Boozy Summer Pudding – Bread + (Bob Geldof's) Berries + Booze = Brilliant !

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I’ve mentioned my school cookery class before. The course was “How to Make Kids Loathe Food”. Without doubt, it worked for certain dishes – like Summer Pudding. Honestly, how can stuffing bread with a few berries in sweet syrup ever amount to anything, especially if the bread is industrial and the berries from a tin.

When a friend served me Summer Pudding, I poked at it suspiciously remembering the awful school version. However, when I ventured to taste it, my taste buds died and went to heaven. It was one of the sunniest desserts I’ve eaten in a long time. You need to use day-old bread with integrity – that is, with a good springy crumb - and ripe fresh berries. However, the key ingredient is Time – it’s essential for the bread to soak up all the lovely berry juices so make it the day before you need it.

Like any simple dish, it will have a thousand variations. Purists will argue over the type of berries to include. I’ve chosen some of my favourites and included the slightly autumnal blackberries because they were sweet and available, and free (the ones in the picture were from Bob Geldof's garden in Faversham - well they were leaning over the wall...) . Vary the proportions according to preference and availability. In total you’ll need about 1.125 kg of berries.

For a 1 litre pudding serving 4 – 6 people you will need…

400g strawberries

1 tablespoon caster sugar

225g raspberries

225g blackberries

150g redcurrants

125g blueberries

150g caster sugar

3 tablespoons Triple Sec, Cointreau or other orange liqueur

4 tablespoons water

7 – 9 slices of good white bread. This should be a day old, cut into slices 1cm thick, crusts removed

Whipped cream to serve

Method

First choose a few perfect fruits for the top of the pudding and set aside.

Hull and halve the strawberries and place them in a non-metallic bowl. Sprinkle with the tablespoon of sugar.

Place the rest of the fruit in a medium saucepan with the remaining sugar, orange liqueur and water. Heat gently until the sugar has dissolved and the fruit has begun to release its juices – this will only take 3 – 5 minutes. You want the fruit to hold its shape as much as possible. As soon as the sugar has dissolved, remove from the heat and add the strawberries to the pan. Stir gently to distribute them throughout the rest of the fruit. Taste and add more sugar if required.

Line a 1 litre pudding bowl with cling film, leaving an overhang large enough to cover the base of the pudding when folded back across. (It’s easier to line the bowl with two overlapping strips of cling film rather than trying to shape one sheet to fit the bowl.)  Cut a circle from one slice of bread large enough to cover the base of the pudding bowl. Do this as neatly as possible as this will form the top of the finished dessert. Cut and arrange slices of bread to line the sides of the bowl – like a bread patchwork - leaving no gaps. If you have any tendency towards engineering or architecture, this is your moment to shine.

Spoon the warm berries and boozy juice into the lined pudding bowl and finish with a layer of bread to seal in the berries.

Berries n booze n bread should equal bleaughhh... but Alchemy intervenes!

Fold the cling film skirt over the pudding and cover with a small plate or saucer that just fits inside the pudding bowl. Weigh it down – I sit a couple of 400g tins on top of the plate. When it has cooled, transfer it to the fridge and leave it – still weighted – overnight.

To serve, fold back the cling film. Cover the bowl with a large inverted serving plate. Carefully flip the pudding upside down and remove the cling film. Decorate the pudding with the reserved fruit. Cut into wedges and serve with whipped cream.

Note: if you prefer to leave the booze out, substitute it for the same amount of good quality berry cordial (undiluted).

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The 11th bite of Christmas ... Strawberry Marshmallow Santas #12BitesOfChristmas

Pin It The 11th bite is one of the cutest, and the simplest ...

Ho ho ho - Merry Christmas!!!

… and more an artist’s impression of Santa Claus rendered in good things rather than a recipe.  Below is how I did it. You may prefer to look at the photo and figure out your own unique strawberry Santa. 

To produce these ones, I used...

Large ripe strawberries

Marshmallows for the face

Bits of liquorice for the eyes and nose

Desiccated coconut for the beard

Whipped cream for the face, beard, pompom (and 'gluing' the bits of Santa together)

Blueberries for the boots – cut them into quarters.

Cut the bottoms off a punnet of large ripe strawberries, so that they have a flat base to stand on.

Slice off the pointy end, about 1/3 of the way from the tip. This will form the hat.

