Eva's Cheese Cake

Today I like to share a very simple but amazing recipe for a cheese cake.It is sort of a double baked cheese cake with a sour cream topping. The topping is very soft but makes the entire cake even more delicious

The name comes from the owner of Soneva Fushi, Eva. She just simply loves cheese cake and this recipe is one of the favorites since many years.

I do love my cheese cake too and have to admit that this one is really a stunner. The only challenge is that is does not keep well, the topping will be starting to run off after a day, so either you cook and eat the cake on the same day, best place it in the freezer, then it is easy and when it defrosts, the cake stays nicely in shape

I like to serve a freshly made berry sauce with it, leave it chunky for some more texture. The acidity of the berries will go perfect with the creamy richness of the cake

so here is the recipe

Bottom
50 Ml Melted butter
125 G Biscuit


25 G Sugar

Place biscuit and sugar in a food processor bowl for 20 seconds until is finely crushed.
Transfer to another bowl, add melted butter and mix it till to combine.
After that spread it as the base on to a cake ring and press well.

Cream Cheese Mix
1400 G Cream cheese
250 G Caster sugar
20 Ml Vanilla essence
20 Ml Lemon juice
6 Ea Eggs

Use an electric whisk and beat the cream cheese and caster sugar until smooth
Add egg, one by one in to the cheese mixture and then mix it well
add vanilla essence and lemon juice in to the cheese mixture and mix all together
Pour mixture on to the base of the biscuits and bake it in hot oven at 200 °C until it becomes golden color.

Topping
1500 G Sour cream
250 G Caster sugar

Combine sour cream and caster sugar until its smooth
Pure over top of cheesecake and then bake it for 200 °C until it become golden brown color.
Keep it cool and then serve it.

Sri Lankan Coconut Crepes

Today we do another lovely dessert from Sri Lanka, a lovely and yes very sweet dessert.

We have plenty of coconuts here on the island, nobody really knows how many exactly but the guesses are all around 3000 trees, so there is a year round supply of fresh coconuts which we serve daily to our guests. I this amazing to see how the guys go up the trees with the simplest method of having a towel wrapped around the feet and the tree and off the go to the lofty heights to get the coconuts

Of course we have some older coconuts as well and that is exactly what we need for this dessert. The fresh coconuts have very little meat, but of course lots of juice so perfect for drinking

The filling is very sweet, typical for desserts from Sri Lanka and India, they are all sugar loaded, but taste delicious

The garnish you can see on teh photo is a sesame brittle. I simply caramelize sugar, just to a light caramel. I take the caramel off the fire and add the sesame seeds in it. You don't need to toast the sesame before because the heat of the caramel will toast teh sesame automatically. Then I pour it on a slightly oiled cold surface and when it is cold and hard I break it into small pieces. This makes a great garnish for many desserts

But here is the recipe, you will see, it is actually very easy to do

Recipe
2 Ea Eggs
2 Ea Egg yolk
80 G Sugar
250 G Flour
25 G Butter
550 Ml Milk
10 Ml Vanilla essence
5 G Salt

200 G Coconut, freshly grated
200 G Palm sugar
20 G Mixed spices
1 Ea Orange zest
1 Ea Lime zest

Method
Melt the butter, then mix all ingredients for crepes
Let it rest for an hour in the fridge
Bake thin crepes in a crepe pan

Chop the palm sugar (Jagery)
Mix with lemon and lime zest
Add a little water
Bring to the boil Add grated coconut
Cook for just a couple of minutes
Cool down completely

Fill the crepes with the coconut and roll them

Watalappan (Jagery coconut caramel pudding)

We have buffet night again, this time it is an Indian and Sri-Lankan buffet and the food is as usual absolutely delicious. Of course I have to say it is delicious as I am the chef here, but honestly, the food was really amazing again, so I want to share some lovely recipes with you

The attention tonight is on one of the desserts, the Watalappan, a pudding from Sri-Lanka. Our Pastry Chef, Shanta is from Sri-Lanka, so this dessert is about as authentic as it goes. It is actually very similar to the traditional Creme Caramel, just a little sweeter and richer. The mixed spices that go in give it a lovely flavor that makes it very different in taste, so the making of it is simple. To get the right ingredients might be a little more complicated and you will have to go in an Indian specialty shop. Just some explanations:

Jagery is actually just simply palm sugar, so this ingredient is easy to get as it is available in most Asian shops

Kithul Treacle might be a bit more of a challenge, but I know everybody likes a bit of a challenge. The English word for it is actually Palm Molasses. But if you can't find the Palm Molasses, you can substitute it for brown sugar.

