A rather glamorous friend of mine decided to throw dinner and drinks for fifteen and put Amelia and me in charge of pudding. Amelia has been a
great friend since nursery school where we would run around being rather
mischievous vigilantes, wearing matching clothes, and kicking all the
bullies.
As we were going to be stuffing our faces, we wanted to do something light and
alcoholic to finish with. Looking through the beautiful book Jelly by Bompas and Parr, we
were rather intrigued by the glow in the dark Gin 'n' Roses Jelly. In their book, they pair this
with a cucumber ice cream. We decided to add two more elements – a rose and
pistachio meringue from Ottilenghi, and a chocolate ‘cup’ to hold the ice
cream. I have now found out that copying out the essentials of a recipe – the
ingredients and basic instructions, is not illegal so here we go...
Rose and Pistachio Meringues from Ottilenghi The Cookbook:
Ottolenghi’s meringues simply are the best – the perfect crunch on the
outside leading to a beautifully soft, ever so slightly gooey inside. These
pistachio and rosewater ones are my favourite. Here is the recipe, adapted from
the book (when I say adapted, all I mean is that the language may be a bit different
in the explanation. Everything else is the same). We did half the recipe and
made 18 mini meringues, cooking them for only an hour and a half but will post
the recipe as it is.
600g caster sugar
300g free range egg whites
2 tsp rosewater (should be in
the baking section of a large supermarket)
60g pistachios, finely chopped (we whizzed them up in a magi mix)
1. Preheat oven to 200C/Gas mark 6.
2. Spread sugar evenly on large oven tray lined
with baking sheet. Place in the heated up oven for 8 minutes (you should start
to see it dissolving at the edges)
3. Meanwhile, whisk the eggs with an electric whisk
on high speed for 1 min or so, so the whites really froth up.
4. Decant the hot sugar into a bowl and add slowly
while whisking the whites.
5. Add the rosewater and keep whisking on high speed
for 10 minutes until it is completely cool. It should then be very silky and
keep its shape.
6. Turn the oven down to 110C. Line a baking tray,
sticking the baking sheet down with a few dabs of meringue mix between it and
the baking tray.
7. Shape the meringues using two spoons (they come out 1.5 to 2 times bigger than you
make them so spread them out) and scrape the surface along the chopped
pistachios. (I sprinkled the pistachio
over them too to make sure I had a nice amount of pistachio crumb on top).
8. Place in the preheated oven and leave for about
2 hours, check if they are done by lifting them from the tray and prodding them
to see that the outside is completely firm but the centre still soft.
9. Remove from oven and leave to cool. They keep in
a dry cool place for a good few days.
Gin ‘N’ Roses Jelly from Bompas and Parr, Jelly:
This beautiful book was the inspiration for our whole dessert. Here is the
recipe.
For
the Jelly
150ml Gin (they recommend
Hendricks, we used Bombay Sapphire)
350 ml tonic water
a splash of rosewater
5 leaves of gelatine (sheet
gelatine should be available in big supermarkets)
For
the Glow
UV backlight (look on amazon for
cheap ones – under £5)
1. Combine the liquids and set aside. Cut the
gelatine into fine pieces and place in a heatproof bowl, submersing with enough
of your gin-rose-tonic mix to cover. Leave til soft (about 5-8 minutes)
2. When soft, place over simmering water to melt. Once melted, add the rest of your gin-rose-tonic mix and pour through a sieve into a jug.
3. Fill your mould (copper or plastic moulds work best. You can measure how much water fits
in your mould and adjust the recipe to fit it if it is too big)
4. Unmould the jelly by placing the mould in
boiling water extremely briefly (1 second).
Place your stand or plate over the mould and carefully turn over.
5. For maximum effect turn off all the lights and
put on the UV back light. The jelly glows because of the quinine in the tonic
water.
I didn’t have a proper UV light, only a mini UV torch so the effect
isn’t quite as impressive as it could have been but the pictures in Bompas and
Parrs book are spectacular! I will definitely be trying this recipe out again.
Cucumber Ice Cream:
This is Bompas and Parr’s suggested accompaniment which they have
adapted from Mrs Marshall’s Book on Ices.
It may sound a bit weird but it is delicious. Really, really delicious. We didn’t use the bergamot oil since we didn’t have
any to hand funnily enough. Instead I added 1.5 tablespoons of boiling water
that we had left fresh mint in for 5 minutes to give it a slightly minty zing. Very
refreshing. This made about 16 smallish scoops.
2 cucumbers
200ml water
300g caster sugar
600ml double cream
50ml Hendrick’s Gin
Juice of large lemon
3 drops of bergamot oil (or
minty water! See just above)
An ice cream maker (I usually do
ice cream by hand but I tried using one of these and it is so much easier –
definitely a good investment and pretty cheap too)
1. PUT YOUR ICE CREAM MAKER IN THE FREEZER THE
NIGHT BEFORE / AS INSTRUCTED WITH THE MACHINE!
2. Peel and deseed cucumbers. (I deseed them by slicing the cucumber in half length ways and gently
scraping along the centre with a teaspoon).
3. Chop finely and place in a saucepan with the
water and sugar. Cook gently until the cucumbers are tender, about 45 minutes,
(I would cover and check every few
minutes).
4. Strain and place in a jug. Bash them with the
end of a rolling pin to puree and pass them through a fine sieve. (we just put them in the magi mix… can you see
a pattern emerging?!)
5.
Add all the other ingredients, cream, gin, lemon
juice, bergamot/mint, mix well and pour into the pre frozen ice cream maker to
freeze. Leave it churning for as long as your machine instructs then scoop the
semi frozen mixture into a tupperware to firm up. When you need it, leave it
out of the freezer for a 10 minutes so it is nicely soft for scooping.
Chocolate Goblets
Lots
of people have posted this recipe and there are videos of it on youtube too.
A
couple of packs of good chocolate (we used
dark)
As many balloons as cups you want to make (I would advise doing 1.5 to 2 times as many as you need if it is your fist time making these so that you have room to go wrong a bit)
As many balloons as cups you want to make (I would advise doing 1.5 to 2 times as many as you need if it is your fist time making these so that you have room to go wrong a bit)
1. In
double boiler melt the chocolate.
2. Cool
for about 5 minutes.
3. Inflate
balloons to the rough size you want to work with (we made them pretty small as they were just to hold a scoop of ice cream). Knot, rinse and leave to dry.
4. Line
a baking sheet or tray with baking sheet securely. Holding balloons by knot,
dip into chocolate, tipping to cover balloon halfway up with chocolate. Then do
the other side.
5. Place
balloon, chocolate down on your baking sheet. Leave to set for 10 minutes then
place in the freezer for 5 minutes or if too tricky, the fridge for 20 minutes
(the freezer does make things easier)
6. It is easier if you can repeat the above steps and cover the balloons in chocolate
twice so it is thicker and it that case you only need to leave the balloons in
the fridge or freezer for 5 mins and 10 mins.
7. Snip
a tiny hole in each balloon to deflate slowly and carefully peel away from the
chocolate.
8. Refrigerate
until needed. Use the same day.
 |
| Amelia and me... up to no good |
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