Carluccios Raspberry Meringue

Carluccio's is one of my favourite chain restaurants. The decor is beautiful and the food full of fresh italian flavours and lots of mozzarella! I also love the giant pile of raspberry and chocolate meringues they have in their window display, and bought one for dessert!

Here we shared one giant one between myself, my mum and Scott!

Ingredients:

1 large meringue ( or little ones, broken ones, whatever you like!)

red-current jam, or a jam of your choice

Pouring cream

fresh fruit/berries

Method:
Crumble your meringue into three bowls.
Drizzle with the cream. Spoon a few teaspoons of jam into each bowl, and finally sprinkle over a few berries. I used raspberries and blueberries as they were what we had in the fridge! Raspberry's are my favourite fruit so we usually have a punnet of them to hanging round.

The meringues were crisp on the outside and soft and sticky in the middle! Just as they should be. The only problem was they didn't really taste like raspberry which was a little disappointing!

It's sometimes hard to think of desserts to make when you haven't got much in, but anything meringue based is always a winner,  so I always try to keep a packet in the cupboard for when you need that sweet treat :)

Rabbit Pana cotta

I made this lovely creamy dessert the other day using a plastic rabbit shaped jelly mould. The mould almost worked, all but the ear in fact! But the taste definitely made up for the shaping!

Panna Cotta

3 leaves Gelatin

250ml milk

250ml Double Cream

1 large teaspoon vanilla paste

50g sugar

Method:

Gently heat the milk cream and sugar in a pan, continuously stirring. Meanwhile soak your gelatine leaves in cold water in a separate bowl. Add the vanilla paste to the cream. Take the warm cream off the heat and add the gelatine leaves. Stir until they have dissolved into the cream.

Lightly grease the pudding mould with sunflower oil (I didn't do this step and regretted it as the mould didn't work as well as i'd hoped - so I recommend you do do it!) Pour the mixture into the mould and refrigerate for at least 2 hours!

I made a little blueberry and raspberry coulis to drizzle over the rabbit! 

Gently simmer the fruit with some sugar until most of the fruit has broken down, but there are still fruit with shape. Leave to cool and drizzle over the rabbit!

There wasn't much left at the end!

Key Lime Meringue Pie

I made a lime meringue pie for the first time the other day and I felt such a sense of achievement! Admittedly I didn't make the pastry... but I am truly horrific at pastry so it was for the best.

It was deliciously limey and sweet and I had a lot of fun eating the left over filling....

Anyway heres how I did it :

Ingredients:

Sweet Pastry

Filling:

2 tbsp cornflour

100g sugar

finely grated zest of 3 limes

 juice from the 3 limes

85g butter

4 egg yolks

1 cap food colouring, green (optional)

200ml boiling water

Meringue:

Four egg yolks (room temperature)

200g castor sugar

1 tsp cornflour

Put a baking sheet in the oven and heat oven to Gas Mark 6. Bake the pastry case ‘blind’ (filled with dry beans) for 15 mins, then remove the foil and bake a further 5-8 mins until the pastry is pale golden and cooked. Leave on the side to cool.

Place all your filling ingredients into a saucepan and cook gently until thick. Stirring constantly as you don't want lumps.

Pour your thickened filling into you cooked pastry case and set aside.

Whisk your egg whites for a minute or so, then add the caster sugar and tsp cornflour. Whisk until the mixture is glossy, and the meringue stays in stiff peaks (if you can hold it above your head upside down you know its ready!

Spread over the filling, and using the end of a small teaspoon, make little flicks and peaks on top of the meringue. Bake in the oven on Gas Mark 4 for about 15-20 minutes or until the meringue is lightly coloured on top.

I added a little green colouring to emphasise that it was lime and not lemon :) you could quite easily change this to a lemon meringue pie by using 2 lemons instead of the three limes!

Serve with ice cream or cream, or even enjoy it on its own :)

Tiramisu Teacups

This was a lovely little dessert I whipped up for a weekday pudding! They are only small so you get a little taste of what you fancy, without the extra calories!

Tiramisu is one of Scott's favourite desserts so I always feel a bit of pressure when making this particular pudding! But this is a simple quick and easy version for when you have some cream left over in the fridge.

This recipe made 5 teacups!

Ingredients:

1 Pint double cream

1 1/2 tablespoons icing sugar

1 cup of strong sweetened coffee

 lady fingers (trifle sponges)

5 teaspoons Nutella

chocolate to flake onto the top

Method:

Soak the lady fingers on a plate with the sweetened coffee.

Place 1 and a bit lady fingers in the bottom of the cup.

Layer a teaspoon of Nutella on top of the lady fingers. 

Drizzle over a litte more of the coffee mixture,

You could keep repeating these layers if you had a taller glass but you'd obviously have to adjust the ingredient quantity.

Now whip the cream with the icing sugar until it is thick but not over whipped.

Spoon over the top of the puddings.

Finally sprinkle over some chocolate gratings or shavings,

And pop in the fridge to cool!

You can see here the lady fingers soak up the moisture from the coffee mixture and become soft and tasty.

I love chocolate, so ultimately it had to make it's way into a coffee dessert!

The sizes are great when you want that little treat after your meal.

Dipped Marshmallows

Chocolate dipped marshmallows are a really quick and easy dessert to make, especially for little ones. They cost next to nothing to make, and there are very few ingredients.

Ingredients:

Soft fluffy Marshmallows

chocolate for melting

Seeds, chopped nuts, sprinkles, or whatever you fancy

Place some baking parchment on a tray. Melt your chocolate over a pan of hot water, or in the microwave. Pierce the marshmallows with your cake pop sticks and dip them into the chocolate. Let the excess drop of the marshmallows and either roll them in the sprinkles or scatter the sprinkles from above onto the marshmallows.

Place upside down onto the parchment and put them into the fridge until they are set!

The candy sprinkles are great for kids, but I liked the cranberries and seeds! 

I love this little japanese plate I found in a charity shop. It has a pretty little scene with a house and garden, and the wonderful pearly orange sky and blue ground.

Quick Strawberry and toffee flan

Here is a pudding i've made lots of times before. It requires very little time or effort which is very handy if you need a pudding in a hurry, and is a favourite of my Grandad.

Ingredients:

1 Ready made flan (or homemade)

Fresh fruit. I chose strawberries

1 pint double cream

1 tablespoon icing sugar

a jam of your choice

Spread a thick layer of jam onto your flan dish. This helps take the edge of as it can sometimes be a little dry! Whip your cream along with the icing sugar until your have a thick but not overwhipped consistency. Spread this on to of the jammy flan. Chop your strawberries and scatter them over the cream. If your using raspberries or blueberries you dont have to chop them just sprinkle them all over!

I topped mine off with a few sprigs of mint that we had growing in the garden.

For the sauce:

80g light brown sugar

40g dark brown sugar

200ml double cream

60g unsalted butter

1 tbsp golden syrup

Melt the butter in the pan, add the sugar and syrup. Careful not to burn the butter. Keep stirring the mixture for a few minutes and then add the cream. And it's done! 

Pour over the flan or over your individual slices, depending on what you prefer :)

I used Lidl's Morello Cherry jam.

 The mint adds a little contrast to the red strawberries. This is a great dish if your having an unexpected friend over for tea or for just making something a little special for a weekday meal!