsp water

Melt the marmalade in the water on a low heat. Strain through a fine sieve, to remove any lemon peel, let cool down to room temperature before spreading over the strawberries on the tart.

Yogurt panna cotta on chocolate fudge brownie

In Italy I was once served panna cotta that was just out of this world. A display fridge full of desserts was placed next to the bar, the waiter took a panna cotta out of it's mould and poured a ladle full of chocolate sauce on top before bringing it to our table. The vanilla flavoured cream pudding melted in my mouth, feather light texture, and the warm chocolate sauce was perfectly rich and gooey.
Last week we had dinner guests and I decided to make dessert. I have wanted to make panna cotta ever since that evening in Italy and now was the perfect opportunity. Replacing some of the cream with Greek yogurt makes this dessert light and fresh. Serving it on top of chocolate brownie is indulging and of course optional. I also added cardamom to the recipe bit that is optional too and can be replaced with vanilla. This is a recipe for 4 small panna cotta so if you decide to serve without the brownie I'd double the recipe.
Panna cotta
75 ml cream
150 ml Greek yogurt
40 grams caster sugar
1 leaf of gelatin

Soak the gelatin leaf in cold water. Bring the cream and sugar (and cardamom if using) to boil. Stir in the Greek yogurt. Squeeze the water out of the gelatin and add to the cream mix. Stir until smooth. Pour into 4 cups or moulds, let set for 4 hours or over night before serving.

Chocolate brownie
75 grams butter
1 egg
100 grams caster sugar
40 grams flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
pinch of salt

Melt the butter and let cool down. Add all other ingredients and stir until smooth and even. Bake for 15min on 160C.

To assemble the panna cotta and brownie; Cut out rounds of the brownie with a cup or mould the same size as the panna cotta. Dip the panna cotta in hot water and tip it out of its mould on top of the brownie. Serve with some fresh berries or a dusting of cocoa powder.

Banana pockets

I think you recognise the picture of half brown, sort of sweet smelling bananas in the fruit basket staring at you, begging you to use them. Banana cake is not an option, there has been way too many of them lately in my kitchen and even though I do like banana cake it can be a bit much sometimes....
Two years ago I worked in an Italian/Irish restaurant in Dublin, sort of modern European cuisine. As a pastry chef at the time I was, together with the head chef, working on the dessert menu. Banoffie Pie is a classic dessert here in Ireland and we wanted to use the flavours of it but take them to a new dimension, put a real twist on it. The result; a smooth toffee flavoured parfait served with a hot, crispy banana and almond pastry. That is a dessert I still dream about, it was just so perfect.
Someone asked me the other day to make something sweet suitable for diabetics, specially children suffering from not being able to eat the same yummy desserts/sweets like their friends. It is tricky with things that has to be sweet but without sugar, personally I do not use artificial sweeteners and even though honey is better than sugar I was on a mission to make something as natural as possible without any type of sweetener/sugar. Having over ripe bananas at home and thinking of that toffee and banana dessert an idea started to take place in my mind. And that is how it happened that I created a little snack or dessert without any sugar, but oh so tasty. Little spring roll pastry pockets filled with banana, served with crunchy almonds and maybe a drizzle of honey.

4 sheets of spring roll pastry
2 bananas
almonds, toasted
honey

Cut each sheet into 4 squares. Put 2 and two together and place on a dry, clean surface. Cut each banana into 4 pieces, slice each piece into 4 slices. Place 4 slices of banana on each pastry sheet. Roll together like spring rolls and seal with a little water. Place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake on 200C for 15 min or until crisp and golden. Serve hot with honey and almonds.

Chcolate sponge with mocha frosting

I have blogged about this recipe before but that time as Mocha Muffins. Traditionally it is made in a large tray and then cut into squares/bars, but this time I still did not stick to that but made it as a cake. It is so tasty when fresh but it does keep pretty well for a couple of days since the frosting on top will protect the sponge cake from drying out. I made a small cake, still enough to feed 8 people, and used one sandwich tin to bake it in. If you double the recipe and use two sandwich tins you could fill it with layer of frosting in the middle and spread over the top as well, that would make a great birthday cake.