As for the spices, I use Cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon, star anise and a little cloves. The go in my spice grinder to make a powder of t. If you don't have a grinder or a very good blender you can just buy the spices in powder form. Just be careful with the cloves, they can be very overpowering

Just a little tip: Leave your pudding in the fridge for 2 days, the spices will develop a much better aroma

Recipe
250 g sugar

1 l  Coconut milk (fresh)
600 g Jagery (palm sugar)
100 ml Kithul Treacle (can use brown sugar)
25 g mixed spices
15 ea Eggs

Method
Take the 250 g sugar and caramelise till light brown
Pour in a creme caramel mold.
Mix all the other ingredients well together
Pour carefully over the hard caramel
Poach in the oven in a bain marie at 125C for about 30 to 45 minutes
Cool down completely
Take it out the form
Garnish with toasted Pecan nuts

Chocolate Soup

Still on the desserts, this time with a chocolate soup, but with a little difference. I am sure you have seen the special chocolate slabs with sea salt in the delicatessen areas of the shops? It is something similar but we will go one step further, we will combine chocolate, sea salt and olive oil into an amazing dessert.

The soup is very easy to do, it is basically cream with a top quality chocolate, I like to use one of the top Valrhona dark chocolates like the Guanaja which has a great flavor and is about 70% cocoa, so dark and intense.

I made a photo from the top, so you can see the salt flakes and the swirl of olive oil. The streusel are normal streusel one uses for cake toppings, just baked without a cake..... It gives great texture to the dish and actually cuts the richness a bit

Recipe
200 G (7 oz) Chocolate
1 L (1 qrt) Fresh cream
 Sea salt flakes
 Olive oil

Streusel
100 g (3.5 oz) Butter
100 g (3.5 oz) Sugar
150 g (5.5 oz) Flour

Method
Heat the cream until 80C and add the chocolate
Cool down completely

Mix the butter, sugar and flour together, make sure you got fairly big crumbs
Refrigerate for a couple of hours
Bake in the oven at 180C till golden brown, which takes only a couple of minutes
Cool down completely before using

Crema Catalana

Finally, I am sharing again a dessert recipe. A very traditional Spanish dessert, but done in a completely new and different way. Ever heard of Molecular Gastronomy? You know all this fuss the people do about El Bulli, Heston Blumenthal, having Airs, Foams, hot Jellies and little Spheres?????

Yes, that is exactly what we will do with this recipe today. Molecular Gastronomy for you at home. But no worry we are going very easy on it. I am sharing recipe that you can cook at home. The only thing that you need is an ISI Whip, what? ISI Whip, what on earth is that. It must be one of these fancy new machines that nobody can afford......No it is not. It is one of these cream whipping bottles that get charged with CO2, my mom had it already in her kitchen nearly 30 years ago. Just that she did not use it to whip up some Molecular treats for the family, no, she simply used it to make whipped cream. So you can actually get a "cream whipper" in every good kitchen shop allover the world.

But now to the actual dish. What we do is that the cream, the vanilla custard is cooked and then cooled down, then put into the ISI whip, 2 charges are added and then it gets "foamed" into ceramic dishes. Quickly add icing sugar on top and caramelize it with a blow torch, again something that should be standard in a very well equipped kitchen. (Don't worry, my mom didn't have that in her kitchen....)

Recipe
500 ml (half quart)  Fresh Cream
500 ml (half quart)  Milk
40 g (1.5 oz) Corn starch
1 Ea Lemon
1 Ea Orange
1 Ea Cinnamon Stick
125 g (5 oz) Sugar
8 Ea Egg yolk

Method
Grate Orange and lemon rind
Boil up milk and cream with orange and lemon zeste
and cinnamon stick
Cool down and keep for one day in the fridge to marinate

Mix egg yolk, sugar and corn starch
Rest for 10 min
Strain the milk/cream mix
Combine egg mix with milk
In a heavy bottom pan heat up the mix to 80 C
Make sure the heat is not higher as otherwise the mix
will be too thick for the bottle
Cool the mix down completely

Put half of it in an ISI Whip and add 2 charges

Shake well and press the foam in a heat proof plate
Top with Icing sugar and blow torch it

Polvoron

This Filipino dish is something I have eaten the last couple of years, but never actually made it myself, so it is about time to try it out and share the results. A Polvoron is a cookie, a really amazing tasting cookie and as the name already might give away, it is a very powdery cookie. 

