Posts tagged raspberries
Mango-Tango – Mango pudding with coconut milk and raspberries
Jun 3rd
Mango-Tango – Pudding de mangues au lait de coco et fraises
Here is a refreshing pudding for the summer, filled with fruits and exotic flavors. My lovely neighbor Rui gave me this mango pudding a couple of months ago and I fell in love with it. This is an Asian dessert, served in many Chinese or Indonesian restaurants. It’s usually topped with condensed milk. Of course, there are many recipes, some of them use condensed milk, some others coconut milk, some add mango pieces inside the pudding…so there are a lot of variations to this dessert. The last time I had one of those mango puddings was at a Chinese restaurant, and it was topped with condensed milk. What a delight!
This pudding is creamy in the inside, so if you like it more gelatinous and hard, add more agar-agar (or gelatin). Instead of condensed milk I poured coconut milk that I sweetened with a tiny touch of sugar. So for those who like coconut, please try it, it’s such a wonderful combination. I ran into so many people who don’t like coconut lately, how is that possible? I thought coconut was like chocolate, one of those things that is universally loved. I was wrong.
If you want to make this dessert vegan, instead of condensed milk, use coconut milk and agar agar instead of gelatin, it will work perfectly fine.
I am due for my bi-yearly trip to France visiting my parents. I will try to post something before I leave on June 8, if not then I will post new recipes while I am there. I am so excited to get all the new summer fruits, and hopefully get lots of fruity recipes.
Ingredients for 6-7
- 2 large and well ripe mangoes, peeled and cut in pieces
- 1 2/3 cups evaporated milk
- 3 packs of gelatin powder (or the equivalent of agar agar) dissolved in water
- 1/3 cups agave nectar
- 1 cup coconut milk (for topping) + sugar to taste
- 1 cup fresh raspberries
Preparation
Puree mangoes with a condensed blender and place in a large container. Mix condensed milk with agave nectar, and heat it up but do not boil. Dissolve gelatin powder in 4 tbs warm water. Add gelatin to the milk mixture. Mix well. Pour milk into the mango recipient. Mix well. If you want to add fresh mango pieces, add them at this stage.
Divide the mango mixture to small glass containers. Place in the refrigerator overnight.
Un-mold pudding in plates, pour some sweetened coconut milk on top, and decorate with fresh raspberries.
The palet Breton got dressed up – Pistachio palet breton dressed with mascarpone cream, raspberries and raspberry coulis
Jun 12th
Le palet breton s’est habillé – Palet breton à la pistache garni de crème au mascarpone, framboises, et coulis de framboises
Some days are a little more morose than others, and lately my mood has been affected by many things and partly by the San Francisco weather…I hate to talk about weather changes, because I think it is a little annoying to hear, and it sounds like “old bored people’s” discussions and if I look at last year posts around this time of year, it was the same thing…the fog rolling in. Everyone talks about the weather in this city because it changes so fast and every district or neighborhood has its own micro climate…and honestly when buying a house in the city you want to make sure you are not in a “fogged in” area, if you do, you better love wearing ski jackets in June. So when it rains, or you need a little quick fix to cheer you up, make palets, they’re easy to make and so delicious!
You might not be familiar with France and its beautiful and picturesque rainy North Western region : la Bretagne (Brittany), they have amazing seafood specialties and many others like this palet breton.
Palet breton is a dry cookie made with a pâte sablée and demi-sel butter. Brittay is famous for galettes bretonnes, palets and other buttery cookies (and crêpes of course). You can find so many brands of those delicious cookies in the supermarkets, so being far away from French supermarkets, I figured I better learn how to make them if I ever want to eat some.
Usually palet breton is about 1.5 com thick, so a little thicker than the ones I made. As any “dry cookie” they’re delicious and very enjoyable with a tea or coffee, or as a little snack. This time, I wanted to “dress them up”, turn them into a little bite as a dessert…and add some extra crunch to it, by adding pistachios. if you don’t have butter demi-sel, use regular butter and add fleur de sel.
Ingredients for about 18 palets
for the palets
- 7 oz (or 200 g) flour
- 3.52 oz (or 100 g) butter demi-sel, cubed
- 2.82 oz (or 80 g) sugar
- 2 yolks
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2.11 oz (or 60 g raw pistachios, roughly chopped
for the mascarpone cream
- 7 tbs mascarpone
- 7 tbs fromage blanc
- sugar to taste
for the raspberry coulis
- 14 oz (or 400 g) raspberries
- 5.29 oz (or 150 g sugar) or more if the raspberries are not very sweet
- 1 tsp lemon juice
Preparation
In a mixing container, mix flour and baking powder. Add butter and mix carefully from the tips of your fingers incorporating it to the flour mixture. Separately mix yolks with sugar and vanilla extract and add to the flour. Form a uniform ball. Spread with a rolling pin in a 1.5 cm sheet. Cut with a small cookie cutter or glass (the cookies are usually thick and small, about 5 cm diameter). Bake in a parchment paper or silpat for about 15 min at 360F. Let them cool.
For the mascarpone cream, just combine all ingredients together.
For the coulis, combine all ingredients in a blender. Filter coulis through a sieve to remove the seeds.
Place a generous amount of mascarpone cream on top of a palet. Add raspberries and top it with coulis and chopped pistachios.
