Here's the proof of the pudding …
The lemon pots
– just add raspberries
The compote
– a deep rich colour and it tastes as good as it looks – however you use it.
The assembly
– it's almost a shame to dig in – oh well someone has to.
Lots of choices to suit you – hope you find it useful.
... but love lemons and a lighter alternative to wean yourself off all those heavier desserts?
A definite possibility for any New Year entertaining, since I'm sure by now you're wilting a little after all that hard work and deserve an easy recipe or three.
You've three versions :
Version 1 :
Lemon Pots
Makes 6 x 160ml glasses
600ml double cream
150g caster sugar
finely grated zest and juice of 3 lemons **
Raspberries to serve
small glass dishes or shot glasses
Heat the cream, sugar and lemon zest in a wide-based pan over a low heat until at simmering point. Stir continuously for about 3 minutes until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly until lukewarm.
Mix the lemon juice with the cooled cream in the pan and stir.
Pour the lemon cream into the glasses – two thirds full - transfer to the fridge to set for a minimum of 2 hours. This is based on a shot glass of 160ml.
When set and ready to serve arrange the raspberries on top.
** If you don't have fresh lemons you can use juice and omit the zest – 4 tbsp of juice is equivalent to one and a half lemons – 8 tbsp for this recipe.
Version 2 :
OR, you can omit the raspberries and make :
Cherry and Raspberry Compote
350g cherries, stoned – can use frozen
150g caster sugar
juice of 1 lemon
150g raspberries – can use frozen
4 tbsp water or juice from defrosted fruit
Pour the water into a pan and add the cherries, sugar and lemon juice. Place the on a medium heat and stir until the sugar dissolves. Cook the cherries over a low heat for 5-10 minutes until they have released some juice but are not overcooked. If you are using frozen cherries you will have the fruit juices when defrosted – use this juice instead of the water.
Add the raspberries to the pan and cook for a further 1-2 minutes until they start to soften. Remove the pan from the heat and leave the mixture to cool, then chill it well before serving.
You can keep the compote as is or blitz in a processor and pass through a sieve – purely a matter of personal preference – some people aren't fond of raspberry pips.
The compote in itself is versatile – you can use it as a topping over vanilla ice cream, over breakfast cereal – great with granola!
Here we're using the compote as the next tier.
Version 3 :
I'm using Amaretti biscuits – more available at this time of year they are delicious Italian biscuits, crush two per shot glass – approximately 23g – the size of the biscuits will vary.
Pour a layer of compote onto the lemon pot – after it has had time to set – complete with crushed Amaretti biscuits.
Photos next!
If chocolate isn't your bag and you prefer oranges then try this!
This is my favourite cake, tried and tested and another flourless recipe – it's a perfect celebration cake for the New Year.
Gateau a l'Orange
(Orange Cake)
Serves 12
2 oranges
6 large eggs
250g sugar
2 tbsp orange blossom water
1 tsp baking powder
250g ground almonds
Wash the oranges and boil them whole for 1 – 1½ hours or until they are very soft.
Beat the eggs with the sugar. Add the orange blossom water, baking powder and almonds and mix well. *Cut open the oranges, remove the pips and pur̩e in a food processor. Mix thoroughly with the egg and almond mixture and pour into a 23cm cake tin Рlined with baking parchment, preferably non-stick and with a removable base. Bake in a pre-heated oven 170fan/190c/Gas 5 for an hour. Let it cool before turning out.
Believe me when I say that I stared at this recipe for years. What put me off baking this cake was the boiling of the oranges for the time allotted, an hour and a half is too long for me watching oranges and it's so easy to become distracted - before you know it you have a burnt saucepan and the rest, as they say, is history.
To bring it up to date - instead of boiling the oranges, microwave them for 8 minutes on high.
Pierce the oranges with a paring knife – carefully and microwave for 4 minutes then turn and repeat. Make sure your fruits are in a covered vented microwave container. Continue with the recipe marked *.
