Rose-petal custard

This is a continuation of my scandalous love affair with custard. This custard uses the same basic recipes as the lemon verbena custard, but uses rose petals to flavour it. The red and deep pink rose petals I used imparted a lovely soft colour to the custard, and a fragrant sweet turkish-delight flavour. This is one I shall definitely make again and again when the roses are in bloom!

Ingredients

1/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons cornflour

2 egg yolks

1 1/2 cup milk

Petals of 3-4 fragrant roses. The more fragrant the roses, the more fragrant and flavourful your custard will be.

Method

Place the milk and rose petals in a pot. Bring just up to the boil, then take immediately off the heat and leave to cool. Strain the milk to remove all the petals.

Mix the sugar, cornflour, egg yolk, vanilla and milk in a saucepan and stir with a whisk to remove lumps. Taste to make sure you are happy with the sweetness etc and adjust as necessary. Place over a low-medium heat and stir with a whisk until it thickens. 

Enjoy!

Lemon verbena custard

 I can remember my mum making custard when I was younger, and trying to teach me - but I was always too impatient with it and cooked it too quickly so it curdled. Now that I am older, I am much more patient and am reaping the rewards.  After all is there anything better than soft, silky smooth, warm custard on a cool night? This custard is all that with a lovely lemony flavour.

Ingredients

1/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons cornflour

2 egg yolks

1 1/2 cup milk

Sprig of lemon verbena leaves.

Method

Place the milk and lemon verbena in a pot. Bring just up to the boil, then take immediately off the heat and leave to cool. Remove the lemon verbena leaves and strain if necessary.

Mix the sugar, cornflour, egg yolk, vanilla and milk in a saucepan and stir with a whisk to remove lumps. Taste to make sure you are happy with the sweetness etc and adjust as necessary. Place over a low-medium heat and stir with a whisk until it thickens. 

Enjoy!

Mandel Päron (Almond Pears)

Following on the recent fascination with all things Swedish is this simple yet delicious dessert. A lovely quick dessert for those times you don't want to fuss.

Serves 8

Ingredients

8 ripe pears, peel, halved, and cored
juice of 1 lemon
2tbsp of butter
350g ground almonds

cream or custard to serve

Method

Place the pears in an ovenproof dish and sprinkle with lemon juice.

Put a small piece of butter on each pear and then sprinkle the ground almonds evenly on top.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, basting once or twice with the juices, until they are soft and the almond crust is a light golden colour.

Serve warm with the cream or custard.

Appelkaka med vaniljkräm (Apple cake with vanilla cream)

This is an amazingly luscious dessert. The addition of lemon to the topping is absolutely inspired.
This was part of our Swedish Eurovision feast!

While you can eat it cold, it comes into its own when it is warm. Eating it straight out of the oven it is a slice of heaven itself. It is more of a pudding/crumble than a cake - so don't expect it to hold its form perfectly when serving!

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter
7 eating apples
2 tbsp caster sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup white sugar
2 egg yolk and 3 egg whites
100g ground almonds
grated rind and juice of 1/2 lemon

For the vanilla cream
double cream, whipped with 1 tsp of vanilla extract.

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C
Butter a 20cm flan or springform tin
Peel, core, and thinly slice the apples and put in a bowl. Add in the caster sugar and cinnamon and toss till coated.
Put into baking tin.
Cream butter and sugar. Beat in egg yolks and then add the almonds, lemon, and lemon rind.
In another bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff and then fold into the mixture.
Pour this mixture over the apples.

Bake for 40 minutes or until the golden brown on top, and tender apples on the bottom.
Serve with a dollop of vanilla cream.

Staisa's Sousy Scallywag Pudding

This was my mums signature dessert. Every year she was asked to bring it to work Christmas functions, and she would also make it for New Year's Eve. It is simple, but really really yummy. This year I made one for Christmas eve dinner with friends, and was forced to make one again for New Year.... not so much of a hardship, really.

Ingredients

600ml bottle of cream
A packet of scalliwags*
1/3 cup icing sugar
sprinkles and other sugar decorations as your heart desires
1/2 cup Tia Maria (rough estimate)** 

Method

This was for a news year dinner;
using kahlua instead of tia maria

Whip the cream with the sugar and the vanilla till stiff. You don't want the cream too sweet, as the rest of the dessert will be very sweet, so use less sugar if you wish but don't add more.
dunk a scalliwag into tia maria. Slather it with cream. Stand it on a serving tray. Take another scalliwag, dunk it into tia maria, slather it with cream and sandwich it to the previous biscuit. Repeat until you have run out of biscuits, and have created a long log of creamy little scalliwags.
Cover the entire log in cream. Decorate to your taste.
Cover and chill for at least 6 hours.

Cut, serve and eat. Is yummy on the day, better the next day, and awesome on day 3. It never makes it to day 4, so I can't tell you how long it would actually last ;)

Notes:

* Scalliwags are thin chocolate biscuits shaped like scalliwags, which is to say politically correct golliwogs.
** You can experiment with other alcoholic beverages here- kahlua, schnapps, frangelico all work well.

This was our Christmas version

Disclaimers:

Alcoholic, so not for the kiddies.

I really like the word scalliwags