Creme Egg Mousse

Happy Easter!!

So, last Sunday I was at the garage with my other half, when I spotted a pack of 6 Creme Eggs on offer for £1.50. When I picked them up, Ali gave me a look which said "seriously, a week before Easter and you're buying MORE chocolate?", so I explained, "I want to make something Eastery for my blog." And we left it at that.

Later that same day, I was browsing some recipe books looking for something for dessert, when I came across a recipe for Mars Bar Mousse in Good Food's 101 Tempting Desserts. That gave me an idea - what if I made Creme Egg mousse, instead!? So, I did, and they turned out pretty tasty. The end result is a light, fluffy mousse, sitting on top of a layer of chocolate sauce. And guess what? IT ACTUALLY TASTES OF CREME EGG!

You can thank me later.

Ingredients:
2 Creme Eggs
30ml milk
1tbsp cocoa powder
1tsp cornflour
1 egg white
Chocolate stars, to decorate

Prep time: 15 mins
Set time: at least 2 hours
Serves: 2

1. Okay, so you start with the tricky part. Chop your creme eggs into smallish chunks, without losing too much creme. Pop this in a small saucepan with the milk and cocoa powder.
2. Put the pan on a low heat and stir continuously with a whisk until the chocolate has melted. Add the cornflour and continue to whisk for a further 3 minutes. You want the mixture to get hot so that it thickens, but you don't want to let it boil or you may spoil the chocolate. Remove from the heat and set to one side.
3. Put your egg white into a glass bowl, and rest this over a pan of gently simmering water. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks, being very careful not to get any water into the bowl. Once the egg whites have reached stiff peaks remove from the bain marie.
4. Carefully fold the chocolate sauce into the egg whites, until fully combined. Pour this into two serving dishes, and pop in the fridge for at least two hours to set.
5. Get a spoon, tuck in, and enjoy the chocolate overload. After all, it is Easter!

Happy Thoughts
x

Try the Grey Stuff, it's Delicious!

Disney Classic # 30 - Beauty and the Beast

Please excuse the smudge on the side of the mousse bowl! I didn't notice it at the time!!

Beauty and the Beast is my absolute all time favourite Disney movie ever. I love it! And I'm not just saying that, like the Disney Historians do on the bonus features... I mean it is my absolute all time favourite ever! I dressed as Belle at my 21st birthday party, and when I met Belle and Prince Adam at Disneyland Paris in 2009 I gushed:

Me - "OhmygoshI'msogladIgottomeetyouyou'remyfavouriteandtoday'smylastdayandIdidn'tthinkI'dgettoseeyoubutIdidandnowmyholidayandmylifearecompletebecauseyou'rethebestandIloveyousososomuch!!"
Belle - *smiles awkwardly* "You're wearing yellow, like me!"

It was the best day ever.


True story - I was wearing yellow!


Anyways, to honour my absolute all time favourite Disney movie ever, I'm decided to try to recreate my absolute all time favourite pudding ever. Which I just so happened to eat in Disneyland Paris. Which is in France, just like Beauty and the Beast. (Just in case you needed further justification!)

The dessert was the most delicious, beautiful, lovely tasting pudding in my whole life - a chocolate tart with white chocolate mousse, and that's what I tried to recreate this week!

The white chocolate mousse turned out especially tasty.

Now regular readers of this blog will know that I absolutely love my BBC Good Foods 101 Cakes and Bakes recipe book. I love it so much in fact, that I decided to buy it's younger sister, 101 Tempting Desserts, and that's where I found the recipe for the chocolate tart. I borrowed the white chocolate mousse from this recipe (which sounds delicious in it's own right!!)


Tarte au Chocolat

Prep time: 45 mins               Cook time: 25 mins (plus 2 hours to set)      Serves: 12-16

Ingredients:

For the pastry:
200g plain flour
100g ground almond
170g butter, cubed
50g golden caster sugar
2 egg yolks

For the filling:
200g dark chocolate
2 egg whites
100g golden caster sugar
145ml double cream

Note: the recipe in the book said to make the pastry in a blender. I thought, ummm, that sounds weird, but tried it anyways as I trust Good Food wholeheartedly. I was very wrong, and ended up with a complete pastry fail! It was far too crumbly to roll so I ended up pressing it into the dish and that made it uneven as a nightmare to get out. In future I will always make pastry the old fashioned way - rubbing in.

1. Place the flour, butter and ground almond into a bowl and rub between your fingers until they resemble breadcrumbs. Add the sugar, egg yolk and a tbsp of cold water and mix with a knife until the ingredients bind together to make a dough. (If you're having trouble making the ingredients bind with the knife, just get your hinds involved, but be careful not to over-work it!)
2. Wrap the dough in cling film and place in the fridge for at least 15 minutes. (If you're making the white chocolate mousse, now's a good time to start melting your white chocolate... see recipe below!)
3. Preheat the oven to gas mark 5. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface, and use it to line a flan dish. Bake blind (covered in foil and weighed down with rice/baking beads) for 15 minutes, then remove the foil and the beads and bake for a further 7-10 minutes, until crispy and golden. Set to one side to cool. (Now's a good time to make the mousse, if you plan to do so!)
4. Once the pastry is cool, prepare the filling. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water, then set to one side.
5. In another bowl, place the egg whites and the sugar, and place this over the pan of simmering water. Whisk for 5 minutes until really thick and glossy, then remove from the heat and whisk for a further 2 minutes.
6. Gently pour the chocolate and the cream into the bowl of egg/sugar, and fold in until all the ingredients combine. Pour the filling into the pastry case, and then put in the fridge to set for at least 2 hours.
7. Cut into slices and serve!

White Chocolate Mousse

Honestly... I don't know how I missed that smudge!