Cake
1 egg
75 grams butter
130 grams caster sugar
130 grams plain flour
1.5tsp baking powder
75ml milk
1 1/2tsp cocoa powder

Melt butter and put aside to cool down. Combine flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. Whisk egg and sugar until very fluffy and pale, add butter and stir until smooth. Add the dry ingredients through a sieve and fold in, last add milk and stir until all is well blended. Pour into a greased sandwich tin and bake for 30-40min. Let cool down while making the frosting.

Frosting
50 grams butter
1tbsp cocoa powder
3tbsp coffee
100 grams icing sugar

dessicated coconut or hundreds and thousands

Melt the butter and add coffee, sugar and cocoa powder. Stir until well combined and spread over the cake. Sprinkle with coconut or hundreds and thousands.

Almond meringue with daim parfait

Easter came and I took the week off from blogging and spent the weekend in Stockholm. Usually Easter is a holiday where I end up cooking a storm but this year I did not go too crazy; a couple of meals out and BBQ in my parents garden. However I made the most delicious dessert the days before we left Ireland for Sweden, and lucky me still have a big piece left in the freezer. The recipe comes from a Swedish food magazine my mum bought at least 10 years ago and ever since then this dessert always manages to impress even the fuzziest eater. Crispy, chewy almond meringue topped with daim parfait really is a great combination and to add something extra I like to serve it with fresh blackberries. Blackberries goes really well with milk chocolate and almond, so since the dessert contains Daim (includes milk chocolate) and sweet almond meringue it just works a treat. Another plus with this dessert is that it is glutenfree. The recipe makes enough dessert for 6-8 people.

Meringue
2 egg whites
50 almonds
60 grams caster sugar

Parfait
250ml cream
25 grams caster sugar
2 egg yolks
60 grams daim

Chop almonds roughly. Beat egg whites until firm peaks appear, add 30 grams of the caster sugar and beat to a firm meringue. Fold in the rest of the sugar and almonds. Spread out on baking parchment to a 2cm thick flat round. Bake for 30min in 175C. Let cool down before making the parfait.

Chop daim into small pieces. Whip the cream, not too hard but quite firm. Beat egg yolks and sugar until pale and fluffy. Fold in cream to the egg yolks, last the daim. Spread over the meringue and freeze straight away for at least 3 hours before serving.

Chocolate mousse

On a friday night after a lovely home cooked meal I crave dessert. It does not have to be big or fancy, just something sweet to hit the spot. After making parfait the other week I still had my mind set on chocolate and raspberries so after a quick look I realised I had all ingredients at home to make a chocolate mousse with raspberry coulis. This is an easy version containing eggs, butter, sugar and chocolate, it tastes very "chocolaty" so make sure you use good quality chocolate.

2 eggs, separated
70 grams dark chocolate
1tbsp butter
4 tbsp caster sugar

Melt chocolate and butter, let cool down to room temperature, carefully stir in the egg yolks. Beat egg whites until soft peaks appear and start adding sugar bit by bit. Whisk to a firm meringue. Fold the meringue into the chocolate. Divide in to cups or glasses and chill for a couple of hours before serving with fresh raspberries or raspberry coulis.

Raspberry chocolate parfait

Sometimes I don't really think things through before starting to cook or bake something and the result will always be a bit of a surprise then. This was the case when making this parfait; all I knew was that I wanted a yummy dessert and that I had to use what was in my freezer and cupboard. I always keep a bag of frozen raspberries in the freezer, I like to eat them defrosted with yogurt in the morning or to put in sponge cakes or muffins. Chocolate is another must have ingredient that always hangs around either my fridge or cupboard, dark, milk or white...
These two ingredients go so well together so there was no doubt the flavour of the dessert was going to be nice. Semifreddo has been a hit the last few times I made it so I decided to make something similar, but in French it is called Parfait.
The dessert went down a treat together with fresh raspberries and hot chocolate sauce.

