Dessert Night

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No Bake Banoffee Tart (grain free, egg free)

A nutty, chocolatey base, some thick oozy caramel, all topped with a home-made banana ice-cream.

I don’t think much more needs to be said really….

I dedicate this recipe to my beautiful Banoffee Pie loving friend. You know the conversation is pretty good when you forget you made these especially for her and then found them in the freezer the next day.

I will make it up to you soon I promise….

Serves 2

Ingredients

Base
1/2 cup toasted pecans
3 fresh dates, pitted
50gm 70% dark chocolate, plus a little extra to grate on top

Filling
2-3 tablespoons of Dulce de Leche (or store-bought caramel)

Banana Ice-cream
2 frozen bananas (skin off)
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons creme fraiche (this is optional, but does make it a little more creamy and slightly tart tasting)
1 tablespoon maple syrup

*This recipe is best when you use ready-for-eating bananas, not over-ripe ones. Just peel 2 bananas and place them in a zip lock bag and pop them in the freezer.

Method

Place the Base ingredients in a food processor and blitz till a paste forms.

Press paste into 2 loose-bottomed tart tins. Place in the freezer till needed.

To make the Banana Ice-cream, rinse out the food processor and place all ingredients for the ice-cream in and blitz until smooth and creamy.

Spoon into a container and place into the freezer until needed.

To assemble the tart, place a few tablepsoons of Dulce de Leche into each tart case, use as much or as little as you like.

Top with Banana Ice-cream and grate some dark chocolate over the top.

Serve immediately.

 

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Coconut Berry Chia Puddings (Dairy free, gluten free, refined sugar free)

My husband and I recently enjoyed a break away in beautiful Fiji to celebrate a special wedding anniversary. I’m not sure where the last 15 years have gone, but in what seems like a blink of an eye, we found ourselves enjoying some time by ourselves on the golden sands of Fiji, resting, reflecting and celebrating.

The beautiful spirit of the Fijian people just blew us away. An attitude of thankfulness and blessing flowed out of every one we met, despite having almost ‘nothing’ in terms of our standards here in Australia. From the little that we saw in the time we had, it was obvious that their priorities in life are their faith, providing on a daily basis the needs of their family for food and shelter, sharing all that they ‘earn’ each day with the people in their village. The highlight of their day is coming together to eat and celebrate, everyone contributing something, and everyone keeping an eye out for each other. They greet everyone regardless of whether they know them or not, making sure everyone feels welcome around them. They sing in almost any and every situation and the phrase that they are known for and which we came to love, is “No Hurry, No Worry.”

As we’re settling back into our full and crazy life, we are trying to remember some of these attitudes that contribute towards the Fijians being named ” The Most Happy People on Earth” (this quoted to us by many while we were there).

Our houses may be bigger, our food more fancy, our schedules more full, but I couldn’t help but come home, mulling over these ‘happy’ people and their way of not only simply ‘living’ but ‘enjoying’ life as they go about the journey.

On a few occasions I got the privilege of starting my day with a juicy, fresh drink of coconut water. Straight from the tree, the water from this young coconut was so refreshing and beautiful to drink. I know you can buy it in the supermarket these days, probably for a small fortune, but it just doesn’t quite taste the same as straight from the tree!

Our friend, King Solomon (great name hey?), scaled the tree, collected the coconuts and then got them ready for us to drink.
Nature’s perfect cup.
Who needs a spoon when you can use a piece of the hard coconut skin to scoop the flesh out for you?
This young coconut flesh was silky smooth with the texture of a pannacotta.

The Fijians drink it every morning and if they are going to work in the field all day harvesting sugar cane, they will simply take a coconut. That is what they will eat and drink to sustain them for the entire day of hard labour.  They call it their ‘natural sports drink.’

When you research the claimed health benefits, you can see that natural coconut water is quite an amazing drink with many health benefits, however, if you are not doing a lot of physical exercise and the supermarket variety is full of added sugar, you are probably better off with drinking plain water.

I think if I had a coconut tree in my yard and one of my boys could bring me one every morning, I would definitely drink it most days. But until that happens, I’ll stick with water as my drink of choice.

These Coconut and Berry Chia Puddings are an exceptionally easy dessert to make, with only 4 ingredients, they are low in sugar and are gluten and dairy free. Chia seeds are a great addition to any diet, high in omega 3 fatty acids, fibre and antioxidants, they are the ‘setting’ agent in this dessert, which my boys call ‘Berry Jelly’.

There are many versions of this dessert around the place at the moment, but this one I got from The Beauty Chef,  www.thebeautychef.com

You can make this with any berry of choice or a mixture of your favourite berries.

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 cup coconut cream or coconut milk

1 cup frozen blueberries or raspberries or a mixture of both (you could use fresh berries, it will just take longer to set)

1 tablespoon of maple syrup

1/4 cup white chia seeds

Berries and shredded coconut to serve

Method

Combine coconut cream, berries and maple syrup in a food proccesor and blend until smooth.

Combine this mixture with the chia seeds, stir well.

Pour this mixture evenly into 4 dessert glasses and refrigerate until set and the chia seeds have absorbed all of the liquid. This will take at least 4 hours.

Serve with berries and coconut.

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Caramelised Cinnamon Apples with Maple Syrup Yoghurt

Autumn.

My favourite season of the year.

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Cool mornings and snuggly evenings by the fire. Sunny days or rainy days, beautiful trees awash with amber and piles of Autumn leaves crunching under foot.

