Recipe LXVII - Summer Pudding

So finally, summer has arrived. It's almost August already, but better a few weeks of sun than none at all. Anyhow... This weekend, I was invited to make an al-fresco dinner for our friends in Portz, up in the hills near Saarburg. You can see for miles there. The weather was gorgeous and the wonderful setting under the trees set me about concocting a simple yet sumptuous meal under the trees. After the starter and main course, I made a typically English summer dessert, one of my favourites alongside tiramisù or apple pie, known as Summer Pudding. The ingredients are startling, the way you need to construct them makes you doubt they'll ever work, but the final result is glorious, and a perfect end to a perfect day assured.

Ingredients:
2 loaves of thinly cut, plain white bread, preferably not too salty
800g red fruits, e.g. strawberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants, raspberries, etc...
200-300g caster sugar, or fine white sugar
(A drop of cherry or plum schnapps)
Plus:
Some clingfilm & scissors
4 pudding basins (cheap ones from the supermarket work fine)
4 saucers and a weight of some kind (some cans of tomatoes, or a couple of heavy glasses, for example)



Instructions:
Take your fruit and sugar, and heat it up gently until the sugar has melted, but no more, because you do not want the fruit to burn, or the juices to evaporate. Put a little alcohol in it, if you want, although it is not necessary.
In the meantime, take the clingfilm and cut out enough to line the inside of the pudding bowls.



Cut off the crusts of the bread (do not throw them away - keep them for stuffing a chicken, for example) and mould them into the bowls, forming the outer layer of your eventual pudding.
Some say you should use slightly stale bread, but I believe fresh bread moulds and sticks better together.



Finally, cut out a layer for what will be your base, and make sure it is completely sealed so nothing can cause too much leaking, and is at the same height as the top of the bowl. Save some juice for the opening, as not all the puddings may turn purple, although that has its charms too (see final photo).



Put a saucer on top of it and a weight (see ingredients list) and put them in the fridge until it is dessert time. As we were outside, I put them in a freezer box, which worked quite well. To remove, keep them base facing up, then pull the clingfilm ever-so-gently away from the bowl round the outside to unstick it, whilst making sure it stays in the basin. Then put the final serving plate on top of the pudding and turn it over. Let the clingfilm separate from the bowl and fall onto the plate.



Serve with lightly sugared whipped cream.

Recipe XLIV - Wild Strawberry and Mascarpone Flan

Following a message from someone calling him/herself AnonymousCakeEater, who wrote: "Raymond, where's my bloody dessert?!" I decided to make my own recipe to prove I'm not a one-trick pony.

Mascarpone is and has always been in the Number One slot in my list of Favourite Things I like To Put In My Mouth (Edible/Decent Category), and this recipe has resulted in the need to find a whole new set of fantasies for myself. Each time I typed the word "mascarpone" below, I got a little bit hot...



Ingredients:
For the base:
300 g of biscuits (I used Dutch shortcrust Pepernootjes, but anything like that is fine)
100g butter

For the filling:
200g wild strawberries (but any kind of red fruit/berries will do)
4 tablespoons of marsala wine or alcohol of your choice
250g mascarpone
1 sachet of vanilla sugar
1 egg (which you need to separate)
1 tablespoon of sugar

Instructions for the base:
Take your biscuits and put them in the blender, making a fine powder.
Heat up the butter in a saucepan and once melted, pour it over the crumbs. Stir thoroughly until the whole thing is dripping in the butter.



Using a flan base, spread it evenly over the mould, putting it in the fridge for a good hour to cool and harden. If necessary, use a rolling pin to get it properly even.



Instructions for the filling:
Separate your egg into two different bowls. With the yolk, add the sugar and mix into a paste.



Add the mascarpone and mix into a smooth, consistent paste. At this point, add the vanilla sugar. With the egg white, beat it until it turns frothy and you can make lumps on it with the whisk. Fold it into the mascarpone.
In a saucepan, put the fruit and the alcohol on a relatively low heat. Once boiling, put it into a blender and turn it into a thick paste.



Take the base out of the fridge. Very carefully remove the mould onto a large enough flat surface. Pour in the mascarpone and let it flatten itself out in the mould.



Spoon the red fruit onto the top of the mascarpone and make it into a pretty pattern. I'm hopeless at this, hence the terrible photo below, but you could alternatively mix it into the mascarpone before you pour it onto the mould. Put it into the fridge to set, removing it fifteen to thirty minutes before you want to eat it.