Lemon Posset & Blueberry Compote with Shortbread Fingers

This has to be one of the simplest desserts to make and the combination of lemon and blueberry is sublime! Other soft fruits could be used for the compote and even though I haven’t tried it yet, I think raspberries might be particularly good. The deep pink of a raspberry compote against the pale lemon of the posset would look so elegant.

I have come across recipes for possets which use other citrus fruits. Personally, I think that you need to use a fruit that is quite tart and bitter so in my own mind I have ruled out the use of sweet oranges. However, when available in January and February, Seville oranges could work very well. I have yet to do more experimenting with other citrus fruits, but will report back when I do.

This is the type of dessert that looks like it should be quite complicated to make, but truthfully, it is incredibly simple and it has worked, without fail, every time that I have made it. I love it!

Despite being so simple to make and using very few ingredients, this is a very rich dessert. I caution you to serve small portions. The first time that I made it, I presented it in tumbler-sized glasses. Although delectable, it was too much. Since then I have served it in large shot glasses or have only one-third filled the tumbler-sized glasses.

 

I like to serve this posset with a couple of shortbread biscuits on the side. I really like the marriage of the rich and creamy posset with the crumbly, buttery crunch that the shortbread provides.

 

Possets are desserts steeped in tradition and history. Originally a posset was a beverage made from hot milk and honey to which wine or ale was added. It was very popular in the Middle Ages throughout the British Isles. The dessert evolved over time into the chilled, thickened cream - based dessert that we are familiar with today.

 

Lady Macbeth used a poisoned posset to knock out the guards keeping watch outside Duncan’s quarters in Macbeth but I promise you, if you like lemons and blueberries you will love this dessert.

 

Ingredients:

500ml double cream

150g caster sugar

75ml freshly squeezed lemon juice

Zest of three lemons

Blueberry compote:

250g fresh blueberries

100g caster sugar

Method:

1. Put the cream into a medium sized saucepan. Bring the cream to the boil and then stir in the lemon juice, lemon zest and sugar. Bring back to the boil, stirring constantly and allow simmer for two minutes.

2. Remove the saucepan from the heat and pass the cream and lemon mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl and allow to cool for about twenty minutes. Pour evenly into 8-10 small glasses and leave to cool completely.

3. When completely cool, cover and refrigerate until chilled.

Blueberry compote:

4. Place the sugar in a small, heavy based saucepan and heat over a high heat until the sugar begins to melt. Do not allow the sugar to caramelise too much, but once all the sugar has melted add the all the blueberries and mix with a wooden spoon.

5. Reduce the heat under the saucepan and keep stirring. Some of the sugar may seize but as the blueberries release their juices everything will become liquid again. Just keep stirring. After a couple of minutes you will have a lovely rich blueberry compote. Set aside to cool completely. Once cooled, cover and refrigerate.

To serve:

6. Spoon a layer of blueberry compote on top of each lemon posset to cover completely in an even layer.

7. Serve with shortbread biscuits. I made shortbread finger using my basic shortbread recipe rolling out the dough to about half a centimetre thick and cutting into fingers before baking in a preheated oven for approximately 15 minutes.

Serves 8-10.
 

Apple, Pear & Blackberry Crumble

This is such as simple recipe… I really cannot stress how easy it is. It is also incredibly versatile – you can use whatever fruits you have to hand.

Apple crumble is incredibly popular in our house especially if served with a large spoonful of lightly whipped cream, a scoop of vanilla ice-cream or a generous puddle of custard. Another favourite fruit to use is Rhubarb… so delicious. I sometimes throw in a few strawberries to keep the rhubarb company, if I have some.

Basically you just pile all the fruit into an oven proof dish, and depending on the tartness of the chosen fruit – sprinkle on some sugar to taste, top with the crumble mixture and pop into the oven for just over half an hour.

It is that simple.

The crumble is a doddle to make. You roughly rub the butter into the flour and add some caster sugar before mixing together.

As you will be aware, I am on a bit of a pear fest at the moment, so I used apples, pears and some blackberries. I love the way the blackberries give a rosy colour to the other fruits as they cook.

Be confidant and do try out different fruit combinations using whatever is in season. You can’t beat a good crumble.

