This was dessert when Fussellette came to dinner last week.
Started first with a meringue (my recipe is from The Joy of Cooking, but you can see a chocolate version here).
We plopped on the meringue some raspberry ice cream (see post here, but minus the vinegar). Then we topped it with whipped cream, melted chocolate, and fresh blackberries. Sweet and simple.
I got this recipe from Inquiring Chef, who in turn modified it from Bakerella. I think it’s awesome. Challenge accepted.
Inquiring Chef came up with four batches of different flavours: blueberry, raspberry, lemon, and mint. She tried kiwi but apparently it didn’t gel, so I left my kiwi purée in the freezer for the time being. I did whip out my frozen fruit from Costco and came up with six different flavours: blueberry, mixed berry (raspberry, blackberry, blueberry), strawberry, mango, and raspberry. I planned to turn whatever was left into a mélange and call that one “fruit salad”. I left those to defrost in the sun while I made The Un-Cola.
You only need 3 tablespoons of purée per flavour, but I wasn’t sure how much would be left over after I finished straining out the seeds and skins, so I kind of eyeballed it.
So, in a food processor, purée those fruits all up.
Strain them to remove the seeds and skins and whatever else is in there.
Push the stuff against the sides of the strainer with a spoon to get ’em to go. Some are easier than others.
Some are downright lurid.
Now we’re ready to go. Five flavours here.
And my “fruit salad” here.
The recipe below will give you two flavours. I obviously multiplied it by three to match my six flavours.
Grease or spray 2 5″x 6″ pans for the gelatinizing of them there gum drops. I used 8″ pie plates and cake tins, because that was what I had on hand.
So. Plop 3 tablespoons purée of one flavour into the bottom of one large heat-proof bowl, and then another 3 tablespoons of another flavour into another.
In a large pot, sprinkle 4 tablespoons unflavoured gelatin (sorry, this isn’t a vegetarian recipe) over 1 cup cold water. Leave that to soften for 5 minutes.
Pour 1 1/2 cups boiling water over the gelatin and stir to dissolve.
Pour in 4 cups sugar and bring that to a boil over medium heat. You will need to stir this constantly so it doesn’t boil over. And you will need to do this for 25 minutes straight. No, you can’t run to change the radio station or answer the phone. I managed to do this while talking on Skype with my parents, but they’re an indulgent sort and Skype is hands-free after all. They only stuck around for one batch of the stuff, though. I had to do that three times.
Pour half the boiling sugar-gelatin foam over the purée in one bowl and the rest into the other. Working quickly, stir to mix the purée completely into the sugar syrup.
Pour the mixtures into the sprayed pans.
Shove those suckers in the refrigerator overnight (or up to 2 days). See how nice and firm that is?
Pour about a cup of sugar onto a baking sheet. Then run a knife around the edges of the nice firm gelatin and gently release it from the pan.
This will take a bit of persuasion, and I found a metal spatula to be very handy here. Don’t worry about damaging the gelatin — it’s pretty resilient.
Place it in the sugar. When I’d done this I almost felt like I’d done some sort of organ transplant, and this was the one waiting for donation. It looks like a lung or something …
Then flip it to coat both sides — this will keep things from getting super sticky. You’ll get sticky enough as it is.
Put the gelatin on a cutting board and use a long knife to cut strips from it.
I then used scissors to cut the strips into 3/4″ cubes, or close enough approximates. You can use a knife for this if you want to get straighter lines, but seeing as I was making squares out of something that was originally a circle, I wasn’t that concerned. Plus as things get stickier, scissors are way easier.
Cut the strips into the sugar.
Then get in there with your hands and toss them to coat.
A just-tossed gum drop, up close and personal:
Transfer the finished gumdrops to parchment paper and leave, at room temperature, for 2 days to crystallize and get all good. This is my dining room table, completely covered in candy.
Then give them all away — or save a few for yourself! It always amazes me how simple candy always turns out to be — and that’s probably why it’s so good!
You can see more pictures of the gum drop adventure on my Flickr page.
What do you do for a potluck when you’re in the middle of Gros Morne National Park? You make a raspberry crumble, of course!
Will.i.am and Caramía gave the Pie and me a Backpacker’s Pantry Outback Oven (available as well from M.E.C.) as a wedding present, and we’d had no opportunity to use it in the two years since. When we found out we were going camping in Gros Morne over Canada Day weekend we figured that there was no time like the present.