Parfait
2 eggs, separated
200ml cream
60 grams caster sugar
40 grams dark chocolate
60 grams raspberries

Melt chocolate and let cool down. Whisk egg yolks and 30 grams of sugar until white and fluffy. In a separate bowl whip cream until soft peaks appear. Beat egg whites in a third bowl, when soft peaks appear start adding the sugar bit by bit while beating to a firm meringue. Divide the egg yolk mix in two and mix with raspberries in one bowl and chocolate in another. Add half of the cream to the raspberries and the rest of the cream to the chocolate. Last gently fold in the meringue. Pour in the chocolate mix in a tin and the raspberry on top. Freeze for 4 hours. Take out in room temperature 10min before serving.

Chocolate sauce
2tbsp cocoa powder
2tbsp caster sugar
1tbsp golden syrup
3tbsp water
1 pinch of salt

Combine all ingredients in a pot, stir until well combined. Bring to boil and let simmer for 3-4min while stirring. Serve hot on the side of the parfait.

Rhubarb crumble

The last few days has been very mild and sunny here in Dublin, spring is in the air for sure. I was delighted when given a bag of the first rhubarb of the year last week and made a crumble. We have an awful lot of rhubarb growing in the country house garden in Sweden, and when spending the summers out there we used to make crumbles all the time. I was even put off baking or eating crumbles for a few years until I recently realised what a wonderful way this is to cook with fresh fruit and berries in season. Rhubarb has such a lovely flavour; tangy, sour almost bitter, but with the right amount of sugar it just goes all yummy and sweet. I like to put oat flakes in my crumble, makes it crunchier and tastier. Cardamom and rhubarb is a great combination, it lifts the whole dessert to a new level. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

500 grams rhubarb, chopped in small pieces
1tbsp cornflour
4tbsp caster sugar
1tsp ground cardamom

125 grams butter
60 grams oat flakes
65 grams plain flour
40 grams brown sugar

Combine rhubarb, caster sugar, corn flour and cardamon. Spread out in a baking tin or pie dish. Mix brown sugar, oats and flour. Rub butter in to the mix until crumbly. Spread the crumbles on top of the rhubarb and bake for 20-25min on 220C.

Lemon semifreddo

Last week I had home made Lemon curd in the fridge and a bottle of Limoncello brought to us as a gift straight from Italy. It would have been a crime not to combine these to delicious things so I made Lemon semifreddo. Martin who was quick to grab the plate I used for the photo, a couple of minutes later I came in to the room and the dessert was gone. That kind of thing makes me smirk a little and feel very pleased with myself. The day after I served the dessert after a lovely meal and oh what a joy, the fresh tangy lemon cuts through the creamy, soft semifreddo and just melts in your mouth. The addition of limocello will not only make this dessert taste even better but also stop it from freezing too hard and leaves it kind of soft frozen. Served with fresh blueberries and mint it was a top class dessert.

4-6 portions

2 eggs, separated
200ml cream
60 grams caster sugar
50ml lemon curd
40ml limoncello

Whisk egg yolks and half of the sugar until fluffy and pale. In a separate bowl whisk the cream until soft peaks appear. In a third bowl whisk egg whites until fluffy, start adding sugar little by little while whisking. Continue whisking into a firm meringue.
Carefully combine whipped cream, egg yolks, limoncello and lemon curd. Last fold in the meringue and pour into a dish. Freeze for at least 3 hours. Leave in room temperature for 10min before serving.

Brown butter banana cake

With brown bananas in the fruit bowl and a wish to bake something I was today standing in my kitchen. I had the recipe for my Banana oat bran muffins in front of me and was all ready to start when an idea came to me. After making the Friands a few weeks ago I have been wanting to make something else with brown butter. Reading a few recipes and blogs for inspiration I now had a plan; Brown butter banana cake. Imagine a rich, dense banana cake with the nutty, caramelised flavour of brown butter, a touch of cinnamon and served warm. It was absolutely delicious and I will definatly keep this recipe in mind for the next time I see brown bananas in the fruit bowl.