Originally the Polvoron comes from Spain and is traditionally made from September to January. The major difference between the Spanish and the Filipino version is that in Spain lard is used whereas in Philippines butter is used

Toasting the flour

The most well known ones here in Philippines are made by a company named Goldilock's and they taste amazingly good. It is something like the Halo Halo, I just need it to exist, I can eat them all the times......but careful, they do have a couple of calories.

Adding the milk powder

The making of these cookies is actually really, really easy, it just takes a little patience. They are not baked, but the flour is toasted in a dry pan, slowly toasted, that is where the patience comes in, don't go too high in the temperature just to push the process, the result will not be good as flour burns very easily in a hot pan. The flour has to be toasted as this cooking process will prevent the cookies to taste like just plain flour, but give them the typical Polvoron flavor 

Adding the sugar

Then when the flour is toasted one simply takes away the pan from the flame and adds the rest of the ingredients one by one. First the milk powder, then the sugar and at the end the butter. By then the mix should already be a little cold. Then the mix gets stirred till everything is nice and evenly crumbly.

Adding soft butter

At the end the mix gets pressed in the special Polvoron forms, this uses a little force as otherwise they will crumble when held with the fingers. If you don't have these forms just use a cookie cutter and press the mix in them.

Mixing well

I keep these cookies always in the fridge. The butter hardens and will hold the cookies better together, they will keep fresh as well as otherwise with the butter in the cookie, they would go off quite quickly when left outside.

The Polvoron moulds

Recipe
500 g Flour
500 g Milk Powder
500 g Sugar
300 g Butter

Method
Toast the flour in a hot pan till very light brown. The smell will be lovely when it is done, just a bit toasted in the nose
Remove pan from the heat
Add Milk powder and mix quickly
Add sugar and mix again
At the end add the butter which has to be room temperature
Now mix the whole thing thoroughly, best you a kitchen mixer
Press the mix in Polvoron forms
Leave over night in the fridge
Serve within a week of making

Jaconde Alize.....a sexy dessert

Every good menu needs a stunning dessert to end the meal, so we need to have something really sexy for dessert. The name is already sexy, Jaconde Alize.

If you google the dessert you will quickly find out that it is actually a classic dessert which has be brought to perfection by Michel Roux. It is soft layers of almond sponge, then praline butter cream and raspberries, something that is just too wonderful.

So yes, our pastry chef was for many years on ships and had the privilege to work with Michel Roux....what a lucky guy. And I am now a lucky guy to have the pastry chef working for us here. I met Michel Roux when he came for a well deserved break in the Relais et Chateaux hotel where I was the chef at the time. Such a humble and great man, no arrogance, just simply enjoying his time with us and the food.

The almond sponge is soaked with a bit sugar syrup, then you paint dark chocolate on it, so it gets just a tiny bit crispness, then the raspberries and the butter cream, wow, it is really great

Just be aware, it takes a bit time and loads of love to make this recipe work

Recipe
600 G Almond Sponge
300 G Frozen Raspberries
400 G Butter Cream
50 G Hazelnut paste
50 G Chocolate
20 G Cocoa Powder
30 G Sugar

50 G Mango sauce

Method
Bake the almond sponge in sheets
Cook the chocolate with cocoa powder and sugar till melted
Paint the chocolate on top of the sponge
Defrost the berries, chop
Put the berries on top of the chocolate

Mix Butter cream with hazelnut paste
Spread the butter cream on top of the berries
Put the individual layers on top of each other
Press gently
Cool over night
Add a last layer of butter cream on top

Cut slices of 140 g each
Garnish with mango sauce

And here is the recipe for the Almond Sponge

600 g Almond Flour
600 g Icing sugar
200 g Flour
150 g Butter
750 g Eggs

Beat the eggs with the sugar till light and creamy
Add the other ingredients carefully, except the butter
Melt the butter and add at the end
pour on baking trays and make sure it is not thicker than 1 cm
Bake at 180 C till light brown in color

Coupe Romanoff, a Strawberry Sensation

What is he doing now? Is he cooking Russian food again?