The day of the potluck dawned and we considered our options. Miss Awesome and Ranger P (formerly P-with-an-E) had come pre-prepared with felafel and crackers and cheese, but we felt we should contribute something of our own as well. We had flour, oats (from instant oatmeal), brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter on hand — why not create a crumble?
The problem was the fruit for the middle. It turns out that fruit is nearly impossible to come by in any of the communities within Gros Morne, and we didn’t have the time or the resources to stretch our search farther afield. Fortunately, the fates shone on us that day (as did the sun). Miss Awesome’s Auntie, whom we visited while in the park, happened to have a frozen bag of raspberries on hand, which she graciously gave to us and thus saved the day.
So now to the crumble. Of course, in the thick of things, I measured nothing, so I’m just going to guess here.
Because the berries were still frozen, I set them to thaw in a pot on the fire. I thought about adding a bit of sugar to the raspberries but changed my mind. There was enough sugar in the crumble mixture, in any case. I think I had about 2-3 cups frozen raspberries in this.
We had a random orange floating around, so I grated the peel from that and chopped up the fruit into small pieces and chucked that in with the raspberries.
Miss Awesome persuaded me to add a few drops of Cointreau to the mix. That’s her foot there.
In a bowl, I mixed up the dry instant oatmeal (about 1 cup instant oatmeal) with about 1 cup flour and 1/2 cup butter. Add in 1/2 cup brown sugar and a liberal sprinkling of ground cinnamon and mix with your fingers until it’s all nice and crumbly.
Spread half the crumb mixture in the bottom of your outback oven.
Pour the raspberries (now thawed, but not stewed) on top and spread it evenly.
Sprinkle the remaining crumb mixture on top.
Seal up the oven, placing the lid securely on the pan and the little tent-thing on top of that and bake for a while. This of course depends on the strength of your camp stove. 
Ours only really has one setting — hot — so we had to keep turning off the flame and letting the thing cool down before starting it again in order to prevent burning. Here Miss Awesome checks on her couscous while the crumble bakes.
And the Pie relights the burner for the umpteenth time. I can’t be trusted near fire.
Keep checking that little dial!
After a while, when the raspberries were bubbling through the crumb top, I took the lid off and let the tent-thing help me crisp up the surface of the crumble a bit. I think that had I used less gooey fruit and real oats instead of instant oatmeal it would have been a crisper thing, but it was sure tasty.
Ten days ago (that would be 8 March 2011) was a very auspicious day. It was the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day (go us!), and it was also Pancake Tuesday/Mardi Gras. AND. And. It was my birthday. I turned TWENTY-NINE. Holy smokes. That’s a prime number.
In honour of the occasion (and because I need to perfect my fondant for Chel‘s wedding cake in June), I made my own birthday cake.
This is very loosely based on a cupcake the Pie and I made for our own wedding back in August 2009. The cupcake itself came from Susannah Blake’s Cupcake Heaven, but I think I’ve sufficiently changed this so I can call this recipe all my own.
Some of this stuff you can do ahead of time, like the fondant and the buttercream icing, and just put them in the fridge until you need them.
For the Cake:
Remove the pans to racks to cool completely.
For the Fondant:
In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, whip together 3 teaspoons vanilla, 1 cup butter, softened but not melted, and 1 cup corn syrup. If you want your fondant to be white, use the light corn syrup, as the dark stuff I used gave the fondant a creamy complexion.
When the mixture is creamy and fluffy, reduce the speed to low and add 1kg icing sugar, a bit at a time. If you do it all at once, or if you do it on high, you will get a mushroom cloud of icing sugar everywhere.
And it might even get on your dog.
When it is all incorporated, you will have a large doughy mass. 
Tip it out onto some waxed paper and knead it into a ball. If your dough is too tacky you might find that you want to add more icing sugar. To do this simply dust a work surface with icing sugar and knead it in.
When the dough has reached the consistency that you are happy with (i.e., not sticky, but not so dry that it cracks), then you can colour it. It helps to wear gloves for this part.
Spread a few drops of food colouring over your dough and knead them in until the colour is uniform. 
It will take a while to get it the colour you want it.
I was aiming for a pale pink but because of the yellowish tinge due to the dark corn syrup it came out more flesh coloured. Or at least, MY flesh colour.
I pulled off an extra bit of the newly coloured dough here and added extra food colouring so it was a darker pink than the rest. 