A useful tip. Microwave the oranges ahead of making the cake so that they can cool, it will be much easier and safer to prep them, ready to pulverise.
This cake is moist – moist is good but, to use the northern vernacular, it can be “claggy”. I make extra “drizzle” to serve with the Gateau a l'Orange.
Orange Drizzle
200g icing sugar
250ml orange juice – no bits
Put the sugar and orange juice in a small saucepan and heat gently so that the sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat and simmer on a low heat for 10 minutes.
Hey presto, a syrupy drizzle to dress your cake and you've turned a cake into a supper or dinner party dessert – serve with a spoonful of clotted cream or vanilla ice cream.
P.s. I've only ever heard the word “claggy” in the North West of the UK. To set the record straight it means “sticky” and apparently is Scandinavian in origin – you live and learn!
Photo guide up next.
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The final bonus – it freezes.
Happy New Year!
Take a look :
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Here's the tin, greased and dusted
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The filling in the tin, ready for the oven
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Out of the oven, leave to cool
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A slice of cake, with raspberries
Here are the bits, pieces, hints and tips!
Once the cake has cooled use a round bladed knife and ease around the edge to loosen – take your time – if you don't you'll tear the edges of the cake – that would be a shame since you've achieved a brownie type crusty edge. If the cake won't budge then repeat the edging with the knife. Have a large sheet of foil ready to receive your cake, turn it - with care, then wrap and fridge.
The cake serves 8 – you may think the portion size isn't very generous – take my word for it – it's a rich cake.
Now for the choices – this cake is dense and intense. You can serve the cake cold with ice cream and/or cream or even clotted cream.
If you prefer soft, warm and squidgy then microwave for 20 seconds – take it from one who isn't bothered about chocolate, this is very good indeed.
It freezes well … don't forget to portion and wrap in cling film, then bag together.
It's a win, win – a chocolate alternative for the festive season – not a Christmas Pudding in sight.
Do you want something different for the New Year and love oranges – try this on for size!
If, on the other hand, chocolate is your bag, then this is the recipe for you!
Here's a flourless chocolate cake recipe I found – you want easy – this is it – it does exactly what it says – in the tin!
Flourless Chocolate Cake
Serves 8
120g dark chocolate – choose a cocoa solid
of 50%
120g unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
50g cocoa
3 eggs
½ tsp vanilla bean paste or 1 tsp vanilla essence
You will need a small sandwich tin -
measuring 20cms/8” x 3cms/1¼”
a butter wrapper for greasing
an extra heaped teaspoon of cocoa
for dusting
a sheet of foil big enough to wrap the cake
Grease the tin with the butter wrapper and then sprinkle cocoa into the tin and carefully tilt the tin until the bottom and the sides of the tin are covered. A small tip – unless you are practised at this art you might want to tilt the tin over the sink!
Pre-heat the oven 130fan/150c/Gas 2.
Set a glass bowl over simmering water and melt the chocolate and butter – when melted, wearing oven gloves and with care, set aside on a heatproof mat or board. Stir in the sugar, cocoa, eggs and vanilla, mix well. Tip into your prepared sandwich tin and bake for 30 minutes.
Let the cake cool, in the tin for 15 minutes.
There's more …
Here are the photos :
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the cake in the tin
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and out of the tin
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a portion with the clotted cream
The bonus – you get a cake or a pudding, hot or cold!
This cake recipe does exactly what it says on the cake tin and then some - it has a delicious richness with just a hint of cinnamon, just right. Sticky, treacly from the muscovado sugar, not as heavy as the traditional Christmas Cake - I think it would be the perfect alternative!
The cooking apples don't taste like cooking apples, they are soft and taste like plump pieces of squidgy toffee apples.
More pluses :
this cake is good warm or cold – serve with cream,
custard, brandy butter, ice cream or clotted cream -
the choice is yours, whatever takes your fancy!
it keeps well. I made it on a Friday, wrapped in foil – twice.
