Ever wanted
to make a really fabulous looking dessert that everyone ‘Oos’ and ‘Ahhs’ at and
tells you ‘oh aren’t you clever for doing that? Are you sure it’s not from
M&S/Waitrose/[insert generic supermarket here]?’, when really it was simple
as toast to make. Well I’m going to show you how... I think...
Lorraine
Pascal has been hosting a show on BBC1 ‘How To Be A Better Cook’ where she
teaches people how to be better cooks, bit of an obvious name. But she uses
really simple recipes that look incredibly elegant. I got the idea to make a
panna cotta and jelly dessert in a champagne flute from the show, but I’ve
changed it slightly. She makes her panna cotta with Greek Yoghurt, which I have
a bit of an aversion to so instead I used Simon Rimmers recipe for vanilla
panna cotta. She also made a pomegranate jelly, but I couldn’t work out where
the pomegranate juice was in Tesco’s so I used Delia’s strawberry champagne
jelly instead. Actually I changed it to raspberry jelly because I prefer it,
but other than that it’s the same.
The first
thing you need to do is to go all Art Attack and construct a ‘glass-resting-rack’
out of egg boxes. Get an egg box, cut off the lid and all the annoying sides
and then blu-tack it upside down to the centre of a deep tray. This seems
really simple, but when you come to put your champagne glasses on it, if they’re
not the exact right shape to rest in-between the egg box grooves, you’re going
to have a nightmare getting them to stay still and not pop up or fall through
the gaps every 5 minutes. No that didn’t happen to me... I’m just warning you.
Once you’ve
got your champagne glasses to STAY STILL, you can start to make your panna
cotta. Simon Rimmer’s recipe is really easy and you can get all the ingredients
at a supermarket, although I used vanilla essence instead of a vanilla pod. I
did have a bit of a meltdown trying to find gelatine leaves, I had to explain
to a shop assistant 5 times that ‘no I am not looking for jelly, I need
gel-a-tineeee’ before I gave up and asked a kindly old lady who looked like she
knew her way around making jelly from scratch. Also, I know it might be
tempting, but try not to play with the gelatine too much once you’ve soaked it
in water, you’ll probably over boil your milk.
Once you’ve
got the panna cotta mixture, you need to transfer it into the champagne glasses
and then the champagne glasses into the fridge, without spilling it. This is
impossible, especially if you’ve over filled your glasses and you accidently
put them in the section of the fridge where the shelf is uneven so the tray
wobbles. It might be easier to do what the rubbish cook did on ‘Lorraine
Pascal: How To Be a Better Cook’, and knock together some bits of wood to make
a stand for the glasses to go on. But I was sure that my egg boxes would hold
together.
You only need
to leave the panna cottas an hour until they’re set. Here are some things
MENSXP suggest you can do in an hour http://www.mensxp.com/work-life/balance-work-and-life/21582-15-things-you-can-do-in-an-extra-hour-p1.html
I watched three episodes of ‘Friends’ and ate a sharing bag of Doritos.
So once you’ve
taken the panna cotta’s out of the fridge, determined that they’ve set by
wobbling the glasses a few times, you can make your jelly. By the way, you won’t
need the egg boxes for this next bit, throw them a away, eat up the panna cotta
that dripped into your tray, and god help you if you used white-tack. The
jelly’s pretty simple to make, but make sure you don’t overdo it on the fizzy pink
wine, especially if it’s cheap-o, I was a bit heavy handed and it tasted quite tart. Fill the glasses up to the top with the jelly and whack in the fridge
for another in six hours. Think how much you could get done in six hours,
nearly a whole series of ‘Friends’ and your body weight in Doritos...
Once the jellies
have set, stick a few raspberries on top and a dusting of icing sugar if you have
any, present to your friends and family, bask in the glow of
yummy-dessert-making-pride, and say it’s from Aldi if anyone doesn’t like it.
http://www.deliaonline.com/home/Print-Recipe.html?PID=1757&CID=419
CRAVING OF THE WEEK
Mr Kiplings Cherry bakewells, yes please
CRAVING OF THE WEEK
Mr Kiplings Cherry bakewells, yes please
