Orange & Honey Torte with Mangoes & Passion fruit

I will only have butter on my toast. No jam, no marmalade, no Marmite or Nutella, no honey. I don’t know why, because I like most of these things in every other way (apart from Marmite), but I can’t stand them on toast. Really this just means that I have to get my honey fix in other, far more delicious, ways such as this summery torte… I don’t usually think of honey as a core flavour for a dessert. I’m sure I’ve added it to biscuits, cakes and flapjacks to add a bit of extra sweet and stickiness, but rarely used it as a main attraction. In this dessert blossom honey is combined with orange to make a really light version of a cheesecake – using just yoghurt and cream instead of any cream cheese. In my mind cheesecakes set with gelatine have a bad image of being overly firm and bouncy, but this is a really light set so it stays super creamy. Blanched almonds are added to the biscuit base (I used Nice biscuits because I thought the coconut would complement the other tropical flavours) which is such a simple idea but one I haven’t done before and was delicious – you know I’ll get almonds into anything somehow! My favourite part, however, was the accompanying fruit salad. Passion fruit instantly make me feel transported to a desert island and are without a doubt my favourite fruit. Combined with fresh mango and a sticky, ever so slightly spicy, ginger and lime syrup and I almost didn’t even need the torte. Almost. You can find the recipes here – enjoy!

Marshmallows

I’ve spoken before about my huge list of bookmarked sweet recipes to make. I reckon I add about 10 recipes to it a week, and cook about 1 or 2… meaning that list is just going to keep on growing! Something I have wanted to try for ages and that has been popping up all over the blogosphere is homemade marshmallows. Just like tablet, I’d been putting off making marshmallows due to visions of searing hot sugar syrup and my KitchenAid melting with the stress, but just like tablet it proved much simpler than I thought!I made these with my friend Emily after being sent some gelatine by Dr Oetker. Making them together meant that any stress was shared between the two of us and it was much more fun, it really reminded me to bake with friends more. I know that there are lots of wacky marshallow flavours out there – I saw a passion fruit flavour recipe recently that sounded incredible – but we stuck with plain vanilla. I slightly regretted this as the vanilla doesn’t exactly balance out the insane sweetness of marshmallows, but our boiling sugar syrup induced nerves meant we played it safe! As I mentioned, with careful concentration these weren’t tricky and went without a hitch. The results tasted like we wanted and imagined – squishy with an ever so slightly drier top and of course very sweet. I would be open to trying out some of the crazier flavours in the future, particularly playing around with sharper flavours and fruit as even for me these resulted in a pretty extreme sugar high. However I think the vanilla version is a great way to start for a marshmallow beginner. Also, I think the main fun of marshmallows is that you can do this…
Chocolate fudge cookie + toasted marshmallow = the ultimate S’more.  Not traditional, but so good! I think these marshmallows might even taste best when they are toasted – sticky, gooey, with the perfect burnt charred top…who could resist! You can find the marshmallow recipe here. I followed it pretty much to the letter apart from a dash of pink food colouring and dipping some of the cut edges (where it is most sticky) in different sprinkles for some colour, so my only note would be that I got about 40 decent sized marshmallows out of the mixture instead of 25 – those must have been huuge! One quick note before you go – check out my brand new pages at the top of my sidebar. I have finally got round to doing a proper About Me page, and also a page explaining my ongoing Homemade Shop Classics Challenge, which of course these marshmallows are included in. Go and have a read and let me know what you think! Enjoy :)

Rhubarb and Vodka Jellies

I’ve been trying to expand my baking this year. After a while, the constant rotation of cakes and cookies can leave me stuck for inspiration and I’ve enjoyed trying new things this year, such as the tablet and pannacotta. Jelly is really reverting back to proper childhood or nursery food – I have memories of traffic light jellies with different fruit suspended in the layers – but I think the addition of vodka in today’s jelly brings it up to adult level! However, I still lack the patience required waiting for jelly to set…This jelly took a long time to set, and for a while I was afraid that I’d be serving vodka cocktails with dinner. However, eventually they did and my friends were super excited when I told them  what was coming up! Forced rhubarb gives this jelly such a pretty pink colour and the addition of the cointreau adds another layer of flavour, reflecting the classic combination of orange and rhubarb.
The vodka only adds a slight kick (2tbsp are in the 3 jellies I made) and if you didn’t want it you could easily substitute it for something else, even just water. I hadn’t poached rhubarb before this – always roasted – and I thought it might lose some of its flavour but the sugar syrup that forms the base of the jelly really absorbs the rhubarb flavour and colour well. I really enjoyed the final result, it had a good smooth texture, refreshing taste and I liked the look of the poached rhubarb suspended in the jelly. You can find the recipe here – I halved it and still managed to make 3 decent sized jellies. Enjoy!

