Recipe Book

The lovely weather of this past week put me in the mood for something light, frothy and summery. But usually my fast and easy fruit desserts involve lots of condensed milk, cream, yogurt and, in the end, although delicious, they tend to be a bit too heavy. Today, however, I had a bit more time and patience to do a proper airy mousse, which is a lot messier because of all the separate bowls, but well worth the effort.

450g frozen raspberries
250g sugar
4 sheets of flavourless gelatin
3 eggs, separated
100 ml cream
Chantilly and fresh raspberries to garnish.

Place the gelatin sheets in a bowl of cold water, to soften. Add the sugar to the frozen raspberries in a saucepan, over medium heat. As they start to thaw, smash them with a wooden spoon and mix them well with the melting sugar, until you have a fairly thick syrup. At this point you should pass the mixture through a sieve in order to get the seeds out and have a smoother consistency.

Place it back in the saucepan and let it simmer for a few seconds. It’s now time to drain the gelatin and add it to the syrup, mixing well until it melts away. Prepare 6-8 glass cups (depending on the size), spoon a little bit of this mixture on the bottom, and set them aside.

Separate the egg yolks from the whites. In a bowl, beat the yolks with a fork, and then slowly, while still beating, add the raspberry syrup until smooth.

While letting the mixture cool, whip the cream and beat the egg whites into soft peaks. First, add the whipped cream to the raspberry mixture, slowly incorporating without mixing too much. Then, we carefully fold the egg whites. It’s important not to mix too much, or we risk losing all the fluffiness.

Divide the mixture into the cups and refrigerate for at least a couple of hours. When it’s time to serve, you can garnish the mousse with some more whipped cream and fresh raspberries, to make them look even prettier.

It’s my personal opinion that if you don’t like strawberries, there must be something seriously wrong with you. And if you’re unfortunate enough to be allergic to strawberries - my condolences, I feel truly sorry for you.

Strawberries look beautiful, taste wonderful on their own, and best of all, can be transformed into a fantastic variety of desserts, from ice-cream to milk-shake, from mousse to pie, from jam to sauce. So, when spring comes and they start being available all over, I can’t stop myself from feasting. You can expect plenty more strawberry related posts around here in the next few months, savoury recipes included.

Jelly is just a nice place to start. Spotted at school lunches and children’s parties, the artificial kind is already considered a tasty, healthy treat. Real fruit chunks and juice take it to a completely different level of healthiness and yummyness.

Not So Childish Strawberry Jelly

500g Strawberries
Juice of 3 oranges
1 cup sugar
4 sheets of flavourless gelatin (7grs, aprox.)

Wash and chop the strawberries, place them in a bowl and mix them with the sugar. Let it rest in the refrigerator for 2 hours or more, allowing the strawberries to create some sauce. Then, strain that liquid into a pan over a low heat, and set the strawberry pieces aside.

Meanwhile, soak the gelatin sheets in cold water. When the strawberry sauce starts simmering, drain the softened gelatin sheets and add them to the pan. Mix carefully to make sure the gelatin melts thoroughly, and then remove from heat.

At this point, slowly pour in the orange juice, and when it’s blended, add the chopped strawberries. Spoon the mixture into jelly moulds or pretty glass cups, and once it cools down, put them in the refrigerator until it solidifies. You can serve it plain or with a bit of pouring cream.

My friend F. is extremely hard to please, specially when it comes to desserts. He only enjoys chocolate cake, and not all will do. So, after baking a disastrously dry chocolate cake for the Halloween party - one that would kill someone if thrown to their heads - I decided to bake him something slightly different for Christmas.

After some research I found this simple Chocolate Brownies recipe on Cooking for Engineers and gave it a go. It was fantastic on the first day, but they didn’t seem to keep very well. Is it always like this with brownies? I will have to try some other recipes and see what comes out. Still, this one is very very good if you plan on eating them straight away.

You can check the Cooking for Engineers website for step by step photos and very detailed instructions, but here’s the thick of it:

170 g dark chocolate
170 g butter
125 g all-purpose flour
300 g granulated sugar
3 large eggs
(the original recipe calls for a teaspoon of vanilla extract as well, but i really wanted to keep it simple, so i omitted it)

Preheat the oven to 160º C. In a double boiler, melt the chocolate and the butter. Stir in the sugar, then the beaten eggs and then the flour, trying not to leave any lumps. Butter and dust with flour a rectangular baking tray. Bake for about 35 minutes and cut into squares.

I love these warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice-cream, topped up with chocolate sauce, but they are also great on their own.

This is one of those recipes from my childhood, a dessert my mother does all the time, and has always been a family favourite. From the moment I learned how to do it, it also became a regular guest at my parties and dinners, very entertaining with its disappearing act. I guess we can call it a best-eater.

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You know those specialist kitchen shops, where you can buy all sorts of pots and pans and cake moulds, and oven dishes, and kitchen gadgets and crockery and cutlery and … well, you know what shops I’m talking about, right? I love them, they make me want to have a huge kitchen so that I can buy everything in store.

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The last treat from the Copella Christmas collection was a rich and moist cinnamon cake. Because it has a fair amount of sugar, it’s quite crispy on the outside, which is really nice, but makes it a very sweet cake… Who’s dieting over Christmas anyway?

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This was the second recipe created for the Copella website, and goes very well with any roast or grilled meet dish.

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When I offered to create some recipes for the Copella website Christmas page, I mainly had desserts in mind. When Rob, from enotions, suggested I could do an Apple soup, I was a bit concerned about the results, because I had never even tasted one.

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Last year, my sis-in-law Paula and I discovered the smooth and delicious Panna Cotta dessert in an italian restaurant. As soon as I got home that day, I started doing some research and realised how easy to make and versatile it is. I bought some nice plastic moulds and off I went, trying all sorts of combinations.

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My friends Cláudia and Gabi, and my friend Inês live on the same street as me. We’re always at each other’s houses, a bit like in sit coms. So yesterday, when the first two decided to embark on some home improvement, Inês and I offered to help. After a couple of hours covering the walls (and ourselves) in paint, it was time to feed the troops.

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Today I really needed cake. I was exhausted, both physically and psychologically, and desperately in need of comfort food. But I couldn’t be bothered to look up a recipe, so i just mixed a few things and made up a really simple lemon cake. Of course I then called my neighbours to come and eat (and take home) a few slices, or I’d end up eating it all by myself - you’ve got to share the extra pounds!

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