Charlotte sometimes – White chocolate and raspberry charlotte
Oct 17th
Charlotte sometimes – Charlotte au chocolat blanc et framboises
I bought a nice charlotte mold from France last summer, I wanted one so bad, then I got it, and since then, I barely used it. It’s the second time in one year that I made charlotte. What a shame…I am just not a sweet tooth, but there is no excuse for it.
It’s difficult to find those molds in the US, William Sonoma has them and also I have seen them on a baker tools site on the internet. I think they’re only have one or two mold sizes.
Charlotte is another one of those traditional dessert, everyone knows how to make in France. Like tiramisù there is no cooking involved so it’s quite a simple dessert to make, and always refreshing to eat.
Charlotte molds are about 10″ height, and the sides are surrounded with lady fingers, then the inside is filled with fruits, and mousse or bavaroise cream like this one. This charlotte is closer to what we call the Russian charlotte filled with bavaroise cream, either way with cream or mousse, it’s always a delicious and refreshing dessert.
I love everything about charlotte, its name, its texture and consistency…and as a dessert, it’s not that filling. Not being a sweet tooth, I am picky about desserts, they need to be light and not too sweet. Charlotte will satisfy even the hard core sweet tooth because of its creamy texture and white chocolate taste.
Ingredients for 6
- 1 pack ladyfingers
- juice of 3 oranges
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbs rum
- 10.59 oz (or 300 g) white chocolate chips or chocolate cut in very small pieces, like shaved
- 13.52 fl oz (or 400 ml) milk
- 3 egg yolks
- 3 gelatin sheets, or agar agar
- 1 tbs sugar
- 0.6 cups (or 150 ml) heavy cream
- 2 packs raspberries
Preparation
First start preparing the ladyfinger for the “crust”. Squeeze the juice of the three oranges and place in a small container. Add rum and vanilla extract and mix well. Dip lady fingers in the orange juice mixture, then place one layer at the bottom surface of the mold, then coat the sides of the mold, all around it.
Place white chocolate in a mixing bowl. Heat up milk and sugar to a very hot temperature but not to the boiling stage and pour on top of chocolate. Let it sit until the chocolate melts, about 5 minutes. In the meantime, place gelatin sheets in water, and let it dissolve. Add gelatin to milk/chocolate mixture. Mix well and let it cool down. Place in the refrigerator for a little while, until it gets cold but not thickened. It needs to be hard enough so that it will allow you to fold whipped cream in it.
Whip cream and add carefully to the chocolate/milk mixture.
Add two layers of raspberries on top of ladyfingers layer. Add chocolate/cream mixture and put back in the refrigerator to let it thicken, about 12 hours.
A few mousses in a layer or two – Mascarpone mousse with raspberries and strawberry coulis imitation tiramisù
Aug 22nd
Delizio in un bicchiere – Mousse di Mascarpone con lamponi e coulis di fragole alla Tiramisù
At this time of the year, I am either in Italy or France with my family and right now I tend to get nostalgic…it’s cold, foggy and windy in San Francisco, and I wish I were home. When I get homesick, I start cooking things I make when I am over there. I love to use mascarpone in all kinds of desserts, it’s a wonderful cream, not sure I would call it cheese though, anyway it does not matter, what matters is all the wonderful recipes you can make with it.
It’s certainly not to be snobby but if you get mascarpone, please try to get the imported one, not domestic. The domestic mascarpone is thicker, more yellow and more rubbery, so your mousse will not be as fluffy. I think when it has to do with tiramisù, I tend to be very “purist” in the sense that I hate to see tiramisù with whipped cream, I don’t know why it’s just one ingredient that I don’t want to see in tiramisù, therefore will not call this tiramisù, even if it looks like one. Yes, sometimes as far as food is concerned, I can be strange.
I had some extra mousse so I made an additional little verrine…banana, pear and vanilla. You can use any other fruit, but I just had those two left and the good thing is that they are two fruits that mix really well together. You can add some chocolate coulis after the layer of fruits.
Ingredients for 3-4
- 1.5 lb strawberries
- 1/2 lb raspberries
- 1 pack lady fingers
- 1/2 lb (or 250 g) imported mascarpone
- 2 eggs
- 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
- 3 tbs powdered sugar
- 2 tbs granulated sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- juice of 1 orange
- 2 tbs sweet wine (like Marsala, Pinot des Charentes, etc…)
Preparation
Wash and cut strawberries, add granulated sugar and cook at medium heat for about 15 minutes until the strawberries are cooked but not over mushy and that they have produced a deep red juice. Drain and keep the juice aside. Let cool.
Add orange juice, marsala, and vanilla extract to strawberry juice, mix well.
Separate yolks from whites. Beat yolks with powdered sugar until the mixture whitens and double its volume. Add mascarpone and mix thoroughly. Beat egg whites to a thick consistency, and until they start peaking. Fold carefully to the mascarpone mixture. Whip the cream and add to the egg/mascarpone mixture.
Deep lady fingers in the strawberry juice. Deep long enough so that they absorb enough juice. Place at the bottom of a deep dish or a glass. Add a layer of cooked strawberries, then add fresh raspberries. Proceed with another layer of mascarpone cream, and start again with another layer of lady fingers, straberries, raspberries and cream. Decorate with fresh raspberries, and/or powdered chocolate or any other pretty item.
Place in the refrigerator for 2 hours and serve.