I will use this for the decoration part.
When you have kneaded to your satisfaction, wrap the dough tightly in waxed paper and seal it in an airtight container in the refrigerator until you need it.
For the Buttercream Icing:
In a stand mixer, whip 2 cups softened butter until pale and fluffy. 
Beat in 2 cups icing sugar until you get soft peaks.
Add in 4 tablespoons raspberry jam.
And that 1/2 cup reserved raspberry juice. 
Mix well. It may be slightly grainy, but that’s okay for our purposes.
Plop the icing in the fridge until you are ready to use it.
To Decorate:
Remove the icing and the fondant from the refrigerator and bring them to room temperature.
Tip out the cakes and peel off the parchment paper.
Slice off the round top of each cake, if you care about such things. I didn’t, because I wanted the top to be rounded slightly, and so I flipped one cake upside down and put the two flat sides together. Cut each cake in half horizontally.
Spread a crumb coat of buttercream on your cake (just a thin layer to trap the crumbs) and place the cake in the refrigerator for 15 minutes until the icing has set. Remove the cake from the refrigerator and use the remaining buttercream to smooth out the surface. Chuck it in the refrigerator again until the second layer of icing is set.
While the cake is chilling, roll out your fondant on a surface dusted with icing sugar or corn starch. You will want to roll it to about 1/4″ thick. Any thinner and you will be able to see the flaws in the cake through it. Any thicker and you will have trouble stretching it properly. Make sure to take off your rings and watches while you do this so you don’t mar the fondant surface.
To determine the surface area you will be covering, measure the height and width of your cake. You will need to create a round surface of fondant that is a diameter of twice the height plus the width of your cake.
Gently lift the flattened fondant over your rolling pin and use it as a lever to help you lay the fondant over your chilled cake. I found that approach didn’t work for me, and I had to try several different methods before I found one that worked. I rolled it out over waxed paper and used the waxed paper to do the transfer. The only problem is that my waxed paper was too narrow and I had to double it, which resulted in it leaving a line on the fondant. I will have to find some industrial-width waxed paper for next time.
Using your hands, gently lift and press the fondant into the sides of your cake after smoothing the top. Don’t pull on the fondant or it will crack — lift instead and flatten out the wrinkles with the palm of your hand. It may seem counter-intuitive, but you’ll see what I mean when you do it. Notice the strong colour resemblance between my hand hand the fondant? Yes, I am pale and pasty and spring can’t come soon enough.
Trim off excess fondant at the base of the cake. Otherwise you will have a cake that resembles a demented jellyfish. Or some bizarre prehistoric alien life form that may slowly yet inexorably expand, engulfing your family, your house, and then the entire planet. THE THING THAT TIME FORGOT.
So yeah, you want to trim that sucker.
There are such things as fondant smoothers that you can use to even out the fondant surface. I didn’t have one, so I used a flat-sided plastic cup. And that excess icing sugar or corn starch on the surface? Don’t worry about it. It will either come off by itself in the course of you smoothing and shaping, or you can wipe it off with a wet finger.
It’s far from perfect, but quite impressive for a first attempt, if I do say so myself.
Here I have rolled out the darker fondant onto a sheet of waxed paper and traced on it a design. 
Cut out the design with a sharp knife and pull off the excess, leaving the design on the waxed paper.
Lightly brush the top of the fondant pieces with water.
Carefully roll the design on the paper face down on top of the cake and press down lightly.
I took a deep breath after I’d done this.
Even more carefully, peel off the waxed paper, leaving your design on the cake. Smooth the sharp edges with your fingers.
You can also freehand other elements out of the leftover fondant, as you see I did here. You can also store the scraps in the fridge in an airtight container, just in case you want them for something else later.
Chill the cake to harden the fondant before serving. Then eat as much of it as you can handle.
I would definitely recommend storing this cake in the refrigerator and eating it within a few days of making it.
I’m taking advantage of the berries on sale at the grocery store to make raspberry ice cream out of season. Obviously, local raspberries would make this frozen treat even better, but we do what we can with what’s available.
Take two cups of fresh raspberries (frozen will also do, just use a little bit less), and wash them and do all that good stuff (though perhaps not if they’re frozen).
Take a cup of granulated sugar. Y’know, like, a cup.
Pour both the raspberries and the sugar into a food processor.
