Quince time!

Once a year, when it's quince time, people inevitably come into work with bags to give away, so I can't help but whoop for joy and get on board the quince train!
Firstly, it's all about poaching them long and slow. A few days ago I'd poached some in a sugar and water syrup (with a cinnamon stick and vanilla pod) - cooking them low and slow on the stovetop. So I just re-used the same poaching liquid adding a good splash of white wine this time and cooking them in the oven. I think the change from pale pear colour to the jewel-like ruby red is half the appeal in cooking with quinces.

 

After they were cooked, I used some of the poaching liquid to make a little jelly (adding a soaked gelatine leaf into a cup of the hot liquid) and when cool, poured it over a broken savoiardi biscuit in each of the dessert glasses. Then a few slices of the poached quince.

 

 Last step was to make a white chocolate cream (150ml white chocolate melted in 100ml cream and folded into a further 200ml of whipped cream). And with a dollop of that and some toasted flaked almonds on top, I had a dessert ready to knock my guests socks off!

Raspberry, rhubarb and vanilla

(Sounds like a good name for a blog).
With family visiting, inspiration hit to make a nice dessert (it doesn't take much).

Vanilla icecream (made in my new icecream maker - yay), vanilla panna cotta, fresh raspberries in fresh raspberry sauce, raspberry jelly, poached rhubarb, toffee with freeze dried raspberry, and rhubarb jelly (made from the rhubarb poaching stock - just sugar, water and a dash of grenadine, but it was too good not to use!).

Plated up in the "spoon of this spoon of that" method that seems to be the thing of the moment.
Crunchy toffee, creamy panna cotta, cold smooth icecream, fresh raspberries, slightly tart rhubarb, the interesting texture of jelly, in fact quite the plate of contrasting textures and complementary flavours (well I think so...).

Raspberry curd

And back to the sweet stuff!

Everyone's heard of lemon curd but it was in a delicious magazine late last year, that I first came upon a recipe for raspberry curd in a "Raspberry Curd Crepe Layer Cake", originally a Stephanie Alexander recipe.

An Eton Mess...

Rhubarb Eton Mess no less!
An Eton Mess is an English dessert essentially made up of crushed meringue, fruit and whipped cream.
This variation consisted of poached rhubarb, meringue with ground pepperberries, fresh strawberries, and white chocolate ganache - the idea was in Delicious magazine.

The rhubarb, I should add, came to me from my sister whose neighbour grew the beautiful crop. You just have to do something special with such lovely home grown produce.

Kiwi fruit sorbet!

Autumn and winter is the season for kiwifruit! A funny old fruit with its furry brown skin, that I hadn't entirely embraced for its taste or variety of uses. But a kind friend had given away some of her harvest when we visited and well, it was an offer too good to refuse.

It was my sister, though, who discovered THE BEST way to use kiwi fruit. She served me a dessert that was sublime.

Kiwi fruit sorbet. 

Make a sugar syrup with 150g of sugar and 150ml boiling water. When cold, blend this with 450g kiwi fruit pulp, juice of 2 lemons zest of 1 lemon.
Strain to remove most of the seeds, chill and then either freeze, and re-blend, or churn in an icecream maker.

To serve, a scoop or two on a plate with a contrast of vanilla ice-cream and a few slices of fresh kiwi fruit and some fresh blueberries.

It is AMAZING!!! I'm inspired to try a dessert on this theme, with maybe a layer of lemon ice-cream, kiwi fruit jelly, making a kiwi fruit gel would be interesting for a sauce too. Throw in a layer of sponge or a crunchy meringue layer...so many options. I now embrace the kiwi fruit possibilities!

Rasperry, Lychee, White Chocolate & Honey...

Cake? Torte? Layered extravaganza? Damn nice, that's what it was!

A very berry dessert...

I had a bit of time up my sleeve and a family dinner. And some raspberries, white chocolate and cream...
I also have two amazing dessert books...The New Patissiers (Olivier Dupon) and Sweet Studio (Darren Purchese) which have incredible desserts that all have many components. And due to having the morning free, I just kept making more layers! I based my layers on ingredients I wanted to use and adapted recipe components from within the two books.

Ice cream!

Are you ready? This dessert is nearly too good to be true and too easy to believe!

It started off with a packet of cream that needed using up.

White chocolate crackles

These are the best white chocolate crackles....they actually crackle and pop and explode with flavour!

Berry goodness

My sister, Cec and I were making dessert for my niece, Anna's birthday, which comprised:

Apple roses

A while back, a post featuring these apple roses did the Facebook rounds and this week I decided to try them out.

Photo by Sarah Ryan

 They're apple slices rolled in puff pastry- a very pretty dessert and yummy with ice cream.

Upside-down quince cake

The humble quince...looks like a cross between a pear and an apple. And not nice to eat raw.

 

Photo by Sarah Ryan

But make up a nice vanilla bean sugar syrup and poach it for a few hours...and watch it change to a glorious jewel-like ruby pink-red colour.

 

                                    Photo by Sarah Ryan                                          Photo by Sarah Ryan
I was making an upside down cake so I sprinkled some brown sugar on the base and lined the tin with the sliced poached quince.