By Tuesday it was as good as Friday – just that there were
only two portions left!
Yum ...
Here's an absolute cracker – pardon the pun - Dorset Apple Cake! Dark, rich, slightly gooey but the glory is that you can see pieces of apple in the cake – you really have to eat this cake with a fork unless of course you enjoy licking your fingers!
This is another example of there not being a real authentic recipe because everyone has their own. Add this, that and the other – who is to say which version is the right one?
I looked at lots of photos of the Dorset Apple Cake, some looked very pale, some looked dry, some looked overcooked on the top and pale on the bottom. I really wanted a cross between a cake and a pudding, if that makes sense?
Here's my offering, tweaked as usual :
Dorset Apple Cake
225g cooking apples, peeled and chopped
slice an extra apple to decorate the top
juice of half a lemon – 1 tbsp
225g plain flour
1½ tsps baking powder
115g unsalted butter, diced
165g dark muscovado sugar – gives a dark
Chrismassy style cake or use light for a lighter
version – golden demerara too – use 50g of this
for the topping
1 egg beaten
2-3 tbsp of milk
½ tsp ground cinnamon
25g ground almonds
Preheat oven to 160fan/180c/Gas 4.
Grease and line a 7” round cake tin.
Toss the apple with the lemon juice and set aside. Sift the flour and baking powder together then rub in the butter until you get breadcrumbs then add the ground almonds.
Stir in 115g of the sugar, the apple and the egg, mix well, adding a drop of the milk at a time to make a soft doughy mix.
Transfer to your tin.
Finally, mix the reserved 50g of soft brown sugar, sliced apple and cinnamon and arrange on top of the cake mix.
Bake for 45-50 minutes. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire cooling rack.
Photos up next …
Or you could choose a cobbler …
… what's the difference? A dumpling usually contains suet (veggie or not) although it's true you can make them using self raising flour, whereas a cobbler is a scone based mix. Cobblers can be both sweet or savoury - I thought we'd have a change and make a cheese and onion version.
Before I begin with the recipe for the cobbler I think it's worthwhile repeating a tip I gave in April relating then to dumplings but which will be equally useful for the cobbler.
Traditionally dumplings are placed on top of a casserole with a tightly fitting lid. Casseroles have a thicker consistency than soup and obviously, usually, slow cooked in the oven. Soup simmers on top of the hob and saucepan lids “sit” on top of the pan and are not what I'd describe as “tightly fitting”.
Here's my tip - tear off a sheet of foil large enough to overlap the pan, push down slightly and then secure with the lid. Make sure your soup is simmering gently before you add the dumplings and seal with foil. 20 minutes later you'll have dumplings the size of which you wouldn't believe!”
Clarification for certain culinary words are required - the word, “dollop” - means “large” the word to describe the size of each portion of cobbler is “blob” which is smaller than a dollop! Reading this paragraph it sounds like I've really lost it. Recipes should be as precise and descriptive as you can make them and size definitely matters when you're giving guidance to readers.
Once again, to back up my mouth – here's my tip :
Dust off that ice cream scoop that you use once every blue moon! Brush the scoop with the tiniest drop of vegetable oil to prevent sticking and use it to scoop uniform blobs of cobbler – it's meant to be rustic so don't stress! It's an idea so that you'll achieve even weighted cobbler cooking.
By the way – my ice cream scoop measures 5cms in diameter – 2” in old money, here it is :
Cheese
& Onion Cobbler
2 medium onions, finely diced
15g of unsalted butter
1
dessertspoon of rapeseed oil
a pinch of salt
The cobbler topping
375g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp sea salt
75g unsalted butter – diced and chilled
250ml milk – I used semi-skimmed
125g Gruyere, coarsely grated
Method
For the onions
Using a medium sized frying pan, melt the butter and rapeseed oil, add the onions and salt and cook on a medium to low heat for 15 minutes, stirring until soft and golden. Set aside to cool.