Ingredients:

4 large cooking apples, peeled cored and sliced

2 large pears, peeled, cored and sliced

Handful of blackberries

50g caster sugar

Crumble:

175g plain flour

115g butter

100g caster sugar

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C/Fan Oven 160C/Gas Mark 5. Mix the prepared fruit together into an oven-proof dish and set aside.

Make the crumble:

2. Place the flour in a bowl and rub in the butter. You do not need to be too fastidious about this as it is actually better if some small lumps of butter still remain. Add the sugar and mix all the crumble ingredients together.

3. Spread the crumble out evenly on top of the fruit. Place on a baking tray and put into the pre-heated oven for approximately 35 minutes until the crumble is a golden colour and the fruit juices are bubbling around the edges. Allow to cool slightly and serve whilst still warm with cream, ice-cream or hot custard.

 

Serves 6.
 

Toffee Apple Pudding

The rain has been falling relentlessly all day long. It has been cold and windy and it has definitely not been a day to venture out. But this is hardly unusual for Ireland in November!!! When the weather is so inhospitable I crave hot and comforting things to eat.
 
Halloween was only the other night and the children have just about come down from their sugar-induced highs brought on by all the sweets that they gathered when they were out haunting the neighbourhood.
 
One of the things that we regularly ate at Halloween when I was a child were toffee covered apples. It occurred to me that a variation on this theme was the perfect combination to try out today - cooked slices of apple in a sticky, citrusy sauce topped with a light sponge and finished off with a good dollop of lightly whipped cream. Sometimes you just have to do these things in the interests of culinary research!
 

Ingredients:

Pudding:
4 large bramley apples – peeled, core and cut into thick slices
225g self-raising flour
75g caster sugar
125g butter
Finely grated zest of 1 orange
2 large eggs
150ml milk

Sauce:

75g dark muscovado sugar

50g butter

100ml orange juice (from the orange used earlier)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/Fan 180C/Gas 6.
2. Lightly butter the bottom of a shallow oven-proof baking dish. Place the apples in the buttered dish.
3. To make the sponge, cream the butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy. Add the orange zest and mix thoroughly. Next, mix in the eggs, followed by the flour and milk. Pile the sponge on top of the apples in the buttered dish. Using a spatula spread out the sponge mixture to completely cover the apples.
4. Next place all the ingredients for the sauce into a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Immediately turn off the heat under the saucepan and carefully pour the sauce over the sponge topped apples. This may sound weird, but as it bakes the sponge will rise to cover the apples which will be covered in the sticky sauce. Bake for 35 minutes.

Serve with softly whipped cream or custard.

Serves 6.

Liquorice Poached Pears with Blackberries & Star Anise Ice-Cream

Pears are such a great fruit to cook with because their tendency towards being hard and a little indigestible is addressed during the cooking process.
 
All too often pears are only available to buy when under-ripe and can take an age to come to an edible stage. Oh but the sheer pleasure of eating a perfectly ripe pear... one that is juicy but not mushy or too soft and the child-like joy I feel when the juice dribbles down my chin. How disappointing it is to bite into a pear that is hard and woody in texture! I love recipes for poached pears because they usually require slightly under-ripe pears. The recipe that I have developed is one such example.
 
Liquorice is one of those ingredients that has become very trendy recently and is being used by many top chefs on their menus in both sweet and savoury dishes. For me, liquorice evokes memories of Sherbet Fountains, Black Jacks and Liquorice Allsorts sweets. I loved the taste of liquorice as a child and I still do.

The thing about liquorice is that you either love it or hate it. Liquorice sweets are not REAL liquorice which is the root of the plant Glycyrrhiza glabra. The sweets whilst they do contain the root also usually have an added aniseed flavour derived from anise, which is naturally very sweet and if not used judiciously can be unbearably over-powering.  

 

I have been thinking of ways that I could use liquorice  in my cooking and came up with the idea of liquorice poached pears. The big challenges were; firstly – how to introduce the liquorice flavour and secondly how to use it in such a way that it did not dominate the flavour of the pears.

 

So off I went hunting for guidance. I noted that many of the recipes that I stumbled across used ground liquorice root. I inquired at the local health food store as to the availability of liquorice root, but as I had suspected might be the case, there does not seem to be much demand for it. This was also the case at the supermarket. Having said that, I’m sure that I could get some in the Asia Market and I could also order some on-line. I’m definitely going to try and seek some out to satisfy my curiosity.

