If you follow me on Instagram (or you’ve seen the photos in my feed on my blog) then you may already know that yesterday our new Kitchen Aid mixer was delivered! I can’t believe we actually got one, after so long saying ‘I’d LOVE one of those!’. We chose the pistachio colour in the end, as it will look so lovely with our new kitchen when we get it done in a couple of months. That’s another exciting project to tell you about, but that’s for another time!

We wanted to try out our new gadget today, so chose this chocolate mousse recipe because it meant that we could make the mousse and the shortbread in it! If you want to make it for a special occasion, you could easily make this a day ahead. I love the combination of flavours – the coffee and chocolate, the orange and ginger. Yum!

Ingredients (makes 6)

For the chocolate mousse

30g/1¼oz unsalted butter, chopped

100g/3½oz dark chocolate, broken into pieces

3 free-range eggs, separated

25g/1oz caster sugar

1 shot espresso

For the fiery ginger shortbread

100g/3½oz unsalted butter, softened until very soft, plus extra for greasing

80g/2¾oz plain flour

30g/1¼oz icing sugar

30g/1¼oz cornflour

drop of vanilla essence

50g/1¾oz fresh root ginger, washed, unpeeled, finely grated

2-3 pieces crystallised ginger, sliced

For the candied orange peel

1 large orange, peel only, white pith removed, sliced into 0.5cm/¼in strips

80g/2¾oz caster sugar

150g/5oz demerara sugar

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.

2. For the chocolate mousse, bring a little water to the boil in a pan, then reduce the heat until the water is simmering. Suspend a heatproof bowl over the water (do not allow the base of the bowl to touch the water). Add the butter and dark chocolate and stir until melted, smooth and well combined. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool slightly.

3. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl until nearly white and thick in consistency.

4. Gently stir the whisked yolks into the butter and chocolate, then add the coffee.

5. Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form when the whisk is removed, then gently fold them into the chocolate mixture, until just combined.

6. Transfer the mousse to small cups or ramekins and chill in the fridge for 1-2 hours, or overnight.

7. For the ginger shortbread, cream the butter until pale and fluffy in a bowl. Sift in the flour, icing sugar and cornflour and beat again until fully incorporated. Stir in the vanilla essence and grated root ginger.

8. Place walnut-sized balls of the mixture onto a greased baking tray, about 2cm/¾in apart (you should get about 18 from this mixture). Spread each ball of the biscuit mixture out slightly using the back of a spoon, until flattened into biscuit shapes. Top each ball with a slice of crystallised ginger, then transfer to the oven and bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the shortbread biscuits are pale golden-brown. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool for a few minutes, then carefully lift them off the tray and onto a wire rack, using a palette knife, and set aside to cool completely.

9. For the candied orange peel, fill a small saucepan with water and bring to the boil. Add the orange peel and bring to the boil again, then drain well.

10. Re-fill the pan with water, bring to the boil, return the orange peel to the pan, return the water to the boil, then drain again.

11. Re-fill the pan with 150ml/5fl oz of water, add the caster sugar and bring to the boil, stirring well. Add the orange peel, reduce the heat until the mixture is simmering and simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until the liquid resembles syrup, stirring occasionally.

12. Tip the demerara sugar into a shallow bowl. Once the syrup mixture has thickened, remove the orange peel and coat each piece in the demerara sugar. Shake the peel in the sugar until it is completely covered. (NB: Once cool, keep the candied orange peel uncovered until needed.)

13. To serve, place the ramekins of chocolate mousse onto serving plates. Place one or two shortbreads alongside each. Sprinkle the mousse with the candied orange peel.

Enjoy!

This recipe was taken from the BBC website.

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Lemon posset is one of those things that I’ve seen on loads of cookery shows, but have never got around to making – until now! It’s surprisingly easy to make and tastes delicious, so if you’re looking for something to make for friends I’d highly recommend it. The amounts here serve 2 people, but you could easily double up the quantities. Serve in some small glasses or ramekins (my UK followers might recognise these ones if you’ve ever eaten a Gu dessert – we’ve recycled the ramekins they came in!).

This recipe comes from the May 2014 edition of BBC Good Food Magazine, and has been adapted from Tom Kerridge’s ‘Proper Pub Food‘.

Ingredients

225ml double cream
65g caster sugar
Freshly squeezed juice of 1 lemon, plus zest to decorate
Shortbread or biscotti to serve (optional)

Method

1. Mix the cream and sugar together in a saucepan over a high heat and bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.

2. Turn the heat down to a simmer and stir for 1-2 minutes until the bubbles are quite large. Add the lemon juice and whisk thoroughly.

3. Pass the mix through a fine sieve into a bowl and leave to cool for about 5 minutes. Skim off any air bubbles, then pour into serving glasses or ramekins.

4. Leave to cool completely and then place the possets in the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours. When set, serve with shortbread or biscotti. Enjoy!

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I have a really sweet tooth, but strangely I don’t really crave chocolate or sweets very much. Cake and cheesecake are a different matter though! I decided to make this because I had some leftover ricotta cheese from making spicy chorizo and ricotta stuffed ravioli last weekend, and I wanted to make something new and sweet.

This recipe originally comes from The Food Network, and is a recipe by Giada de Laurentiis. I’ve changed the recipe slightly by using stem ginger cookies for the base, and the combination of the honey and ginger works really well. The original recipe suggests using a 23cm springform tin, but we don’t have one so I just used a deep 22cm cake tin and (despite my worries) it worked fine. This cheesecake would be best if you prepared it the day before as it does take a long time to set in the fridge after cooking – as you’ll see, we weren’t quite so prepared for that (or patient enough, depending on how you look at it!). It’s so scrummy though, so well worth the wait.

Ingredients

250g shop-bought biscotti (I used a 250g packet of stem ginger cookies)
6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
350g fresh whole milk ricotta, drained
500g cream cheese, room temperature
150g sugar
60ml orange blossom or clover honey
1 tbsp orange zest
4 large eggs

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/ gas mark 4.

2. Wrap the outside of a 23-cm springform tin with 7-cm high sides with 2 layers of heavy-duty foil. Finely grind the biscotti in a food processor. Add the melted butter and process until the crumbs are moistened. Press the crumb mixture over the bottom (not the sides) of the prepared pan. Bake until the crust is golden, about 15 minutes. Cool the crust completely.

3. Blend the ricotta in a clean food processor until smooth. Add the cream cheese and sugar and Blend well, stopping the machine occasionally and scraping down the sides of the work bowl. Blend in the honey and orange zest. Add the eggs and pulse just until blended.

4. Pour the cheese mixture over the crust in the pan. Place the springform pan in a large roasting pan. Pour enough hot water into the roasting pan to come halfway up the sides of the springform pan. Bake until the cheesecake is golden and the center of the cake moves slightly when the pan is gently shaken, about 1 hour and 5 minutes (the cake will become firm when it is cold).

5. Transfer the cake to a rack and cool for one hour. Refrigerate until the cheesecake is cold, at least 8 hours and up to 2 days. Cut the cake into wedges and serve.

I really like the fact that you end up with a really good layer of biscuit with this cheesecake!

As I said earlier though, it would be better to prepare this the day before you need it. We cut ours when it wasn’t quite set enough, so it ended up looking a bit like a brie! Still tastes good though Enjoy!

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