A Great Meal Deserves a Good Dessert
Chocolate salami
Ingredients:
300 g (11 oz) Rich tea biscuits
150 g (5 oz) Butter (unsalted)
100 g (4 oz) Dark chocolate (I have used 85% cocoa)
100 g (4 oz) Sugar
2 Eggs (see note 1 below)
30 ml (1 fl oz) Dark rum
Note: as an option, try adding 40 g (1 ½ oz) of citrus peel and double the quantity of rum.
Preparation:
Cut the butter into pieces and let it warm to room temperature.
Break the chocolate bar into pieces and put them into a small bowl. Melt the chocolate using the bain Marie method.
While melting the chocolate, stir with a spoon to be sure that there are no lumps. When the chocolate is completely melted, set the bowl aside and let the chocolate cool a little.
Put the biscuits into a large bowl.
Break the biscuits using the back of a spoon; make them into crumbs.
When the butter is soft, work it with an electric whisk for few seconds and then start adding the ingredients as shown next (you can add all these ingredients without stopping to whisk).
Add the sugar. Add the eggs. Whisk for few seconds. Add the melted chocolate. Whisk for few seconds.
Add the rum and whisk again for few seconds.
Pour the mixture into the large bowl containing the biscuit crumbs. If using citrus peel, add this now.
With a spoon, work the mixture until all the biscuit crumbs are completely coated with the chocolate mixture.
The result should be a chocolate dough. Take the dough and make the shape of a salami. Put the chocolate salami onto a layer of cling film and then wrap it with the film.
When wrapping, press the chocolate salami to make it compact. Then seal the sides and put the chocolate salami in the fridge for a couple of hours.
After a couple of hours, you can slice your chocolate salami and serve it with coffee or tea.
Serves 8.
Apple strudel
Ingredients:
1 Ready rolled puff pastry sheet (see notes below)
4 Apples (medium size)
Juice from half a lemon
60 g (2 ½ oz) raisins
100 ml (4 fl oz) Dark rum - about a glass
60 g (2 ½ oz) Pine kernels
50 g (2 oz) Sugar
50 g (2 oz) Apricot preserve
Orange zest from one orange
2 or 4 g (½ tbs or 1 tbs) Ground cinnamon - depending on your taste
30 g (slightly more than 1 oz) Breadcrumbs
10 g (½ oz) Butter
1 Egg yolk
15 ml (1 tbs) Milk
Icing sugar for garnish
Note: I bought the ready rolled puff pastry sheet in the supermarket. You can also make the strudel using filo pastry, but you need to use about 6 layers, one on the top of each other and each layer needs to be brushed with melted butter.
Preparation:
Coarsely chop the plums, and place them in a medium saucepan with the water, sugar, and frozen berries. Heat over medium-high heat until the mixture begins to simmer. Reduce the heat to medium, cover and cook for 8 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Remove the pan from the heat and let the mixture cool to room temperature.
Puree the fruit mixture in a food processor or blender until smooth, and then strain the mixture through a fine mesh sieve to remove the seeds. Use a spoon to press along the sieve to retain as much of the strained puree as possible. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator.
Freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Once frozen, remove from the ice cream maker's container and store in the freezer in an air-tight container.
Serves 8.
Fresh Peach Gelato
Firstly, 1 hour before you start making the strudel, soak the raisins into the glass of rum.
After 1 hour, separate the raisins from the rum using a sieve.
Put the raisins into a small container and set aside. Keep the rum; at a later stage we will use some of it (2 or 3 dessert spoons will be added to the strudel filling).
Next, peel and slice the apples (into small slices about 2-3 mm thick). Put the slices into a large bowl.
Add some lemon juice and mix to distribute the lemon juice all over the apple slices. Add the raisins.
Add the pine kernels. Add the orange zest. Add the cinnamon. Add the sugar. Add the apricot preserve. Finally, add 2 or 3 dessert spoons of rum. And the rest, drink it!
Mix everything together to evenly distribute the various ingredients.
Cover the bowl with cling film and set it aside in the refrigerator until you are ready to use it as filling.
Now, put the butter into a pan over a medium heat. When the butter starts bubbling, add the breadcrumbs and toast for few minutes until lightly brown.
This is what you should have. Put the breadcrumbs into a small bowl to cool down.
Meanwhile, spread some flour onto a working surface.
Unroll your pastry and start stretching it with a rolling pin. Usually ready rolled pastry is too thick for the purpose of making strudel, so you need to enlarge the sheet and make it thinner (about 2 mm thick).
Next, drag the sheet over a tea towel and give it a gentle stretch using your hands. Then you can cut the border with a pastry wheel, just to give the sheet a decent rectangular shape!
Next, spread the breadcrumbs over the pastry sheet.
Then, take the large bowl from the refrigerator and put the contents in the centre of the pastry sheet, as shown in the photograph.
Fold one side of the sheet (the longer side) over the filling. This operation will be easier if you help yourself lifting the tea towel from its corners and folding it towards the centre of the pastry sheet.
Do the same with the opposite side.
Take a large tray and cover its bottom with a layer of baking paper. Brush the paper with melted butter or margarine. At this stage switch the oven on and set it at 180ºC (gas mark 5).
Next, put the egg yolk into a small bowl and add the milk.
Beat the egg yolk and milk with a fork until they are evenly mixed.
Brush the egg batter all over the strudel.
Cover the tray with foil, try to keep the area in the centre lifted. The foil will protect the strudel from burning during the first stage of cooking. Now, put the tray in the oven and cook for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, take the tray out of the oven and remove the foil.
Put the tray back in the oven and cook for another 15 minutes.
When finished, the strudel should look like this.
Set the strudel onto a wire rack to cool down.
When the strudel is tepid, cut a slice and put the slice onto a plate. Garnish with some icing sugar.
There you go! Apple strudel served with vanilla ice cream.
Buon appetito!
Courtesy of italyum.com
Buon appetito!