Blend for about 45 seconds until you have a lovely thick pulp. Pour the pulp into a strainer suspended over a bowl.
Try not to spill too much.
Use a rubber spatula to force the pulp through the strainer until only seeds remain. Compost them there seeds.
Now you have a lovely red and now seedless pulp.
Add to your lovely red and now seedless pulp a teaspoon of lemon juice, 2 cups whipping cream, and between 1 and 3 tablespoons of a fruit-based liqueur, such as kirsch. You add the alcohol to make the ice cream softer — David Lebovitz says so. Swirl that stuff around.
Here is where I became an idiot. My parents’ Austrian neighbour came back from a trip abroad and gave us two little bottles, one of nut schnapps and another of what I thought was kirsch.
Because that’s what it says. You can see it right there.
But I dumped the whole thing in the mixture before I actually read the rest of the label and discovered it was in actual fact CHERRY BALSAMIC VINEGAR.
Ooops.
But you know, once I mixed everything together, it didn’t taste that bad. Honest. I added some of the schnapps as a corrective, as well. It tasted a little more tart than usual, but nothing out of the ordinary. I was worried it would be a floor pizza situation, but I figured I would roll with it and see what came of it.
Of course, whether that will affect the quality of the frozen product remains to be seen. Wrap up your bowl of mix and chuck it in the fridge overnight.
This is also a good time to freeze the parts of your ice cream maker that need to be frozen, if they do. I have one of these Donvier non-electric turning ones, where you freeze the liner.
The next day, just plop your mix into your maker and follow the instructions for your machine.
With mine the process from thick goo …
… to frozen goo …
Takes about twenty minutes.
Pour out into a freezable container and chuck it in the freezer to harden up.
Serve when you’re ready. 
This version tastes a wee bit like balsamic vinegar but it ain’t bad. Next time, though, I think I would leave out the vinegar part. 
I spent 1990-1995 living on a relatively high security naval base in British Columbia. As a shy girl with an overactive imagination, living in the relative isolation of that place was the best time of my life, despite the outbreak of the Persian Gulf War followed by a subsequent vicious and terrifying CUPE strike. I went back to the base in February of 2002, and it just wasn’t the same. For one thing, there were actual guards at the front gate now, with really big guns. As an adult I was subject to quite a bit more scrutiny than I had been as a child. But it was fantastic to visit the place where I used to have so much fun.
My front yard was twenty metres from the ocean and a rocky beach. Helicopters would land in the field behind my house. The admiral would let me pick roses from his garden. Destroyers, frigates, and minesweepers would signal me in pseudo-morse code when I waved (well they would if my dad or someone I knew was on them). Frogmen would magically appear next to me on the beach, having emerged from the ocean. Things got exciting when nuclear submarines came to visit. There were enormous cliffs to climb and fantastic old ruins to hide in. And there were wild apple trees, cherry trees, and a blackberry bush the length of a football field.
It wasn’t uncommon to pass by this particular bush on any given day in the summer and find it full of not only bees and wasps but engineers, sailors, police officers, and anyone else who happened to be passing by and wanted a snack.
We ate a lot of blackberries in those summers.
My mother would stew the blackberries with a bit of water or juice, a spoonful or two of sugar, and a little dab of corn starch to thicken it. We would eat this stuff on ice cream, cake, pie, pancakes, waffles … you name it. It’s a multi-purpose sauce and can turn any dessert into an elegant treat in a flash.
Blackberries are obviously my favourite ingredient, but you can use any other kind of berry you want. Living in Newfoundland I have discovered that partridge berries make a nice tart sauce. Raspberries, blueberries, and halved strawberries work well. Frozen berries work very well in this, as you don’t have to work on breaking them down as they cook. I will try to quantify the amounts for you here. If you’re cooking for a dinner party, make the full recipe below, but you can halve (or double) this recipe easily.
Take 2 cups fresh or frozen berries and bung them in a small pot. I used blueberries this time. Add in 1/2 cup of water or juice (I like to use cranberry juice to boost the flavour) and 1/4 cup of sugar. You’ll need a little extra liquid if you are using fresh berries.
Heat on medium, stirring often, until all the berries are defrosted and broken up.
Suspend one tablespoon corn starch in three tablespoons water or juice and pop that in as well.
Bring to a boil, stirring frequently.
Remove from the heat and drizzle over the food of your choice. 
I recommend Pound Cake.
Ali Does It Herself 