Sit the fat end of the strawberry on a plate. Pipe a little whipped cream onto the upturned face of the strawberry. Top with half a marshmallow – cut it if necessary so that it is about the same size as the upturned face of the strawberry. Press it into place. Add a little more whipped cream on top and place a strawberry ‘hat’ on top. Pipe cream onto the marshmallow ‘face’, giving an impression of a beard.

Sprinkle the beard with desiccated coconut, then press the bits of liquorice into place for the eyes and nose.

Place two quarter blueberries at the base of the strawberry so that they look like shiny boots. (They won't stay there when the Santa is picked up, but they look great until the moment of eating and people tend to collect them up and eat them). 

Pipe a little whipped cream on top of the hat to form a pompom.

Repeat until someone hands you a glass of wine and offers to take over. Merry Christmas!!!

Hmmm - some you win, some you lose - the one on the left looks more like Santa's dog!!!

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Rhubarb and Strawberry Popsicles - a sophi-stick-ated Summer treat !

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Sophi-stick-ated !

It’s been over a hundred years since the 11-year-old Frank Epperson went to bed, leaving a soda on his porch (so the story goes). After a freezing night, he reclaimed his drink, which had frozen around a stir stick left in the glass. I don’t imagine the soda remained untouched by the local fauna overnight and I guess if he’d looked closely he would probably have seen one or two drowned insects trapped in the world’s first recorded ice pop.

In 1923, Frank patented this frozen treat (insects not included!), calling it the “Epsicle”. His kids had a better name for it and it’s been the “Popsicle” ever since - that’s Ice Pop or Ice Lol(ly) to you and me depending on what part of the country you are from.  Anyway, whatever you call it, Summer just wouldn’t be the same without flavoured ice on a stick.

Over the years, I have gone through various unsophisticated favourites: the luridly lime-y Loop the Loop, the Iceberger, the Wibbly Wobbly Wonder, Solero, and Magnum but I have less of a sweet tooth now.

Sweetened poached fruit combined with Greek yoghurt makes a creamy but relatively healthy (and sophi-stick-ated) alternative. 

Ice pop molds are available in most supermarkets and kitchen stores at this time of year.

For 12 – 16 popsicles (depending on the size of mold) you will need…

600g rhubarb, washed and cut into chunks

200g strawberries, sliced

3 tablespoons unsweetened apple juice (or water)

200g honey (or sugar)

500g Greek yoghurt

a few sliced strawberries to decorate

Put the fruit in a medium saucepan with the apple juice or water. Place over a medium heat, and cover. As it cooks, the rhubarb will release a lot of juice, which will provide enough liquid to poach the fruit.

When the fruit is soft (after approximately 15 minutes), remove from the heat. Add the honey (or sugar) and taste. (I don’t have a very sweet tooth but you may prefer a sweeter mix. If so add more honey or sugar to your own taste.)

Place the fruit in a sieve over a bowl and leave to cool, catching any excess fruit syrup in the bowl.

Next, place the yoghurt in a bowl and stir the cooled fruit through. (It is delicious just like this, served up with a little fruit syrup drizzled over.)


Line popsicle molds with slices of strawberris and drizzle over a little of the syrup to form a thin outside layer on one side of the popsicle. (If you are using upright molds, this won’t be possible so just mix some chopped strawberries through the yoghurt before freezing.) Place in the freezer until the thin layer of syrup has frozen. Spoon the yoghurt mixture into the molds, insert popsicle sticks and freeze for at least 4 hours or overnight.

You will have some fruit syrup left over. This will store in the fridge for up to a week and is delicious mixed with sparkling water or dry cava.

Taste-tester verdicts

Sister: “Mmmm! Very refreshing.”

Niece (2½): “Euugh! I don’ like it!”

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Strawberry & Ginger Jam – and Confessions of a Blog Trainer

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I would be useless as a dog trainer - I cannot even get my blog to behave! To show you what I mean, let’s eavesdrop on a typical scene from Alchemy in the Kitchen...

Me:                 Hey, blog. What are we going to cook today?

Alchemy:       [Excitedly] How about strawberry jam?

Me:                 No! I know the weather is weirdly wonderful for this time of the year but it ain’t strawberry season quite yet. We’re making stuffed baked onions today.

Alchemy:       Whinge. Sulk. Blank page.

