This weekend I celebrated my birthday so I
thought it would be nice to share a couple of desserts. The first is my own
creation, I call it Better Than
Ice-Cream, Five Minute Miracle. It is divine, has all the tastes of
ice-cream but without the ice-cream headache and only takes minutes to make.
The second is courtesy of Sara Buenfeld at Good Food Magazine
from years and years ago and it’s so good I still use it regularly.
Better than Ice-Cream,
Five Minute Miracle
Ingredients:
Mascarpone Cheese (half tub for two people)
Caster Sugar (approx. 6 tsp per half tub)
Vanilla Extract (approx. 1 tsp per half tub)
Fruit to serve (see recipe)
Ginger Nuts to serve (see recipe)
Here’s what to do:
Put the cheese in a dish and beat with a metal
spoon until it’s smooth and a little creamy in texture. Add the sugar a spoon
or so at a time – be sure to taste it here, you may not need the full 6
teaspoons. Finally add the vanilla extract (tasting again to be sure). If you
are making this for guests you may want to use vanilla seeds from a pod – they leave
black specks and make things look that bit more luxurious.
You can prepare this in advance and keep it in
the fridge covered with clingfilm.
Serve the cream with warm fruits, for example
frozen forest fruits warmed through in a frying pan or maybe halve and stone
some peaches then bake them in the oven on about Gas Mark 4.
Finally decide whether you are going for the ‘inside-out’
cheesecake theme, if you are then bash some ginger biscuits in a plastic bag
with a rolling pin and scatter these over the fruits to serve.
Apricot & Ricotta
Torte
It’s very rare that I take a recipe and don’t
alter, amend or adapt but this is one of those occasions. This is a fabulous
dessert, very celebratory and refreshing. It’s like a lighter take on baked
cheesecake and, better than baked cheesecake, it is fool proof to create – no cracking
in the oven, no worrying if it’s cooked. It also cools much quicker than
regular cheesecake so no problem if you don’t remember to start baking until
after lunch.
As I cannot provide any amendments I am
providing the link to the recipe and I urge you to try it.