No, the Coupe Romanoff is a traditional ice cream coupe we do in Switzerland, something everybody know, even so we don't really know where the name comes from

So then lets have a little lesson in cooking history. The first time this dessert was made for the Russian Tsar Family Romanoff by the French master Chef Marie-Antoine Careme in the 19th Century. The original dessert was fresh strawberries marinated with port wine and then served with whipped cream. Over the years the dessert changed to what we know today, vanilla and strawberry ice cream with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. So no more alcohol, but lovely ice cream

Marie-Antoine Careme was the chef of the kings, he was born in France in a poor family in 1777 and then started working in kitchen at a very young age. He worked his way up and ended up cooking for Baron de Rothchild, the British king, Taillerand and then Tsar Alexander of Russia. Careme was the one who started that the chefs wear white jackets and hats, in order to stay more hygienic. He wrote many cook books, revolutionized cooking and created many dishes which are still cooked today, even so in a slightly different form.

So, but now we have the recipe

1 scoop Strawberry Ice Cream
1 scoop Vanilla Dream Ice Cream
75 G Strawberries, slices
20 G Strawberry Sauce
20 Ml Cream, whipped Mint

Balsamic Vinegar marinated Strawberries

There is another favorite of mine, the Balsamic marinated Strawberries. It is such a simple dessert, especially if you just serve it with a scoop of ice cream or some whipped cream. All you do is add some sugar to the strawberries and some balsamic vinegar, let it marinate for a couple of hours and Voila, the dessert is ready

I like to do a littl variation of the dessert, a cold Sabayon or Zabaglione in Italian. The proper English translation would be a Wine Foam Cream. But as it doesn't sound so sexy, I think we stick to Sabayon. It is basically egg yolks, sugar, white wine and often a bit Madeira wine that is combined and then beaten over heat till it thickens.....voila, again. It sounds easy, but I have to admit, it is a little tricky to do, to get the right moment to stop as otherwise the cream will be scrambled eggs or it will liquify again

So here is the recipe, you will see it is just so simple and delicious

500 G Strawberries

50 G Sugar

50 Ml Balsamic Vinegar

Clean the strawberries and marinate them with the sugar and balsamic vinegar for a couple of hours

Sabayon

50 Ml Eggyolk

50 Ml White wine

20 G Sugar

100 Ml Whipped cream

500 G Vanilla Ice cream

Whisk the eggyolk, liquid and sugar over a bain marie till light and fluffy

Cool down with an electric beater

Mix with the whipped cream

Make 10 small scoops

Plate the marinated strawberries in a long shaped plate

Drizzle the Sabayon over them

Garnish with one scoop of ice cream and some mint leaves

Reduce the left over Balsamic from the marinade till syrup

Drizzle over the berries just before serving

Strawberry and Champagne Soup

Good, we have covered the normal strawberries and I hope you enjoyed the combination of vanilla sauce, cream and strawberries. So now we can start with some different recipes. The strawberry and Champagne soup is an amazing dessert becasue I serve the soup with a Rhubarb Crumble. It gives extra texture and the rhubarbe goes perfectly well with the strawberries

The recipe looks a little long, but if you want to leave the rhubarb crumble away, you can just take some top quality vanilla ice cream with it.....or what I did last time have the soup, then the crumble and a small scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of the crumble....that is really decadent but delicious

So here is the recipe

Soup
1 Kg Strawberries frozen or fresh
125 G Sugar
100 Ml White wine
0.5 Ea Strawberries, fresh
0.25 Ea Blueberries

Method
Boil frozen Strawberries up with sugar
Blend and cool as quick as possible
Add white wine to season

Rhubarb Crumble
500 G Rhubarb, frozen
100 G Sugar

Boil rhubarbe up together with sugar, then cool quickly

Sugar dough
125 G Butter
1 G Vanilla Essence
250 G Flour
125 G Sugar
1 Ea Eggs

Mix everything together.
Rest in the fridge for 2 hours.
Roll dough out, pre bake a bit

Almond mix
200 G Marzipan
100 G Butter
2 Ea Eggs
10 G Flour
1 Ea Lemon zestes

Mix all the ingredients well

Baste the almond mix on the sugar dough
Top with rhubarb
Top the crumbles on it
Bake in the oven till golden brown

Strawberries

It is Strawberry time, not with us but in Europe. So I decided to have a strawberry promotion, something that reminds us here of Europe. So of course that means that we will hav a whole lot of strawberry recipes.