Me:                 [softening a little] Alright then, how about a nice pancake cannelloni? (see, trying to bargain – a fatal mistake for a blog trainer to make!)

Alchemy:       Silence. Absence of fingers tapping over keys. Tumble weed.

Me:                 Strawberry jam, eh? [voice-over of me thinking to self: Maybe this blog has a point.  The last twelve months have been relatively jam-free because the jam-maker extraordinaire in my life, my mother, has had to cope with first a fire, then less than a year later, an even more damaging flood when the miniscule stream behind her house rose by a terrifying 12 feet in the space of a few hours in Dublin’s first ‘Monster Rain’. Jam has been the last thing on my mother’s mind. (Although with all the silt the flood left behind, it’s going to be a fantastic year for the fruit trees, Mam...   Mam?)

                        Ok, maybe you have a point, blog. Let’s pop down to the shops. If they have some decent berries, you can have your way. Just this once, mind!

The End

So, you can see it would be useless to send me your dog for training.

Anyway... while I absolutely love homemade jam, I don’t eat vast quantities of it and don’t have ideal storage for it. Therefore unless I am making it as gifts, I make only a little at a time.

For approximately 350g (1 small jar) of delicious strawberry and ginger jam you will need:

350g fresh strawberries, rinsed, dried and chopped into bite-sized pieces

200g caster sugar

30g fresh ginger, peeled and cut into 3 or 4 large slices

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Sugar and spice...

If you don’t have a sugar thermometer, put a saucer or small plate in the fridge before you start – you’ll need this to test that the jam has set.

You will also need a sterilised jam jar – To sterilise jars, I run mine through the dishwasher but you could wash them and pop them in the oven at 100°C for a few minutes.

1                    Place the strawberries and ginger in a glass bowl and add the sugar. Cover and leave overnight. The sugar will draw the juice out of the berries. The following day, transfer to a large saucepan (you need plenty of room for the jam to bubble). Heat gently until all the sugar is dissolved, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. When the sugar has dissolved, add the lemon juice, then turn up the heat. Pop the sugar thermometer into the pot. Allow to bubble until the temperature comes up to ‘Jam’ (106°C or 222°F).  Be sure to take a moment to enjoy the heavenly scent rising from the saucepan. If you don’t have a sugar thermometer, simply keep the jam bubbling for 8 minutes, then test it the old-fashioned way by spooning a little onto the cold saucer you placed in the fridge. Leave it a moment or two to cool, then push your finger through the jam. If the surface wrinkles, the jam will set. If not, continue letting the jam bubble for a minute or so more, then test again.

2                    Remove the jam from the heat and fish out the pieces of ginger. Leave the jam to cool for about 15 minutes before transferring to the sterilised jar. This is because if you pour the jam into a jar while it is still very hot, all the fruit rises to the top of the jar. If you leave it to cool a little first, the fruit will distribute itself evenly.

I think this batch has Victoria Sponge written all over it. What say you?

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Strawberry and Rose Petal Ice Cream – practically Italian!

Pin It I cannot resist a car boot sale ... ‘one woman’s junk is another woman’s treasure’ and all that. 

Take time to stop and smell eat the roses!

My pasta maker came from a car boot sale. It was in mint condition. I figured that by the time I’d rolled out a few yards of fettucini, I’d be practically Italian.  Then I discovered that soft Irish flour - so fantastic for bread and cakes - is rubbish for making pasta. I packed the pasta maker back into its box and brought it to a charity shop.

My coffee machine came from a car boot sale. It looked brand new. I am a tea drinker, but I fancied myself a barista. I could turn out a few foaming cappuccini or a couple of gallons of espresso, and hey presto, I’d be practically Italian. One teeny problem... there were no instructions. I muddled through and drank a lot of coffee. That week I was WIDE AWAKE. Then I left the cap on the steamer and blew the damn thing up. Do you know how hard it is to remove damp coffee grinds from the ceiling?!

A spoonful of sugar does wonders for strawberries

I was so proud of myself when I managed to walk past a bloke selling an ice cream maker. Sitting innocently in the centre of his stall, it wore a price tag - €2. “It must be broken,” I thought. “I’m not taking that gorgeous retro Gelatiera home.” Later, as I was leaving, the man called me over. He’d seen me eyeing the ice cream maker. He assured me it was working.  “Tell you what,” he said, “I’d murder a coffee but I can’t leave my stall. Get me a coffee and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

I use the simplest of ingredients but if you tasted the magical ice creams this funny little machine is capable of churning out, you’d think I was practically Italian.