 

 I can be an impatient person at the best of times and was determined to try out my pear and liquorice combination as soon as was possible. I wasn’t going to let a little matter like the acquisition of liquorice root thwart me! I then stumbled upon a possible solution; one recipe that I found advocated the use of Fisherman’s Friends sweets and another suggested using natural flavoured liquorice sweets, which could be melted down in liquid. Given that the pears in my recipe had to be poached, I thought that I would add a few natural flavoured liquorice sweets to the poaching liquid. I added 6 sticks which weighed about 50g in total and they worked a treat, imparting a subtle but still distinct liquorice flavour which did not overpower the taste of the pears. I added other spices and aromatics including a halved orange, some cinnamon sticks and star anise. My daughter commented that the smell in the kitchen whilst the pears were cooking was very Christmassy.

 I am really proud of this recipe; it’s quite sophisticated tasting but is not overly sweet. I have served it with home-made star anise ice-cream, but honestly, a quality shop-bought vanilla ice-cream would also do the job!
    

Ingredients:

Poached Pears:
6 slightly under-ripe pears (I used Comice)

500ml red wine (I used Pinot Noir)

50ml Cassis

50g caster sugar

1 orange, halved

3 star anise

2 cinnamon sticks

50g liquorice sweets, chopped up into small chunks

Star Anise Ice-Cream:

284ml carton double cream

300ml full fat milk

115g golden caster sugar

8-10 whole star anise

3 large free-range egg yolks

 

Method:

Poached Pears:

1. Peel the pears, but try to leave the stalks intact as they look attractive when serving.

2. Put the pears into a medium-sized saucepan so that they still have a little room to move but fit relatively snuggly. Pour in the wine and add the Cassis. Add a little water if necessary to make sure that the pears are covered. Add the two halves of the orange, the star anise, cinnamon sticks and the chopped up liquorice sweets.

3. Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer. Allow to poach gently in the liquid until the pears are just cooked but still retain a bite….you do not want them too soft.  Using a slotted spoon, remove the pears to a bowl and turn the heat up under the poaching liquid and boil rapidly to reduce by about a half. Pour the reduced liquid over the pears in the bowl and allow cool. Refrigerate until chilled.

 

Star Anise Ice-Cream:

1. Pour the cream and milk into a medium heavy-based pan and add half the sugar and the star anise.Heat the cream and milk over a low heat, stirring occasionally, until it almost boils. Leave it aside for half an hour so that the star anise infuses the cream mixture.

2. Put the egg yolks into a bowl with the remaining sugar and beat with an electric hand-held beater for about 2 minutes until the mixture has thickened and is paler in colour.

3. Reheat the cream until it just comes to the boil, take off the heat and stir into the egg yolk mixture. Return the pan to a low heat and cook, stirring all the time with a wooden spoon, for 8-10 minutes, until the custard is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon. Do not allow it boil or you will end up with scrambled eggs.

4. Pour the custard into a bowl and cover with cling-film. Allow the custard to cool completely. Remove the star anise and churn according to your ice-cream maker instructions.

 

Serves 6.

 

Raspberry Eton Mess

Eton Mess is a traditional English dessert consisting of strawberries, broken-up meringues and whipped cream.

There are many conflicting stories on where the dessert got its name, but one thing that is not in doubt is how delicious it is in its simplicity. The dish has been known as Eton Mess since the 19^th Century, named after Eton College where it was served at the school’s annual cricket game against Harrow College.

I have a particular fondness for fresh raspberries, so that is what I tend to use, but it goes without saying that there are loads of variations to the basic dessert. It is most famously made using strawberries but Autumn blackberries are also delicious.

You can use shop-bought meringues, but I regularly have home-made meringues lurking around the place, so that’s what I use. Essentially what I am trying to show you is that there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to making Eton Mess. Basically, I recommend experimenting using different fruits and whatever is in season! You can also ring the changes by including a splash of alcohol such as brandy or use some fruit flavoured liqueurs. A few toasted nuts are also a nice addition.

I have kept it simple here and just used raspberries, meringues and some softly whipped cream. Don’t overwork the mixture when combining everything.  You want to achieve a “messy” appearance where the different elements retain some of their individual qualities!

