Strawberry and cream dessert

I've been quiet for a few days, because I had lovely family members visiting from Finland and I showed them a few nice spots in England. One evening I made this dessert for them and it was very well received.

I thought of this recipe as strawberries are in season, it's summer and it's okay to eat nice desserts, right? I have never eaten the traditional British dessert “Eton mess”, but I've been told that my dessert resembles it. I wasn't trying to copy that dish, but just wanted to combine nice flavours. Surely they don't have patent pending for strawberries and cream in Eton? It would be nice to try the traditional Eton mess one day, though. 

For my recipe I cut a couple of corners again by using ready made meringue. I promise you to make my own some other time. For some additional punch I decided to add some brandy as it does make cream so much better! Here's the recipe.

Ingredients

200 g strawberries (100 g for the sauce and 100 g for the dessert)

3 tsp sugar (1 tsp for the sauce and 2 tsp for the whipping cream)

300 ml whipping cream

2 tsp brandy

4 small meringue nests

Method

Whip the cream with sugar and in the end carefully fold in the brandy.

Cut the half of the strawberries into halves or quarters depending on the size.

Make the strawberry sauce by puréeing the other half of the strawberries with one teaspoon of sugar into a smooth sauce.

Add the strawberry pieces to the whipped brandy cream and mix. Then also crush the meringues into that mix as generous pieces.

Place into serving bowls or glasses and pour the strawberry sauce on the top.

This recipe makes four small desserts, double up for more people.

Enjoy the taste of summer!

Your VegHog

Coffee and brandy dessert

Weekend is here and the sun is shining! I couldn't be happier about that. I hope you all have a brilliant weekend, and maybe you would even like to make this dessert for your loved ones during it?

I remember cutting this recipe out from a Finnish magazine years ago, and I still have it in one of my collected recipe books. I was delighted to find the recipe now online, and decided to give it an update. This is an extremely filling dessert, but so tasty! Have a little break after dinner before eating it, or simply make smaller cups. The original recipe is in Finnish only, but here is my version of it. 

These amounts are enough for four generous dessert glasses.

160g oat biscuits

70g melted butter

300ml whipping cream

5tbsp sugar

4tbsp brandy

100ml dark coffee

100g plain soft cheese

Coffee bean sweets

Crush the oat biscuits finely and add the melted butter to it. Mix them to a buttery oat crumble.

Whip the cream with the sugar, and then carefully fold in the brandy, coffee and soft cheese.

Assemble the glasses by layering the oat biscuit mix with the coffee cream.

Put some coffee bean sweets on the top as decoration.

Let the dessert glasses set in the fridge for at least one hour and serve cool.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Pear tarte tatin

I thought that a tarte tatin is a great dish to be served as an Easter dessert, and I decided to make mine with pears this time. I followed Gordon Ramsay's recipe, but downscaled it a bit to fit better my cake tin (Ø 20cm). This is how I made mine.

4-5 pears (Green Williams pears)

50g caster sugar

60g butter

1 star anise

2 cardamom pods

1 cinnamon stick

1tbsp brandy

300g puff pastry

Peel and halve the pears. Heat the sugar, butter, star anise, cardamom pods and cinnamon stick in a pan at high heat. Let the butter bubble, and stir until it gets toffee colour. Add in the pear halves and cook them for about 10 minutes at lower heat. Stir in the brandy once the pears have cooked.

Remove the star anise, cardamom pods and cinnamon stick from the pan. Brush a cake tin with some of the caramelised liquid. Place the pears in there with the round side down and pour the rest of the caramel liquid on the top. Place the rolled out puff pastry on the top and press it down along the edges.

Bake at 180C for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 160C and bake for further 15 minutes until the pastry is crispy and golden brown. Let the tarte rest for 10 minutes and then carefully turn it upside down onto a serving plate. This can be tricky because there is a lot of caramelised liquid.

Brandy cream

If you want to serve the pear tarte tatin with some brandy cream like I did, follow these instructions.

You need the following ingredients:

300ml whipping cream

2tbsp icing sugar

2tbsp brandy

Whip the cream and icing sugar for a few minutes and quickly stir in the brandy once the cream is firm enough. Serve on the side of the pear tarte tatin.

Happy Easter baking!

Your VegHog