Food Lust People Love: pudding

Sunday, October 4, 2015

Raspberry Cointreau Syllabub

Whipping cream, Greek yogurt, Cointreau and raspberries combine to make a simple yet delicious dessert that takes mere minutes to throw together, ready to eat immediately or keep chilled till you are ready to serve.

In a rare occurrence, raspberries are on sale here in the UAE. I have no idea why my local Carrefour Market has marked them down to almost half price, but I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. As I piled the little boxes in my shopping cart the other day, the first thing that popped into my mind was syllabub. It’s an easy dessert usually made with whipping cream and sweet wine. Or perhaps a liqueur.

Syllabub is a typical British dessert, or pudding as they like to call it, but I had never heard of it until a number of years ago when a friend told me the story of a dinner party she was throwing in her home. The kitchen was a disaster zone with preparations, cooking and a sink full of dirty dishes. Somehow, by mistake, the syllabub she had just made for dessert – not yet spooned into serving vessels – was thrown out by her maid who mistook it for leftovers of the worst kind. I must admit, it’s not attractive but if you can ignore its looks and put a spoon in, it is delicious!

Come to find out, syllabub made it to the New World with the colonists and it is, in fact, still served in Colonial Williamsburg as a period dessert. What a shame that it fell out of favorite in what became the United States and I had to learn about it from a British friend! Perhaps it’s time to bring it back?

This recipe is adapted from one on JamieOliver.com.

Ingredients
12 oz or 340g raspberries, divided
3 tablespoons caster sugar
3 tablespoons Cointreau
1 1/4 cup or 290ml double cream
1 cup or 245g natural unsweetened Greek yogurt

Optional to serve: a few sprigs fresh mint

Method
Set aside a few raspberries for popping on top of the syllabub and then place the rest in big mixing bowl.

Sprinkle them with the sugar and Cointreau and set aside to macerate.

Whip the cream to soft peaks in a separate bowl and fold in the yoghurt.

Fold half the cream and yoghurt mix into the raspberry mixture. Squish a few of the berries to turn it a little bit pink, if necessary. My raspberries didn’t seem to break down at all, which surprised me, so I did squish a few.

Now gently fold in the remaining cream and yoghurt mix, trying to leave some parts white and some parts pink.

Divide the mixture between six glasses and garnish each with a sprig of mint and the reserved raspberries. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Enjoy!

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Baked Lemon Dessert

Fresh lemon zest and lemon juice are the stars of this tart, sweet baked lemon dessert spooned into a buttered casserole dish and baked until light and fluffy. The supporting role is played by the raspberries or whatever berry you can get your hands on this time of year.

Gin and bear it
Over the weekend, which regular readers might remember is Friday and Saturday here in the United Arab Emirates, we went out sailing offshore Abu Dhabi and then stayed over at a friend’s house on Friday night.

Our friend is quite a collector of gin so it is not uncommon for the evening cocktail hour to start with a tasting of the new additions to his collection. One gin and tonic is mixed with each new gin and then we pass the glasses around, sipping the cocktails and discussing the attributes of the different gins.

One in particular caught my fancy. It was made in Wales and contained an unusual ingredient: kelp or seaweed. After enjoying the gin and tonic and to extrapolate on the suggestion that we serve it in an oyster shell, we mixed a small shot of the Dà Mhìle seaweed gin with ice, a squeeze of fresh lemon and a sprinkle of sea salt, which really brought out the kelp.

Which led to a discussion of whether Americans use the word kelp. Or do we just call it seaweed? I honestly could not remember so if anyone wants to weigh in, please leave me a comment. What do you call the green stuff on the seashore?

Pudding is dessert, pudding as dessert
As I straddle UK/US divide both in my home and with friends, I often lose track of whom uses which word for what but as a majority of my readers are US-based, I tend to name dishes in a way that they will understand.

Way back in October, when I was trolling the internet and my cookbooks for a dessert to fit our budget friendly Sunday Supper theme, I came across a recipe on All Recipes UK. It was called lemon pudding in the British sense, meaning dessert. Because if they were actually making what we Americans call pudding, they’d call it custard and eat it for pudding. If you know what I mean. Anyway, I ended up making profiteroles for that occasion in October but this dish has been on my list of “things to make” every since, no matter what you want to call it.

Captivating Casseroles
Lemons are like eating a healthy dose of sunshine and while we get that almost every day here in Dubai, I know that there are a lot of folks in the northern hemisphere that could use some sunlight and warmth right about now.

If you are trying to keep warm, may I suggest you turn the oven on to bake a casserole or two? Scroll on down to the Sunday Supper link list to see all the fabulous captivating casseroles we are sharing, along with our talented, over-achiever of a host, Alice from A Mama, Baby & Shar-pei in the Kitchen, who is in the middle of an international move but still stepped forward to host. You are a star, Alice!

Ingredients
4 eggs, at room temperature
6 tablespoons or 90ml fresh lemon juice
Zest 1 lemon
1/8 cup or 30g butter, softened, plus extra for buttering casserole
1 cup or 230g sugar
4 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups or 350ml milk

Optional for serving: fresh berries and a sprig or three of mint

Method
Butter your casserole dish (about 8x8in or 20x20cm square – or equivalent volume in another shape) and preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.

Separate your eggs and put the whites in the bowl of your stand mixer or in one that is deep enough to use electric beaters. You can certainly whisk egg whites to stiff peaks by hand but it’s hard work!

In another mixing bowl, whisk together egg yolks, lemon juice, lemon zest and butter until well combined. If your eggs are too cold, the butter is going to break up into little pieces again rather than whisking in. If you’ve made this mistake, just keep whisking. Eventually it will all soften again and create a homogeneous mixture.

How you know your eggs were still too cold. Ugh.

In yet another bowl, combine the sugar, flour and salt then mix well.

Add about a third of the dry ingredients at a time to the yolk mixture, along with one third of the milk, whisking well after each addition, until all of the flour/sugar is incorporated.

Beat your egg whites until stiff.

Gently fold the egg whites into the yolk/milk mixture.

Pour into your prepared baking dish.

Put your baking dish into another larger baking pan and fill it with hot water (should not be boiling) halfway up the baking dish.

Carefully transfer the pan to the oven and bake for 40-45 or until set and puffy, but still jiggly when you shake it gently to check.

Remove from the oven and take the baking dish out of the baking pan.