Prep time: 20 mins        Cook time: none (but 2 hours chill time)        Serves: 12-16

Ingredients:
400g white chocolate
2 egg whites
2 tbsp caster sugar
180ml double cream

1. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of hot water. Place to one side to cool slightly, but not set.
2. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks, add the sugar then whisk again until smooth and glossy.
3. I a large bowl, whip the double cream until thick and pillowy, but not quite peaking. Fold the melted chocolate into the cream with a spatula, then add the egg whites and continue to fold until all combine.
4. Place the mousse in a serving dish/serving dishes, and place in the fridge for at lease 2 hours, until set.
5. Serve on it's own, or as an accompaniment to the chocolate tart!

Soo much chocolaty goodness! It didn't quite reach the standards of the Disneyland dessert, but then I'm not a Parisian pastry chef! It was a pretty good effort, and I'd definitely make these again!

We're well and truly in the Disney Golden Age of my childhood now, and next week we're watching Aladdin. I'll be making some Sultan's Turbans to go with the movie!
Happy Thoughts
x

Stacey at the Bat

Disney Classic # 10 - Melody Time

First things first - I have to mention that this cake is not of the greatest quality. It was the first I made after being discharged from hospital, I was still feeling unwell and my medication was making me a bit dippy. But I had to start somewhere - so please forgive the very rough edges, the backwards treble clef, and the uneven spacing between the semi-quavers and rest assured that the cake still tasted good regardless of it's flaws!

Melody Time was another of the Disney Classics that I'd never seen, so yet again I found myself scouring the Internet to find information about it that would give me ideas/inspiration for a desert that would go with the feature. The Internet told me that, like Make Mine Music, Melody is a contemporary version of Fantasia. Since watching it I would disagree - Melody Time is an anthology of charming shorts, that reminded me of watching cartoons on the Disney channel as a child, but I didn't know that before making the cake and watching the movie, so I had to go on what the Internet told me. I had thought of making more whoopie pies (different variations this time) because I loved them so much last time - but then I decided to try something different.
POPPING CANDY

OK, so I did it for Fantasia, but it was great fun! Popping candy is such a great ingredient, and it's really difficult to find desert recipes that use it (other than "and sprinkle some popping candy on top before serving.") Way back when I had the idea to make musical cupcakes for Fantasia I searched for desert recipes that used popping candy, and came across Heston Blumenthal's popping candy cake. Whilst Heston's recipe wasn't what I had in mind for Fantasia, I thought it would make a great cake for Melody Time. (I like to think Heston would approve of my Disney-themed cakes...)

You may have also noticed the Melody Pops in the photo - I threw these in for good measure. I was a bit disappointed that they no longer put a music sheet which explains how to play a nursery rhyme on the lollipop, but I remembered a little bit of Mary Had a little Lamb, and we had a lot of fun playing with them too!

Donald and his popping candy hose pipe...

I found Heston's original recipe here, I changed a few bits (I don't like coffee for starters!) but mostly stayed true to the original recipe. One comment I will make about this recipe is that I found the flavour of the popping candy a little over-powering and I couldn't make my mind up whether it actually went with the chocolate and hazelnut. That's probably my own fault as I used strawberry flavoured popping candy - but as far as I know popping candy is only available in strawberry, cherry and cola flavour, so strawberry seemed the best option. Saying that though, my friend Big Mike thought that the strawberry actually complimented the chocolate, so again it's probably a matter of taste rather than a bad recipe. I don't like Neapolitan ice cream either, so maybe I'm just personally adverse to chocolate and strawberry going together.

Prep time: 30-40 mins          Cook time: No cook, but 4 hours refrigeration required    Serves: 10-12

Ingredients:

For the base:

100g hazelnuts
100g milk chocolate
85g (15 packets) popping candy
2 tsp mixed spice

For the chocolate mousse:

350g dark chocolate
400ml double cream
pinch of salt

To decorate:

50g dark chocolate, melted

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4. Line a spring form/loose bottom cake tin with greaseproof paper.
2. Roast the hazelnuts for 10 minutes until golden brown. Blend to a paste in a food processor, and then put to one side.
3. Place a heatproof bowl over a pan of gently simmering water and break the milk chocolate into it. Once the chocolate has melted, remove the bowl from the heat and stir in the mixed spice, popping candy and hazelnut puree.
4. Press the popping candy mixture evenly into the base on the lined cake tin and place this in the fridge for 2 hours to set.
5. Once the base is almost set, prepare the mousse. Break the dark chocolate into small pieces in a large bowl.
6. In a heavy based saucepan, bring 150ml of the cream to the boil. Pour the boiling cream over the chocolate, and stir until all of the chocolate has melted. And a pinch of salt to the mixture, and put it to one side to cool.
7. Whip the remaining cream to soft peaks, and then gently fold this into the chocolate mixture until combined.
8. Spoon the mixture over the popping candy base and return to the fridge for a further two hours to set.
9. Whilst the mousse is setting, prepare the decorations for the top. Melt the dark chocolate and pipe shapes onto some greaseproof paper. I used musical notes, but any shapes would work. Place these in the fridge to set.
10. Once the mousse has set, remove both the cake and the decorations from the fridge. Carefully run a hot knife around the edge of the cake pan to loosen the mousse from the sides, then remove the cake from the pan and place on a serving plate. Gently lift each chocolate shape from the greaseproof paper and place onto the cake, being careful not to handle to chocolate shapes too much as they will melt easily in your hands!
11. Keep the cake in the fridge until it is ready to cut into slices and serve. Enjoy! (Melody Pops are optional but recommended!)

Next time - we'll be watching The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, and I'll be making the Headless Horseman's flaming pumpkin head!

Happy Thoughts
x