Strawberry and Rose Petal ice cream is my latest experiment. Because it is made from Greek yoghurt, fresh fruit and honey, it can be considered breakfast! ;-)

Rose Water adds a delicate floral note to this ice cream

For 4 - 6 servings you will need...

250g fresh strawberries, quartered
1 tablespoon caster sugar
550g Greek yoghurt
120g runny honey
10g fresh fragrant red or pink rose petals, unsprayed
3 tablespoons rose water

1                  Sprinkle the caster sugar over the quartered strawberries and set aside for about 30 minutes. Then purée 200g of the strawberries and pass the purée through a sieve to remove the seeds.

2                  Place the yoghurt, strawberry purée, honey and rosewater in your ice cream maker and churn until thick and smooth – about 30 minutes or so though this will vary according to the make and model you use. (If you don’t have an ice cream maker, mix the ingredients well and place in a freezer proof container. Stir well every 30 minutes to break up any large ice crystals. Repeat until the ice cream is smooth and thick.)

3                 Chop the remaining strawberries into small pieces.

4                 Wash the rose petals and pat dry with kitchen paper. Snip off and discard the white portion of each petal (the part where it joined the stem) and tear roughly into pieces. Fold the strawberries and rose petals into the ice cream and transfer to a freezer container. Cover and freeze until required. Ice cream matures so while this is ready to eat straight away, it is even better if you leave it overnight.

Ahh days of wine and roses...

Tip: Remove from the freezer a few minutes before serving to allow it to soften.

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Strawberry and Orange Cream Cheese Cupcakes – the 3-second rule applies !

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 When my sister got married, she made a special request. Would I please, please, please make “that amazing carrot cake with the cream cheese frosting” as her wedding cake. While I’d never made a wedding cake before, I was delighted to oblige.

Strawberries and Cream Cheese - the perfect marriage!

The project got off to a bad start...  As I was transferring the largest of the cakes into the oven, the base fell out of the tin, dumping batter all over the bottom of the oven... the floor... my shoes... I made up some new swear words that day.

The hours to the wedding were ticking down so I rolled up my sleeves, gritted my teeth, and started again.

By next morning, the three tiers were baked and frosted. Before the ceremony, I went to the hotel to set up the cake. I had my list: Cake boards ... ü Ribbons ... ü Dowels ... ü Pillars ... ü Roses ... ü It was like a mini-construction site, complete with landscaping.  With the multi-storey cake set up and refrigerated, I went off to the ceremony, much relieved. Job done!

At the end of a wonderful meal, the cake was wheeled out. Was it just me... perhaps the champagne... or was there an ever so slightly Leaning Tower of Pisa look about the cake? Hmmmm...  



I ♥ Strawberries

Thankfully, the cake made it through the photos. I had turned back to chat to my fellow guests when I heard a collective gasp, followed by a soft thud, as if someone had fainted. I refused to look and moments later, the groom tapped me on the shoulder. “Great cake, Hester” he said, “but the engineering skills need work!”  Ooops! The light fluffy carrot cake just wasn't up to the task of supporting several kilos of pillars, and frosting, and roses and the layers of cake above it. (Doh!) Luckily there was enough in the surviving tier for everyone in the room.

Funnily enough, there was no sign of the fallen cake when the hotel staff arrived to clear it up. I have a sneaking suspicion that the 3-second rule was employed by the hungry boy children in the room.

Lower fat cupcakes: "Does my bun look big in this?"

For the most part, I’ve stuck to single-storey cakes since then, but my love of cream cheese has grown so much that as well as using it for frosting, I now put it in various cake batters in place of butter. It adds a whole new flavour dimension as well as cutting the fat content dramatically. Butter is about 81% - cream cheese is around 23%.

The 3-second rule applies to these cakes. In my experience, that’s about how long they remain on the plate J

For 12 cupcakes you will need:

150g Philadelphia Cream Cheese

150g caster sugar

3 eggs

Grated zest of an orange

150g plain flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

Pre-heat your fan oven to 160°C and line a 12-hole muffin tin with cupcake papers

1          In a mixing bowl, whisk the Philadelphia together with the sugar until smoothly blended. Add in the eggs and the orange zest and continue whisking until well combined.