I love strawberries, I love them in any form, pure straight from the fiels, or marinated with balsamic, as ice cream or as a soup, it really doesn't matter, I always loved strawberries and I am so glad that I don't have an allergy to them, that would be really terrible for me.

So the first blog in this mini series about strawberries is the berries just simply served plain with a bit whipped cream and vanilla sauce. It is so simple but always effective. of course there is a bit sugar as well because there is nothing nicer than dipping the strawberry in sugar and then in the lightly whipped cream and then eat them.....I am already getting hungry again

So what do you need? Strawberries, whipped cream and vanilla sauce. So I give you here my favorite recipe for Vanilla sauce, I have made it so many times int he past 20 years that I can do it nearly blind folded.

Vanilla sauce

500 ml Milk

500 ml Cream

8 Egg yolks

2 whole eggs

150 g Sugar

1 Vanilla bean

Bring the milk and cream to simmer, add sraped vanilla bean and let it marinate for 10 minutes.

Take the vanilla bean out, squeeze all the flavor into the milk.

Whisk the eggs with the sugar till creamy

Add carefully the hot milk

Cook over a low fire till the vanilla sauce starts to thicken

make sure it does not get too hot otherwise it wil be curdling

Cool down

Brazo de Mercedes

We are going sweet again, very sweet I have to say and I love it. I am a sucker for sweet desserts and this dessert is sweet, very sweet. For this reason I will actually give you 2 recipes, one is the original Brazo De Mercedes and the other one is slightly changed, I added a bit Passion fruit juice that gives it a bit of an edge and instead of Condense milk I make a Vanilla Custard, like this it is not as sweet anymore, hehehe, but still sweet.

This is another Cake from Philippines, so after the Buko Pie and the Sansrival, this is already my 3rd cake on the Blog that comes from this beautiful Country. There are so many more recipes and I am slowly getting them all together to have a nice recipe collection of Pinoy Recipes

The Brazo De Mercedes is actually very easy to make, but it needs a little timing with the baking of the Meringue as you don't want it to dry out, so take the time and check your oven often, you want it baked, but not too much color, that is really important. The Meringue must be nice and moist that it can easily be rolled later with the filling on it.

Now here the Recipes

Original Brazo De Mercedes

12 ea Egg White

300 g Sugar

50 g Corn Starch

1 Tin Condense Milk

20 ea Egg Yolks

Method

For the Meringue whisk egg white with one quarter of the sugar to soft peak, then add the rest slowly, beating it all the time. Ad the end mix the corn starch with some sugar and add it too.

Spread the mix on a baking tray with a non stick mat on it (Flexipan) then bake in the oven at 160 C for about 10 minutes

Cool the Meringue down

Mix the condense Milk with the eggs and beat in a bain marie till very thick and creamy

Pour on top of the meringue, roll tightly and cool in the fridge till completely cold

Passion Fruit Brazo De Mercedes

12 ea Egg White
300 g Sugar
50 g Corn Starch

1 Tin Passion fruit concentrate
12 ea Egg Yolks
350 ml Cream
0.5 ea Vanilla Bean
10 g Corn Starch
50 g Sugar

Bring the Passion fruit concentrate to a boil, take off the heat. Add the sugar first, then all the other ingredients.

Put the filling back on the heat and bring to a boil. The corn starch will prevent the eggs from curdling, but the mix needs to boil up, just briefly to activate the corn starch

Then pour on top of the Meringue, roll tightly and cool in the fridge till completely cold.

Baked Alaska

Baked Alaska, what an old fashioned Dessert....and? You cannot believe how often this Classic is still served all over the world, not just in the cruise industry. There we still have the Baked Alaska Parade with everybody coming in the Dining Room and 1000 guests are applauding....and then the same again for the second seating, no even in hotels, restaurants, the Baked Alaska is a Classic, but it is by far not dead! Long live the Baked Alaska!

I want to show you how to make this dessert quick and easy at home and let the tradition live on! I prefer to make individual Baked Alaska as it is not just beautifully to present on the plate, but it is easier to store in the freezer. The big ones are just so bulky!

As for the blow torch you will need, there are two options, get one in a kitchen specialty shop, they have the little fancy ones, or take your husband for a stroll and go to his "toy shop" to get a proper blow torch, I am sure he will like that you come with him to this dreaded store and will gladly buy you a proper model.