Ingredients:

250mls single cream
1 punnet of raspberries
3 or 4 meringues
 

Method:

1. Whisk the cream until it holds its shape in soft peaks. Do not over-whisk it.
2. Roughly crush the meringues into bite sized pieces. Crush a few of the raspberries but leave some whole as well.
3. Fold the raspberries and broken meringues into the cream and pile into individual glass serving bowls. Do try to use glass bowls because then you see the full “messy” effect.

Serves 4

Meringues

I love the decadent frivolity of meringues!

Meringues have a reputation of being difficult to make, but provided you follow a few simple rules, they are actually incredibly easy to make.
 
So what should the perfect meringue taste like? It should be crisp on the outside, but still soft and slightly chewy in the centre.

The recipe that follows is made with Italian meringue where the egg whites and sugar are gently heated in a bowl suspended over a pan of simmering water until the sugar is dissolved. Once the sugar has dissolved, the egg whites are whisked with a hand-held electric mixer for about ten minutes until the meringue is fluffy and holds its own shape and has cooled down. This is a very stable meringue when made and creates the most delicious meringues. The pavlova that I make and which is one of my fail-safe desserts is not made using Italian meringue, but employs the more traditional method of whisking the egg whites to the soft peak stage and then gradually whisking in the sugar - I will post that recipe separately.

I like to pile the mixture onto baking parchment lined baking trays in large blobs to create pretty looking clouds of sugary delight! A few flaked almonds sprinkled on top prior to baking do not go amiss and give a very pleasant nutty crunch.

Once the basic meringue mixture is made, you can adapt the recipe slightly to ring the changes. For example you can fold in some finely chopped nuts, or add a few drops of food colouring to make coloured meringues. Imagine a mountain of meringues casually piled up on a plate in a range of pastel colours… Beautiful!

Finally, I should mention that I have found that weighing the egg whites creates more accurate results, so that’s what I do here, but 115g egg whites equates to roughly three large egg whites.

Rule 1: All your equipment must be scrupulously clean. If there is even a speck of grease, your egg whites will be much more difficult to whisk. Some cooks recommend rubbing the mixing bowl with the cut side of half a lemon to get rid of any grease. I’ll be honest, I don’t do this, but if you are in at all anxious that there is some grease present, do it.

Rule 2: Use a large metal or glass mixing bowl to whisk the egg whites as plastic bowls are far more inclined to retain fat or grease. Using a large bowl, allows more space for air to be whisked into the egg whites. Again I will stress, make sure that the bowl is spotlessly clean.

Rule 3: When separating the eggs, make sure that is absolutely no trace of egg yolk in the egg whites. I always separate the egg whites individually into a small bowl first of all and when reassured that there is no hint of egg yolk, I then empty it into the mixing bowl. The reason that I do this is because, if some egg yolk gets into the mixture, I only have to discard one, rather than the whole batch.

Rule 4: Use caster sugar for the meringues. Granulated sugar does not dissolve correctly in the foamy egg whites when whisked and creates a grainy meringue. Some recipes use icing sugar, but I think that it creates a powdery meringue.

Rule 5: Bake the meringues in a pre-heated oven at a low temperature for the specified time. At the end of the cooking time, turn off the oven and allow the meringues to cool completely in the oven. For this reason, when making meringues or pavlova, I usually make them the night before they are needed and let them cool in the switched off oven overnight.

Ingredients:

115g egg whites

225g caster sugar
A handful of flaked almonds
    

Method:

1.                  Pre-heat the oven to 110C/Fan 100C/Gas 1/4.
2.                  Put the egg whites and caster sugar in a large bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Do not let the bowl touch the water directly. Stir with a clean spoon until the sugar has dissolved and the egg whites are slightly warm to the touch. This will take about ten minutes.
3.                  Using a hand-held electric mixer, whisk the egg white and sugar mixture for about ten minutes until a stiff meringue has formed and the mixture has cooled. The meringue should be quite stiff and hold its own shape without collapsing.
4.                  Using a large tablespoon, pile large blobs of meringue onto parchment lined baking trays. Scatter a few flaked almonds over the top of each meringue.
5.                  Place the trays into the pre-heated oven for 1 hour and then switch off the oven and let them cool completely.

Makes 8-10 meringues.