For the cobbler
Using a large mixing bowl add the flour, baking powder, salt and butter and rub in with your fingertips until you've got a breadcrumb texture. Add the milk, cheese and onions and stir with round bladed knife until just combined. Using your ice cream scoop, spoon blobs on to the top of your gently simmering goulash. You're cooking 8 – reserving 6 - the recipe will give you 14.
Bake, uncovered, in the oven for 25 minutes until golden brown.
I decided to cook eight blobs and then wrap the remaining six, bag and freeze so that I can see how they behave on another day when I need a cobbler – watch this space!
Here are the final photos :
the remaining six, ready for wrapping
the remaining six, bagged ready for the freezer
have done but I ate them both – yum!
This ticks more than one box. If you're tired and in need of comfort, a casserole or a soup with a cobbler is the answer, it absolutely hits the spot. It's economical too – perfect for a mid week Autumn meal.
P.s. I had leftover soup and cobbler which, portioned, went into the freezer. I defrosted a portion of soup which had two blobs of cobbler – in the fridge, overnight. I lifted the cobbler blobs away from the soup and placed on a microwaveable plate or a lid from a box would do. The cobbler blobs hold their shape well and so it's easy to remove any soup in its cold state. I wanted to see how the cobbler element performed and so microwaved them on high for one minute – you may want another 20 seconds. I then re-heated the soup and hey presto lunch! The cobbler blobs were delicious and I have another boxed stashed in the freezer for that chilly Autumn day I know is on its way.
I promised an update too on the six frozen uncooked blobs of cobbler. Here's the light bulb bit – all that is required is an egg, beaten, ready to brush the blobs and then place in a pre-heated the oven 200fan/220/Gas 7 for 10-15 minutes until golden brown.
Here's what happened :
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the tray lined with baking parchment, with
the cobbler blobs added and then egg washed, twice
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straight from the oven and delicious
warm – a “cobbler” ploughman's
anyone?
Spoilt for choice!
Next up, a few ideas for your pudding or dessert if you don't like Christmas Pudding.
If you fancied a change why not serve dumplings instead of potatoes with the goulash … with or without suet. Personal taste really – dumplings made with suet have more texture to them. If you prefer light and fluffy then probably without suet would be better for you. If you've never sampled this delicacy then the only way is to make them both ways and decide for yourself.
Suet Dumplings
100g self raising flour
50g vegetable suet
pinch of salt
60ml of ice cold water
A generous pinch of dried mixed herbs - optional
Mix the flour, suet and salt with the water – you want to achieve a firm dough with some give.
Divide into eight and shape into balls.
Place on top of your casserole or soup, simmer for 20 minutes. Ensure that the casserole or saucepan has a tight fitting lid.
Dumplings sans suet
140g cold unsalted butter
250g self raising flour
salt and black pepper
150ml cold water
Generous pinch of mixed herbs – optional
Back to basics – rub the butter into the flour – aka the rubbing in method – until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the herbs and a pinch of salt and black pepper. Add the cold water and mix quickly to form a dough. Dust your hands with flour and divide the dough into twelve and form into balls.
Add to the top of your casserole, soup or stew and bake for 20 minutes, as above.
You might think this is a lot of fuss about nothing – I suppose you have to be a certain age – give them a try, see for yourself!
Or you could have a posh version …
Parmesan Dumplings
In a large bowl, mix together
100g (4oz) self raising flour
50g (2oz) vegetarian suet
pinch of salt
15g grated Parmesan cheese
add 5 tbsps of ice cold water – 100ml approx
– enough to give a
firm but pliable dough. Divide into 8 dumplings – 6 if
you'd like big ones!
30g grated Parmesan cheese to garnish
Pre-heat oven 180fan/200c/Gas 6.
Add the dumplings to the goulash and sprinkle 30g of parmesan cheese over the dumplings and cook for 30 minutes.
Serve in a warmed bowl – delicious!
Or you could choose a cobbler …