120 grams butter
150 grams soft brown sugar
2 eggs
180 grams plain flour
1tsp baking soda
1pinch of salt
1tsp ground cinnamon
60ml plain yogurt
2 bananas

Melt butter in a pan and keep it on the heat until a foam appears on the surface, it smells nutty and looks brown in colour. Set a side to cool down. Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl. In another bowl mix eggs, sugar, the bananas roughly mashed up and butter. Add dry ingredients and yogurt. Stir until well combined and bake on 190C for 35-45min.

Blood orange drizzle cake

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade" the old saying goes but in the month of March it is more a case of blood oranges being in season and I like to make the most of it.
Lemon drizzle cake is something I tasted the first time in London. We were strolling around in a park, the sun was shining and it was a lovely late summer day until all of a sudden the sky turned grey and it looked like bad weather was on the way. In the gardens of Kensington Palace a lovely cafe called The Orangery is located and as we seeked shelter in there the weather started to get better again, and by the time we had ordered our afternoon tea the sky was clear again. English weather, what can I say?
However I decided to go very Brittish this afternoon and ordered a slice of lemon drizzle cake accompanied by a pot of Earl Grey tea. What a pleasure to bite in to this soft, moist sponge drizzled with a lovely tangy lemon icing, sipping tea in the gardens of Kensington palace.
This month I have indulged in blood oranges as they are in season and the price is very reasonable. It is lovely to eat them just the way they are of course but it can be nice to make something more and since I love baking I decided to put a twist on the classic Lemon Drizzle cake and do a Blood Orange Drizzle Cake. A rich sponge is topped with a blood orange juice and sugar mix, the orange juice will sink into the cake and make it moist, the sugar will stay on top and create a sherbet like icing.

Sponge

200 grams butter, room temperature
300 grams caster sugar
4 eggs
240 grams plain flour
1tsp baking powder
100ml milk
1 blood orange, zest and juice
1 pinch of salt

Cream butter, sugar and a pinch of salt until pale and fluffy. Add one egg at the time while beating into a smooth batter. Add flour and baking powder through a sieve. Last fold in milk, zest and juice of the blood orange and make sure all is well combined. Bake for 30-40min on 175C, a skewer should come out dry. Take out of the oven and let cool on a wire rack while making the syrup and icing.

Icing

1 blood orange, juice and zest
80 grams caster sugar (i used icing sugar, it wont be as "icy" on the top, still very nice)

Combine the juice and sugar, pour over the cake and sprinkle zest on top.

Serve with your afternoon tea or as a dessert with a dollop of cream or yougurt.

Tiramisu

Rich mascarpone mixed with eggs and marsala layered with savoiardi biscuits soaked in coffee this lovely dessert really hits the spot after a big Italian meal. Translated straight from Italian it means "pick me up" and it sure does. In Florence last year we spent most of our holiday eating and drinking and I would not be lying if I told you I had tiramisu nearly every day. Tiramisu would in my opinion be a grown up dessert and I used not to like it because of the strong flavours of coffee and alcohol, but it seems the more I have it the stronger I like the coffee to be and I am not shy with the alcohol. At the moment I have no marsala at home but I use coffee liquor and whiskey instead, work just fine. On top I also grated some very dark chocolate to give it a little extra kick. Here is a recipe for 4 portions.

250 grams mascarpone
2 eggs, separated
4tbsp icing sugar
whiskey/coffee liquor

8 savoiardi biscuits
200ml strong coffee+whiskey/coffee liquor
cocoa powder

Beat egg yolks and 2 tbsp of the icing sugar until pale. Add mascarpone and continue to beat until thick. Add coffee liquor or whiskey to taste. In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites until soft peaks appear and add 2 tbsp of the icing sugar and continue to whisk it to a firm meringue. Gently fold in the meringue to the mascarpone-mix.

