Ready? Get set... go!

This weekend I made mango and lime panna cotta, and when I bought the gelatine leaves the checkout assistant at the supermarket said she didn't get on with gelatine and asked me for advice.  She'd had a problem that I'd experienced in the past with undissolved gelatine lumps in her finished Bailey's cheesecake which were a bit weird and put her off using gelatine again.  I told her the way to avoid this (having been there!) was to make sure the gelatine was properly dissolved in the mixture.  This is even more important if you're using gelatine powder, in which case you can put the dissolved gelatine/water through a tea strainer before adding to the mixture.  I find leaves do give a better result though.

This got me thinking, why not write a post on all things that need setting - and having been inspired with the genius title, here we are!  As well as cheesecake, which has already had an entire post devoted to it, I've used gelatine in mousses, fools, jellies (on their own and in trifle), and in other panna cotta recipes including a green tea one which went with my tuile biscuits (they also had their own blog post).

My finest jelly moment was a Pimm's jelly:

The jelly itself was made with leaf gelatine, water, sugar, orange and lemon juices and obviously Pimms; and strawberries and other fruit plus cucumber in it. It looks like it's levitating in the photo but it's a glass cake stand. Another example pictured below is a strawberry and lemon mousse cake:

We also love mousses, sometimes served in a teacup for a different presentation. My daughter's favourite is white chocolate and mint (a Nigella recipe) and mine is Nigel Slater's white chocolate and cardamom.

Today's panna cotta was on the whole a success, and consisted of a mango puree layer using tinned mango slices, and a cream, sugar and lime zest layer. There WAS a small blip in the proceedings when I was trying to turn them out.  I dipped one of the dariole moulds in a dish of boiling water to loosen, but the water was so deep couldn't pick it out again so tried using tongs.  It slipped and went upside down in the water!  I did manage to rescue it though and put it back in the fridge.  Note to self,more oil in the moulds next time. 

Of course, you don't need gelatine to set things, and it isn't suitable for vegetarians either, being made out of "various animal raw materials" as Wikipedia delicately puts it! You can use agar, whisked egg whites and lemon juice can also be used to stiffen mixtures, such as in some cheesecakes and a raspberry and rose tart I once made.

Worst case scenario if things don't set, you can always change the serving presentation and pretend it was meant to be "deconstructed"!

Thank you for reading, more soon I hope.

Caroline x

Era Squisito! A taste of Italy...

Sorry I haven't posted for months, it's been a busy year one way and another.  

I recently braved my first single parent holiday abroad; and it was pretty much a success, especially with regard to the food, and has given me ideas for my own home cooking. We chose Lake Garda in Italy, partly because of my son having been learning all about Italy for a recent school topic, and partly because of the promise of authentic pizza, pasta and ice cream.  We weren't disappointed!

"Era Squisito" means "That was delicious" in Italian, and it trips off the tongue beautifully, much like the food we experienced. The hotel we stayed in was only 3 star, and we stayed half board, but there was a good choice of delicious menu options - and the children were very impressed at having a three course (and on the last night four course) meal every evening. I have been ordered to up my game a bit now we're home again.  Bearing this in mind, I'm attempting to do three courses on Sundays. Also, they had the most delicious lemonade we had ever tasted, and a choice of half bottles of wine for the single parent traveller, including Bardolino (from the next town - we walked there to find ice cream parlour - of more later).

We had countless varieties of pasta with all kinds of sauces, from seafood linguine to small ravioli filled with pears and cheese in a sage butter sauce.  We had the best spaghetti bolognese ever. We had scorpionfish, and Italian style cold roast beef with lemon and olive oil. Plus there was pizza.It was all good, but here are two extremes, the street food option (in this case with tuna, anchovies and olives) and the posher restaurant version with breasola, black truffle, raw fennel shavings and parmesan.

As aforementioned, one day we walked to the next town, Bardolino, to find the renowned Cristallo Gelateria, which sold over 50 varieties of ice cream, even Pokemon flavour! Mine is pictured below, a scoop each of amaretti and pistachio. It was divine!

I also discovered the delights of the Aperol spritz, a low alcohol cocktail perfect for drinking before dinner, the "aperitivo" which is a mixture of bitter orange, rhubarb and some secret ingredients - is mixed with part soda water and part prosecco and served with plenty of ice. My daughter said "Mum, why have you got Irn Bru with a green straw?" I've had it at home since, I didn't have enough Euro to buy a bottle at the airport but it was actually cheaper on Amazon than from the duty free so I bought it on my phone while waiting at the departure gate.

On the final night, there was a gala dinner outside with four courses and live entertainment, and I moved on to more than one bottle of prosecco for the single parent traveller:

Also, I didn't drink tea for an entire week!  Those who know me may find this hard to believe, but I embraced coffee for the whole holiday, even though the local bus station put a sign out every morning advertising "Real English Tea"!  I found that even the coffee from vending machines was pretty good.

One thing we didn't have in Italy was Tiramisu. Next time. I have made it at home though, in memory of my late sister, who made the best tiramisu ever.  I've also made a slightly less glamourous version using sweet sherry instead of marsala wine - and ginger nut biscuits instead of sponge fingers, with stem ginger in syrup in and on the top. I also didn't manage to have a Bellini, even though we did go to Venice and see Harry's bar (where it was invented) from the outside...

I'll sign off with my favourite Italian proverb: "Anni e bicchieri di vino non si contano mai" - "Age and glasses of wine should never be counted".

Thank you for reading.  The new recipes have slowed down, and it is seeming unlikely that I will get to 1000 by the end of the year, but you never know.

Caroline :-)