When it comes to the kitchen, nothing says Autumn to me quite like apples and cinnamon.

The smell of apple and cinnamon cooking is oh so comforting, especially if the air outside is cool and the rain is just starting to fall, like it was when I made this dessert for our weekly family dessert night.

This simple dessert is a combination of some of my favourite things. Apples, Cinnamon, Nutmeg and Maple Syrup. The chopping of the apples is the most strenuous part of this recipe. The whole thing should really only take you about 15 minutes to prepare.

Once again, the original recipe belongs to Belinda Jeffery, an Aussie Food legend, and is found in her DESSERTS cook book.

My tweak was to use dried sour cherries instead of sultanas as some of my family don’t like sultanas.

This served 5 small dessert size portions.

Ingredients

5 large sweet apples (Pink Lady, Red Gala or Fuji), peeled, cored, and chopped into quarters and then each quarter sliced into 3.

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

15gm butter

1 teaspoon of olive oil

1/2 cup apple juice

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, or 1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise

2 tablespoons maple syrup

1/3 cup dried sour cherries, or sultanas

Maple Syrup Yoghurt

1 cup thick greek style yoghurt

1 tablespoon of maple syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method

Toss the apples in a bowl with cinnamon and nutmeg and stir to coat.

Melt the butter and olive oil in a large frying pan and add apples.

Make sure they are in a single layer and cook for a few minutes while they caramelise, stir a couple of times.

Pour in juice and vanilla and cover the pan and let apples cook for approx 10 minutes until apples are soft.

Remove the apples with a slotted spoon and place into a bowl.

Add sour cherries and maple syrup to the pan and simmer till thick and syrupy. Pour over apples and allow to cool slightly.

To make the yoghurt, combine all the ingredients in a bowl and stir.

To serve, place apple mixture in dessert glasses or bowls and top with Maple Syrup Yoghurt.

 

 

 

 

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Soft-Centred Chocolate Puddings

Easter. This is one of our favourite times of the year.

We step away from the busyness of our normal schedule and head away to the country for a few days. The boys will make cubbies, race billy carts and play countless hours of soccer and cricket. One of my favourite things to do on this weekend every year, is to start a new 1000 piece puzzle with my eldest son. My middle son will challenge me to games of Bocce, and will beat me every time, and our littlest man will spend hours moving a pile of rocks from one place to the next with a Tonka Truck.

They will wear themselves out in the day and crash at night. As parents everywhere will know, this is a win win for everyone.

Night time descends. The fire is lit and I dust off that book that has been on my bedside table for far too long, or the board game cupboard is raided and I battle it out till my husband wins or one of us is asleep!

It’s simple and quiet and we all feel ourselves breathe deep again.

As comforting as all that sounds, it’s actually not the reason why it’s one of our favourite times of the year.

The fact is we start off this weekend of rest and reflection in church, remembering the ‘Amazing Grace that saved a wretch like me.’  The enormity of what Jesus did for me by dying on the cross, hits me every time. I am overwhelmed, with gratitude, that He would rather die than live without me.

As Easter Sunday rolls around, our boys will wake to find an Easter egg waiting for them and this time the conversation will be around why we use eggs to represent New Life at Easter. New Life, New Hope, Forgiveness and New Beginnings.  A fun Easter egg hunt always follows.

Whatever this weekend holds for you, I hope you get a chance to reflect on God’s Amazing Grace in sending Jesus. You may also find some extra time to cook and if so, these Soft-Centred Chocolate Puddings are the perfect Autumn dessert to cook for your family and friends. Enjoy!

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 Soft-Centred Chocolate Puddings

Recipe from Skye Gyngell’s cook book ‘My Favourite Ingredients.’

A few extra tidbits:

*  These puddings could be made with a dairy free spread instead of butter and dairy free chocolate or 70% dark chocolate that contains no milk.

*  Quinoa flour can be substituted for the plain flour to make these gluten free.

* They can be made up to a day in advance and refrigerated, uncooked. If you make them in advance, make sure you bring them to room temperature before cooking, or, if cooking straight from the fridge, you’ll need to add at least 5 minutes to the cooking time.

Ingredients

150gm unsalted butter, chopped

300gm dark chocolate, chopped

4 eggs

3 egg yolks (place egg whites in a small snap lock bag and throw in the freezer. I have a recipe coming soon to use these!)

150gm castor sugar

50gm (approx 1/4 cup) plain flour

Method

Preheat oven to 200 degrees celsius

Lightly butter and dust with cocoa, 6 x oven proof tea cups or individual pudding moulds, approx 200ml in size.

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Place butter and chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and microwave on HIGH for 1 minute. Remove and stir. If it is still not melted, put back in to the microwave for 20 seconds at a time, stirring after each time until melted. (This process is important, as burning the chocolate in the microwave is very easy. It’s best to melt it 80% of the way and finish off stirring it till completely smooth)

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Place sugar, eggs and egg yolks in the bowl of an electric mixer and mix on medium speed until it’s pale, thick and mousse like.

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Gently fold chocolate mixture into the egg mixture till combined.

Sift the flour into the mixture from a height, and gently fold through.

Place into pudding moulds and either refrigerate if you are preparing in advance or place onto a baking tray and put straight into the oven and cook for 8-10 minutes. You are looking for a just- cooked and puffed up top, but if you press lightly, you know it’s gooey underneath. You are best to start off cooking it for less time and add a few minutes. If you overcook, they will still be beautiful chocolate puddings, but won’t have a soft centre.

Dust with icing sugar and serve with cream or ice cream.

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