Dip the savoiardi biscuits in coffee flavoured with whiskey/coffee liquor. Put biscuits in the bottom of a large dish or in portion glasses and top with the mascarpone-mix. Put one more layer of bicuits before topping with the remaining mascarpone-mix. Chill for at least two hours before dusting with cocoa powder and serving.

Hazelnut semifreddo

On saturday evening, after a lovely meal of home made pizza, I presented a very tasty Italian dessert; Semifreddo. It is almost too tasty for me to describe in words... Imagine the lightest parfait flavoured with ground, tosated hazelnuts, served with hot chocolate sauce and raspberries. The semifreddo is, as the translation straight from Italian says, half cold wich means the dessert is frozen and then put in room temperature for about 20min before serving to get the right texture. The eggwhites really makes it so light and fluffy, and it is not that sweet like some desserts can be. You are meant to add some alcohol as well to the recipe to make it softer since alcohol stops it from freezing too hard and becoming icy. I did not put any alcohol in this time but would recommend some coffee liqour or marsala.
This recipe will feed 4 people, yes it will look like a lot of dessert but belive me, they will come back for more... I froze indvidual silicpne muffin cups (very handy since they are non-stick) but you can just as well make one large dish and serve on a platter.

2 eggs, seperated
200ml double cream
60 grams caster sugar
50 grams ground hazelnuts
(20ml marsala/coffee liqour)

Toast the hazelnuts in a dry frying pan until golden brown. Set a side to cool down. Whisk egg yolks and half of the sugar until white and fluffy. In another bowl whisk the cream, not too hard, just until it forms soft peaks. In a third bowl whisk eggwhites, when it starts to look like foam/soft peaks, add the ramaining sugar bit by bit while still whisking until it is a quite stiff meringue.
Fold the eggyolks and sugar mix into the cream, followed by hazelnuts and at last eggwhites wich are folded in carefully to keep as much air in as possible. If you are using alcohol, add this at the very last point before freezing.
Divide the mix into individual dishes or the one big dish lined with cling film. Cover the top with cling film and freeze for at least 3 hours. To serve take the semifreddo out of the dish/dishes and put on a plate for 10-20min before serving.

Rhubarb and cardamom ice cream

Making ice cream in the middle of the winter might sound a little odd but I am the proud owner of an ice cream machine and just happened to have a bag of rhubarb in the freezer...it turned out to be amazing, the rhubarb compote tasted like sorbet and together with creamy ice cream it felt like the last taste of summer for a very long time. The ice cream base is just a creme anglais flavoured with cardamom, a rhubarb compote on top of that and you have a perfect dessert, I served it in almond brandy snaps but you could just as well serve it on its own.

Creme anglais
100 grams caster sugar
200ml cream
200ml milk
30 grams liquid glucose (Golden syrup can be used as a substitute)
4 egg yolks
1 cardamom pod

Heat milk, cream, half of the sugar and cardamom pod in a pot. In a bowl beat egg yolks and the rest of the sugar until white and fluffy. When the cream comes to boil slowly add it to the egg yolks while whisking. Pour back into the pot and put on a low heat, stir constantly. Just as the egg yolks starts to thicken take it off the heat and pour through a sieve into a cold bowl. Let cool down and chill over night in the fridge. Churn in an ice cream machine and put into a dish, keep in the freezer.
You can pour the mix into a plastic container and freeze without an ice cream machine but you need at least 2 1/2 hours and to stir it every 30min.

Rhubarb compote
300 grams rhubarb, chopped
100 grams sugar (more if you like it sweeter)

Melt sugar and rhubarb on a low heat in a pot, let simmer until the rhubarb has gone soft and it looks like jam. Let cool down. Use a hand blender and pureè the compott. Pour over the frozen ice cream and freeze again.