Lemon cream pots

Last week I mentioned the abundance of pears in my house and how I was hoping that this abundance would give way to an abundance of cherries or strawberries. Well, that didn't happen - instead I now have an abundance of lemons. Two grocery bags full of them, it's great. We'll be eating lemon flavoured food for the next week or two, if they even last that long.

Last weekend a few friends and I took a trip to the south coast, as a simple getaway. Much to our pleasure we found the lemon trees at the house we were staying in had a huge crop of lemons. Between us we picked close to one hundred lemons and that wasn't even all of them. Needless to say, many gin and tonics were consumed over the weekend. Yum!

It must be a good year for lemons because even the tree in my backyard, the tiny stumpy thing it is, is having lemons. It's only got three or four branches, but even they have lemons. I think there's more lemon than tree at the moment.

These lemon cream pots are the first of my lemon adventures. Well, they're the second thing I've made but the first to make it to the blog. You know how it is, right?

I'm not sure how to describe these. On one hand, they're incredibly simple but on the other they had odd, complex layers of texture. The first layer reminds me of an aero bar, the second is much firmer, and then you reach the bottom and it's like eating lemon curd. If I owned a blow torch I would add a layer of brûlée for an extra degree of decadence. That being said, these are thoroughly enjoyable just as they are.

I used single cream for these, though I'm fairly positive the original recipe called for double/heavy cream. My cream pots turned out just fine, I imagine they would be far richer with double/heavy cream.

Lemon cream pots

(adapted from les petits plats de trinidad)
makes four 125ml (4 fluid oz) servings

75ml (1/3 cup) fresh lemon juice
75ml (1/3 cup) single (whipping) cream
2 large eggs
100g caster sugar

Preheat oven to 150°C (300°F). Half-fill a large roasting pan with hot water and place it on the lowest rack of the oven. Place another rack in the centre.

Whisk the eggs and sugar until frothy and then whisk in the cream, keep whisking until the mixture is well combined and aerated. Then gradually whisk in the lemon juice.

Spoon the mixture into four 125ml (4 fluid oz) ramekins. Place the ramekins on centre rack of the oven, above the roasting pan, and bake for 30 minutes or until the creams are set around the outside but still wobble slightly in the center. Cool cream pots to room temperature and then refrigerate until cold. Be careful not to cook them at too high a temperature or the texture will end up grainy.

Self -saucing chocolate puddings

For someone who isn't a choco-holic I sure make a lot of chocolate desserts, I think it's because you can count on chocolate desserts to taste nice and be fulfilling.

This is another recipe from Simple Essentials: Chocolate by Donna Hay, I've made a fair few recipes from this book and they're yet to disappoint. Donna Hay is wonderful because, on the whole, you can count on the recipes to be nice. They're fairly basic and not always utterly amazing but on the whole they're just plain nice. Nice is good.

This recipe is no exception to the niceness of Donna Hay. As usual I've made a few alterations; I halved the original recipe, added more sauce, and changed the baking dishes entirely. I also used rice malt rather than malted milk powder; it's cheaper. The sauce did overflow a bit, so be sure to place the ramekins on a baking tray.

Self saucing pudding is one of my favourite dishes. it's very homely and this one is no exception. There's a nice mix of textures in it, partly helped by the small ramekins. The top is quite crunchy, the centre cake-y, and the bottom is super saucy. Delicious.

Self -saucing chocolate puddings

(adapted from Simple Essentials: Chocolate by Donna Hay)
makes four 250ml ramekins

65g butter
138g granulated sugar
1 egg
128g plain flour
1 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
30g cocoa powder
1/4 cup almond meal
3 teaspoons rice malt
1/2 cup milk

sauce

45g brown sugar
1 tablespoon rice malt
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 cup water, freshly boiled

Preheat oven to 170°C (340°F), grease four 250ml deep ramekins.

Place the butter and sugar in a bowl and beat until pale. Add the egg and beat until smooth.

Sift the flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder over the butter mixture. Add the almond meal, rice malt, and milk. Beat until smooth. Spoon the pudding mixture into four ramekins.

To make the sauce, place the sugar, malt, and cocoa into a bowl, pour over the boiling water and stir to combine. Spoon over the pudding mixture Bake for 25-30 minutes or until well risen and cooked when tested if a skewer. Serve immediately.

Vanilla rice pudding with cinnamon apples

There are many things I've never made. For instance I've never made an omelette,a sponge cake, a baked cheese cake, or rice pudding. That's right, I've never made rice pudding. That isn't to say I've never eaten rice pudding because I certainly have; in fact I love rice pudding. It's just, until today, rice pudding has always been made for me or bought from the packet. I've been developing a major addiction to that packaged rice pudding you see everywhere here that's been branded to suit whatever location it's bought from. Most recently I ate "Bondi" rice pudding which I have a sneaking suspicion came from the same factory as the rice pudding I buy from the local fruit shop.

This nicely packaged, pseudo homemade rice pudding isn't the cheapest or even the nicest rice pudding in the world. So today was my day to face my addiction head on and make my own rice pudding. My homemade rice pudding isn't the cheapest either but it sure is delicious!

Vanilla rice pudding with cinnamon apples

(adapted from Decadence: Desserts by Philip Johnson)
serves 4-6

Rice pudding

60g (2 1/4 oz) butter
90g (3 1/4 oz) white sugar
125g (4 1/2 oz) short or medium grain rice
750ml (3 cups) milk
250ml (1 cup) heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Preheat oven to 160°C (315°F). Melt the butter in a heavy-based saucepan over a low heat, then add the sugar and rice. Stir for 5 minutes. Add the milk, cream, and vanilla and bring to the boil.

Pour the mixture into a shallow baking dish and cover with foil. Sit the dish in a large roasting tray and pour in enough warm water to reach halfway up the sides of the baking dish.

Bake for 60-80 minutes or until rice is tender. During baking, stir rice every 20 minutes.

Once cooked remove from oven, the mixture will appear fairly wet and the fat may have risen to the top. The pudding will thicken up and take on a creamy colour as it cools. Stir occasionally as the pudding cools and refrigerate until required.

Cinnamon apples

25g (1 oz) butter
3 granny smith apples, peeled, and sliced into 16 wedges
1 tablespoon white sugar
30g (1 oz) sultanas
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

Melt the butter in a large frying pan over a medium-high heat. Add the apple wedges and sauté on all sides until they soften slightly. Add the sugar, raisins, cinnamon, and nutmeg and continue to cook until any liquid evaporates. Spread cooked apples on to a large plate and cool.

To serve place rice pudding into serving glasses or bowls and top with apples. Apples can be served either at room temperature or gently reheated and then spooned over rice.