White Chocolate Pannacotta with Roasted Rhubarb

I love rhubarb, and I’ve noticed that I often seem to pair it with similar flavours. The early season forced rhubarb has such a shocking pink colour and distinctive tart taste that I serve it with creamy, white and almost blander flavours to let the rhubarb shine. One of my favourite dishes I’ve ever blogged was this Rhubarb Tart from Mother’s Day last year and with its rich cream cheese filling it is a prime example of my way with rhubarb. Similarly with the rhubarb custard tart where the baked vanilla filling contrasted nicely with the bold rhubarb. So when I had a lot of rhubarb that needed using up I made one unusual recipe I have to blog in the coming weeks, but used the rest in roasted rhubarb with white chocolate panna cotta. Well, who am I to break with such good flavour combinations?This time I opted to make my creamy background flavour a little bit more interesting and created a white chocolate pannacotta instead of just vanilla. I liked the result – it definitely felt rich and indulgent and had a really nice smooth texture despite the quite large amount gelatine. It also lasted for a week in the fridge so it was nice to have it always ready as a quick treat! White chocolate is a tricky flavour to make truly shine and I think in this case it would be more an issue of noticing if it wasn’t there rather than directly being able to pinpoint that the sweetness coming from chocolate. On their own the pannacottas were possibly a little bit too decadent, and I think they need an accompaniment to keep them interesting – another roasted fruit such as plums or fresh raspberries I’m sure would work well too. However I loved the rhubarb and found it the perfect thing to go alongside the pannacotta and delicious to eat just on its own as well. Enjoy!

White Chocolate Pannacotta with Roasted Rhubarb
Serves 5

Pannacotta: 500ml/18fl oz double cream
150ml/5½fl oz milk
100g/3½oz white chocolate, broken into pieces
25g/1oz sugar
4 Dr. Oetker gelatine sheets, soaked for 5-10 minutes in warm water, then squeezed dry

Roasted Rhubarb: 250g rhubarb, cut into even pieces
1 orange, zest and juice
5tbsp golden caster sugar

1. Heat the cream and milk in a saucepan over a medium heat until simmering.

2. Reduce the heat to low and stir in the white chocolate and sugar until the ingredients have melted and the mixture is well combined.

3. Remove the pan from the heat and add the gelatine leaves. Stir until the gelatine leaves have melted then set the mixture aside until it has completely cooled.

4. Pour the pannacotta mixture into ramekins, then chill in the fridge for five hours, or until set firm.

5. Meanwhile, tip the rhubarb into a tin so that they are in a single but snug layer (I used a 22cm square tin). Add the zest and juice of the orange and the sugar. Stir together to coat the rhubarb, then cover with foil and roast at 180’C for 15mins until tender but still holding its shape.

6. To serve, dip the ramekin bases and sides in warm water to loosen the pannacotta from the moulds. Turn out one pannacotta into the centre of each of plate and serve the rhubarb alongside.

Raspberry Panna cotta

Note to self: don’t try and transport panna cottas. It proves rather stressful. I had to transport these, precious glasses and all, on a car journey to my Granny’s as I was providing the dessert at lunch. They were placed in a shoebox, wrapped in tissue paper, padded with tea towels and strapped in to the car with a seatbelt. Probably unsurprisingly, they and the precious glasses got there unharmed but perhaps next time I’ll stick to cake!I was inspired to make these after having these from M&S and loving the combination of rich creamy panna cotta and bright raspberries. I’ve made a vanilla pannacotta before, so I chose to combine the two layers of the supermarket version into one delicious raspberry panna cotta. I was nervous this would be too bouncy and jelly-like in texture because of the two sheets of gelatine, but I needn’t have worried as they set nicely but still stayed delightfully creamy and rich. The results were summery, absolutely chock full of raspberry flavour and a really pretty shade of pink. The recipe is from Nigel Slater’s fruit volume of Tender, but it can also be found here. You don’t taste the rosewater, it’s just there to stop the raspberries being too tart, although I suppose you could up the amount to make it a key flavour but I wanted to let the raspberries shine on their own. Enjoy!