All you need is 4 items, Ice Cream, Sponge, Egg White and Sugar

Baked Alaska

1 small Tub Chocolate Swirl Ice Cream

1 ea Sponge Cake

5 ea Egg White

150 g Caster Sugar

Method

Cut the sponge cake in round sponge circles about 1 cm thick and 5 cm diameter. Place one ball of ice cream on it, you can use any ice cream you like. Place it back in the freezer and freeze completely

In the mean time beat the egg white with one third of the sugar till soft peak in an electric beater, then add the rest of the sugar slowly always while beating the egg white. Beat the "Meringue" till it is very firm.

Put the Meringue in a piping bag, take the ice cream out the freezer and garnish it till completely covered with the Meringue, then place back in the freezer.

Just before serving the Baked Alaska, take a blow torch and "burn" the meringue, serve immediately

Flour less Chocolate Cubes with Strawberry Compote

Now this is a truly indulgent recipe, the chocolate is reach and creamy, so the strawberries give a little acidity and sweetness to it. To round the whole thing off, I add some cold Sabayon. All in all you get this great dessert that is colorful and absolutely delicious. I make the chocolate cubes flour less as like this the flavor is even more intensive and apart for from that, it is a perfect dessert for a gluten free diet

Chocolate Cubes
300 g Chocolate
3 ea Eggs
1 ea Egg yolk
250 g Butter

Strawberry Compote
500 g Strawberries
100 g Sugar
0.5 ea Vanilla bean, scraped
50 ml Red Wine
15 g Corn Starch

Sabayon
2 ea Egg Yolks
50 ml Marsala
75 ml White Wine
50 g Sugar
150 ml Cream, whipped

Method

For the Chocolate Cubes, melt the butter and then add the chocolate. Over very low heat melt the chocolate, stirring constantly. Then when the chocolate is completely melted, add the beaten eggs. Stir nicely till you have a smooth batter

Pour in a square, buttered baking tin and bake at 120 C for about one hour or till cooked. Make sure the heat is not too high to avoid over cooking

For the Strawberry Compote mix Strawberries, Sugar and Vanilla and bring to the boil. Mix Corn Starch and Red Wine, add to the strawberries, stirring all the time, it will thicken nicely. The take immediately off the heat and cool to room temperature

For the Sabayon mix all ingredients except the cream in a metal bowl, big enough to whisk the eggs rapidly and to make sure it doesn't over flow when all the foam comes up during the cooking and whisking

Peach Soup with Ice Cream Sandwich

Peach Soup with Ice Cream Sandwich

Oh yes, another easy summer dessert which is so tasty, yummy and moreish. I love Ice Cream in all forms and especially as a sandwich it is really great. The peach soup gives the lovely sweetness to the dessert, another one that can easily be made in advance. I can't say it enough, when I have a party with friends, I want to be part of the party and not slaving away in the kitchen. OK, most of the time we end up in the kitchen anyway, so then there is nothing wrong, especially when everybody just lends a hand. (which happens often when my chef friends come over)

Now what do we need? Peaches, sugar, white wine, Ice cream and tennis biscuits. That's it, OK, I make the sandwiches round, bake my own sugar dough rounds, but to be honest, tennis biscuits are perfectly fine, just turn them inside out.

12 ea Fresh peaches

500 ml (0.5 quart) White wine

150 g (5 oz) Sugar

1 tub Vanilla ice cream

1 packet Tennis biscuits

Cut the ice cream the same size like the biscuits, then press one biscuit on each side of the ice cream. With a spatula make sure that edges are all nice and even. Make a couple of ice cream sandwiches extra as I know you will indulge in some of them while making them.

Keep one peach as garnish, cut in slices only

While the ice cream freezes, de-pip the peaches, cut them small and cook with wine and sugar. When totally soft process them in a food processor, cool down completely.

To serve, pour a bit soup in a bowl, garnish with peach wedges and mint, add the ice cream sandwich at the end

Nectarine and Blueberry Salad

If one thinks, half the world has summer at any given time, so I think it is perfect to give you a summer dessert recipe while I am in freezing Antarctica. After all it is summer here right now, otherwise we would not be able to come here. We got some amazing products in Hobart, even after 12 days at sea everything is still fairly fresh and we will be fine for our 18 day voyage. We had 3 boxes of beautiful nectarines and some really nice blue berries, so I made this Nectarine and Blueberry Salad with Mango Sorbet. The salad is nice and fresh, the nectarines are marinated, so there is this extra flavor. The beauty of this dish is really that it is so simple to make and looks so good.

