Hay Hay it's Donna Day - #19 The Clafoutis Edition

Is it a batter? Is it a sponge? Is it a custard? No - it's clafoutis!

Bon Marshall is the happy hostess of this round of Hay Hay it's Donna Day and I was delighted to see that she chose something that I've wanted to make for ages - clafoutis. Originally from Limousin in France, clafoutis is traditionally made with unpitted cherries. Donna Hay's version, which Bron selected, is made with plums and chocolate or should that be prunes et chocolat?

My blog friend Tammy recently made her clafoutis and she altered the recipe slightly and used a combination of milk and lite cream instead of just cream. Since I'm always trying to make my recipes a little healthier I thought this was a great idea. I also thought that the cup of chocolate that the recipe called for was a little over the top, especially if you're going to the bother of using less cream! I probably only used about a 1/4 of a cup. In hindsight the amount was perfect for my taste but I should have left it in bigger chunks. Like Tammy, I used canned black doris plums.

You can find the original Donna Hay recipe on Bron's blog.


I loved this recipe, the rich chocolate and the tart plums were an outstanding favour combination and the recipe was quick and easy to do. I am keen to try other variations over my winter entertaining season.

Hey Hey It's Donna Day #11 - Mousse

mousse
[MOOS]
A French term meaning "froth" or "foam," mousse is a rich, airy dish that can be either sweet or savory and hot or cold. Cold dessert mousses are usually made with fruit puree or a flavoring such as chocolate. Their fluffiness is due to the addition of whipped cream or beaten egg whites and they're often fortified with gelatin. Savory mousses can be made from meat, fish, shellfish

Some people,like me, are squicked out by the thought of eating raw eggs and some
people, like me, are put off at the thought of working with gelatine for fear of ending with something that feels like rubber. So when Helen of Tartlette named mousse as the theme for Hey Hey It's Donna Day #11 I had a wee challenge ahead of me - to find an eggless, gelatineless mousse recipe.

I now present to you the easiest lemon mousse you will ever make. No seriously! It is dead easy and takes just minutes to prepare. No eggs, no gelatin and only three ingredients. The recipe is courtesy of my mum and she can't remember where she first saw it but has been making it for years and receives rave reviews. It's an ideal recipe to remember if you get caught and have to make a dessert at the last minute. As long as you can run to the store for some cream, if you have lemons in the fruitbowl and a can of condensed milk in your pantry you are good to go.

The Easiest Lemon Mousse You'll Ever Make

Ingredients
1 can sweetened condensed milk - not lite
150-300 mls cream (less will give you a thicker end result)
Juice of 4 lisbon lemons - this recipe does not work with meyers and I can't vouch for any other varieties
Finely grated zest of 2 lemons


Method
In a medium sized bowl, beat the cream until soft peaks form
In another bowl mix together the condensed milk, lemon juice and lemon zest
Fold the cream into the lemon mixture until combined
Pour into your chosen serving dish/dishes and refrigerate until ready to serve
The mixture will thicken up on standing and will be quite stable for several days
It is particularly nice served in a brandy snap basket or as a filling for brandy snaps themselves. The brandy snaps will melt if left too long so it's best to fill them just before serving

For a recipe to make your own brandy snaps check out the Chelsea Sugar website here. Or, for a brandy snap basket recipe see here.

Hay Hay it's Donna Day #10 Cheesecakes

The prodigious Peabody won the hosting rights to the lastest round of HHDD and chose cheesecake as the theme.

I am so indecisive and I'm such a procrastinator that I usually miss deadlines by the time I have selected my recipe. I knew that I wanted a baked cheesecake because I didn't want to mess with gelatine but other than that I could have gone in any direction. I thought I was onto a good thing by asking my work pals to choose and there were a few interesting contenders; a Russian fudge cheesecake or a baked cheesecake with caramel apple topping - both from Cuisine magazine or raspberry and milk chocolate cheesecake from Taste magazine. But then, as fate would have it, the April Taste magazine arrived in my mailbox last week and on the cover was a picture of the cutest little cheesecakes you've ever seen.

Due to copyright I can't share the recipe here but you can check it out online in April by going to Taste and searching for cheesecake. I can tell you though that the cheesecakes contained all the usual suspects - cookie crumb base (in this case ginger flavoured), cream cheese, sugar, eggs, vanilla, lemon rind and of course raspberries. The swirl idea is a great way to improvise and I imagine that a wee dollop of chocolate fudge sauce or caramel sauce would be an interesting variation. In real life the cheesecakes didn't look so yellow but hey I'm a crap photographer - get over it.


I'm still on a healthy eating kick and didn't dare try any of the cheesecake (OK so I might have licked the bowl) so I brought it in to work to share. There were a a few cheesecakes left over I said to one gal who had missed out during the day that she should take a couple home and share one with her husband. Let's just say he didn't get to try any - I guess they must have been good.