2          Sprinkle in the flour and baking powder and continue whisking until the flour is incorporated into the mixture.

3          Divide the mixture between the 12 cupcake papers and transfer to the preheated oven.

4          Bake for 18 – 20 minutes or until risen and evenly golden.

5          Remove from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack. Leave to cool completely before piping on the frosting.

For the cream cheese frosting you will need:

125g Philadelphia Cream Cheese

125g softened butter

325g icing sugar

1 punnet of fresh Irish strawberries

6          In a mixing bowl, whisk the Philadelphia together with the butter then slowly add in the icing sugar, whisking continuously until all the sugar has been incorporated and the mixture is smooth and thick. Transfer to a piping bag with a large star nozzle and refrigerate until needed.

7          To finish, pipe a swirl of frosting onto each cupcake and top with a fresh strawberry. Apply to face. Grin happily! 

Apply to face...

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Boozy Eton Mess – A Celebration of Summer!

Pin It If you’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting a Wexford strawberry that has been basking in rare Irish sunshine, then you’ll remember it as possibly the most strawberry-flavoured strawberry you’ve tasted in your life. Each perfect specimen looks like it was hand-picked to star in an advert for strawberry-related products. They are the super-models of the strawberry world.

Summer 2011 starts right now!

Fantastic as a no-effort dessert, Wexford strawberries and cream were my choice for one of the ‘afters’ at a recent family party. Madame Unexpected-But-Very-Welcome-Guest, the-mother-of-a-friend-of-my-sister’s, was deposited at my door the previous evening due to double-booking of rooms elsewhere. A sweet lady, she was determined to make herself useful as I bustled around the kitchen, hulling strawberries, preparing salads and generally not being a very good hostess.

Another fine mess...



Without a word of English, she gestured that she would whip cream for me. I gratefully accepted as there was about a litre of the stuff. The trouble is, I assume that people know – by osmosis - where everything is in my kitchen, so when I turned around 10 minutes later, I was surprised to find that poor Madame, sweat dripping from her forehead, had bypassed my trusty stand mixer and was whipping the cream by hand. I pointed to the mixer – not sure she knew what it was – and said in that voice that is reserved for poor cross-language communication “IF ... YOU... PUT ... THE ... CREAM... IN ... THERE... – MUCH FASTER. Plus Vite, I added for good measure, feeling rather pleased with my command of French. The poor lady looked at me with a large measure of confusion and a sprinkling of anxiety, and quizzically confirmed the instruction ...“errr... faster?” When I nodded, she started whipping the cream at a rate that rendered her hand a blur.

I'm from Wexford too!

Confiscating the whisk, I sat her down and made her an Irish coffee while the cream was whisked to soft peaks by mechanical means. She, in turn, confiscated the strawberries and made them the star of the show with this slightly boozy version of Eton Mess, a silly name for one of the easiest, most summery desserts in the world. I can’t think of anything more appropriate to celebrate the start of Summer 2011. Happy May Day!



For 2 Summery servings you will need:

300g ripe strawberries

1 – 2 tablespoons icing sugar

1 – 2 tablespoons Strawberry/Raspberry liqueur (Crème de Fraise/Crème de Framboise)

1 ½ - 2 individual ready-made meringue nests, chopped into small bite-sized pieces

125mls double cream, whipped to soft peaks



Fresh mint leaves and 2 perfect strawberries to decorate

1          Start by cutting the strawberries into smallish bite-sized pieces. Place 200g of the chopped strawberries in a mixing bowl. In another bowl, roughly mash the remaining 100g of strawberries and mix in the icing sugar and the strawberry/raspberry liqueur. (You could use a teaspoon of vanilla extract if you prefer). Add to the bowl of chopped strawberries and mix gently.

2          Spoon a little of the strawberry mixture into two beautiful glasses or Sundae dishes.

3          Gently stir the meringue pieces through the whipped cream, followed by about half the remaining strawberry mixture.

4          Spoon some of the cream mixture in the glasses, and add a layer of the strawberry mixture. Continue layering until you have used up both mixtures, finishing with a final layer of the cream mixture.

5          Decorate with the mint leaves and a perfect strawberry.

Wexford Strawberries hard at work soaking up the sunshine

This can be eaten straight away, but I prefer to leave it in the fridge for about an hour to allow the flavours to meld – alchemy at work.

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