10 ea Nectarines

2 punnets Blueberries

150 ml (5 oz) White wine

150 ml (5 oz) Water

90 g (3 oz) Sugar

1 Lemon (rind and juice)

2 ea Star Anise

1 ea Cloves

5 ea Cardamom

Half Vanilla Bean, scraped

Firstly make the sugar syrup, that is where the fruit get marinated. Simply boil up white wine, water, sugar and all the spices. Cool down to room temperature.

Cut the nectarines into wedges, put them immediately into the syrup.

Add the blueberries

Marinated for a couple of hours in the fridge

Serve with Mango sorbet, or any sorbet you like.

I have added some micro herbs as a garnish, this one is Micro Basil, just looks pretty and give some additional flavor which goes great with this dish

Raspberry and Brandysnap Mille Feuille

It sounds lie a lot of hard work, but it actually is very easy to do, a little time consuming, but when all the preparation is done, it is very quickly put together and it will make such a great impact at any dinner party. The dessert is light and tasty, just what one wants from a modern dessert. The Brandy Snaps give a great texture and sweetness to the dish while the raspberries give a acidity......yes and the vanilla cream gives it a luscious richness

Here are the ingredients

Brandy Snap

125 g (5 oz ) Butter

125 g (5 oz ) Flour

125 g (5 oz )Golden Syrup

250 g (10 oz ) Castor sugar

1 g Ginger, ground

3 ml Vanilla Essence

Melt the butter

Add Castor sugar and make sure everything is dissolved

Then add the other ingredients.

This mix can easily be kept for one week in a closed container in the fridge

Take a melon ball sized bit of the mix, press gently on a non stick baking sheet and bake at 160 C for about 5 to 8 minutes or till golden brown. Take them out and cool completely, they will get nice and hard.

Vanilla Mousse

30 g (1 oz) Sugar

10 g (0.3 oz) Starch

1 ea Egg yolks

125 ml (5 oz )Milk

half Vanilla Pod

Boil up milk with scratched out vanilla pod

Mix sugar, starch and egg yolk with a little milk.

Add to the milk and bring to the boil, then cool till room temperature

Whip the cream till soft peak and mix carefully with the Pastry Cream, cool in the fridge till totally cold

Plating

Pipe a little vanilla mousse in the middle of the plate, this will prevent the sliding of the Mille Feuille.

Lay one sheet of Brandy Snap on the mousse, then pipe a walnut sized bit of mousse in the middle of the Brandy Snap

Dress the Raspberries around, touching the mousse

Lay another Brandy Snap round on top, repeat the mousse and Raspberry part

Top with a last disc of Brandy Snap

Garnish with a Raspberry, mint leaf and a bit raspberry sauce

Tiramisu

Tiramisu is one of my all time favourites. You might say now that it is not an In-Dessert but I could not agree on that. A good Tiramisu is still something absolutely beautiful, a delight with a very light Mascarpone Mousse and sponge (or Finger biscuits) soaked in strong Espresso, Kalua Liquor and a hint of Amaretto. Unfortunately there is too much mediocre Tiramisu around out there that we actually don’t know anymore how wonderful Tiramisu can be. I had many Tiramisu in Italian restaurants and often I am very disappointed. This recipe has no gelatine in it, it is very important that the egg yolk and icing sugar are properly beaten, to ensure the Tiramisu will not be too runny.

I researched a bit about the history of this now famous dessert, but there is not too much one can find. The one thing that is clear is that it is not an Italian Classic as in a dessert made since centuries. There are different years of when it apparently has been made the first time; I found dates from 1969, 1972 and 1983. It looks so as it comes from the Italian Town of Treviso. It is very similar to Zuppa Inglese another Italian Dessert, this one is older so. But in general in Italy they made layered desserts since many centuries.

If anybody has more information, please share it with me as I would love to know more about one of my favourite desserts, or write your favourite version in the comments, there is no such thing as the “only” or “perfect” Tiramisu recipes, many ways lead to Rome.....

I like to serve it with a marinated Strawberry salad to give the dessert a bit of a fruity zest to it. If the Tiramisu is done properly on can cut it is squares which makes the plating a bit nicer. I make it as well one day in advance as the flavours are coming out better.

6 Each Egg yolk

150 G Icing sugar
Vanilla essence
600 G Mascarpone
500 Ml Whipped cream

Biscuit bottoms
Amaretto
Coffee reduction

Whip the egg yolks with the icing sugar and vanilla till very foamy and hard
Add the mascarpone and mix quickly
Add the whipped cream carefully
Put one layer of biscuit then pour some coffee reduction and amaretto on it.
Then make a layer of the mascarpone cream
Repeat the same once more
Leave the tiramisu overnight in the fridge.
Sprinkle cocoa over it before serving

Creme Brulee in Grand Cayman

Grand Cayman and Creme Brulee????? Oh yes, I like it. I am on a quick trip to Grand Cayman and back to Miami with one stop in Key West. So I should actually write something about Key Lime Pie, which is absolutely wonderful, but as I could not go out in Key West I decided that I write something about Creme Brulee.

I think it is as well as we have just received 300 new Creme Brulee forms and everybody is very exited about it, so I want to show you the perfect Creme Brulee!

But before that a bit about my days here. It is a lot of fun, I really enjoy my job. For the time being I am not cooking too much but that will change soon as next week I have to photograph some chicken dishes, yes and I will of course give you a glimpse and some recipes too. At the moment we are trying to get the guest eating in the alternative dining venue called Destinations.

The food is fantastic there, but it seems that many people forget about this place, so tomorrow we will be doing a presentation table together with the bar manager and hopefully more people will be booking a table.

Then we will look at the presentation of the Tapas in Cova Cafe. One of my favoured spots on the ship where I have my daily dose of Cappuccino and Espresso. They serve the most amazing Danishes and Croissants in the morning, then lovely Pastries in the afternoon and then around dinner time there are a range of Tapas with lovely live music, changing from classical to acapella to jazz, just a great place to be. So all we want to do is making sure the standard is as the company requests and that the crew is well trained and the buffet looks nice. So another busy day but at least loads of little projects.

But now enough talking, here the promised recipe

Creme Brulee for 10 friends

750 ml (0.75 quart) Cream

750 ml (0.75 quart) Milk

1 ea Vanilla Beans

200 g (7 oz) Sugar

8 ea Eggs

4 ea Egg yolks

100 g (3.5 oz) Sugar for Caramel

Boil up milk, cream, sugar and scraped out vanilla pod

Strain through chinoise strainer

Whisk egg yolks and eggs together

Add hot liquid carefully, stirring all the time

Pour the mix into creme brulee containers

Poach in the oven in a water bath at 110 o C (230 o F) till cooked, about 25 minutes

Cool the brulees down completely

Sprinkle the remaining sugar on the creme brulees

Caramelize the sugar with Blow Torche

Enjoy the Brulees as soon as possible to have the caramel still nice and crispy

I am siting at Grand Cayman airport right now, still nearly 2 hours to go for my flight, but having fun writing this Blog and watching Cricket at the same time!!!!

Blueberry Roulade

For a change I want to do a blueberry roulade as it is Blueberry season and they are really sweet and juicey, not like the ones they are for sale in the supermakets during the year

To do a biscuit for a roulade is actually very simple, it is just very important that everything is beaten properly so that the batter is quite firm and not runny

So here is the recipe

6 each Egg yolks

6 each Egg whites

100 g Sugar

1 each Lemon Peel

0.5 each Vanilla bean

125 g Flour

25 g Butter, melted

Whisk the egg yolks with half the sugar, lemon peel and vanilla till thick and creamy. Beat the egg white together with the rest of the sugar till firm peaks. Add half the flour to the egg yolks, then add half the egg white to it, always mixing carefully so not to loose any of the lightness. Then add the rest of the flour and the rest of the egg whites. Just before baking add the melted butter.

Spread the batter about 5 to 7 mm thick on a non stick paper, make sure it is nice and square. The batter should be nice and firm, so is not running away.

Bake in the pre heated oven at 220 o C quickly, take off the baking tray and cover with a damp cloth to keep the biscuit nice and soft.

Filling

500 g Blueberries

50 g Sugar

250 g Cream cheese

250 g Cream

3 leaves Gelatine

Warm the blueberries up with the sugar, then add the soaked gelatin

Mix the blueberries with the cream cheese.

Then add the whipped cream.

Spread the filling on the roulade biscuit, then roll with the cloth underneath, nice and firm.

Keep in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving.

It is a really easy recipe and not very time consuming, worth a try. Of course the filling can be anything, from chocolate to fruit, whatever one likes to have.