Tag Archives: raspberries

What I Cooked Today – and an Apology

17 Aug

Yes, I know. I havent posted in literally months. I was so excited about the prospect of blogging Ballymaloe Cookery School – and when I got there, I was quite good … but suddenly … I was just immersed. Its not that I didnt have time – it was just that there was so much going on internally and externally, that I needed a moment, every day, to just be.

And unfortunately, that moment that I took for myself on a regular basis, would be the moments when I would have, should have, blogged instead. Apologies. To you, and to myself, for not having documented this extraordinary experience as it was happening. But it was so deep, so life-changing that … to be honest, I didnt have the words.

However, I took loads of photographs … and over the next few days, I will go over them, and share some of my most special Ballymaloe moments with you.

As for now … I am sitting in Provence, in the golden sunshine, at the home of my dear friend… and I am cooking in a brand new way. I learned so many techniques at Ballymaloe which enriched the way I cook, and also the way I see food. Nothing goes to waste… a grapefruit eaten for breakfast gets considered, and the peel gets turned into candied fruit. Stale bread becomes breadcrumbs. And raspberries, which were fresh yesterday, but might not be utterly perfect today, get turned into raspberry jam.

Simple Easy and Gorgeous

And thats what I made today. Raspberry jam – dark, deep, so delicious slathered on a fresh croissant, perfect and bursting with the sunshine and the fruit. And simple beyond words.

To make this jam, you need equal parts fruit and sugar. And thats it. Yes, its really that simple.

I had 125 grams of fresh raspberries, which I washed quickly under the tap. With the water still clinging to them, I put them in a little pot, over a medium high heat. They began to sizzle and disintegrate, and I helped them along a little with a spoon. As soon as they became a glowing red mush (a matter of a few minutes), I added an equal amount (125 grams) of sugar. The sugar melted into the raspberries, and I boiled this mixture for about 4 minutes, or until it had “set.”

You can tell that jam has set if a little of the jam spooned onto a cold plate sets into a wobbly sort of solid consistency. You can draw a line through the jam with your finger, and the line stays.

I poured the jam into a little pot (gorgeous isnt it? It was a yogurt pot from the supermarche!) and set it down to cool. And then I decided to write.

I am glad to be back. If you have a few berries, consider making some jam today. Fresh jam is like nothing else, and it really takes only a few minutes.

Be well!

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Raspberry Tart

28 Nov

With purple pansiesThis raspberry tart is dramatic, beautiful, romantic and outrageously delicious. Its such a perfect combination of flavours and textures, and its so pretty that people smile when they see it. I love this tart, and I must give credit where it is due – it was inspired by Nathalie’s Gourmet Studio’s amazing raspberry tart, but enlivened with a few of my own happy pleasures. Specifically, dark bittersweet chocolate – and instead of a cookie crust, a pistachio crust inspired by her pistachio ice cream.

This tart is easily made (in its various components) ahead of time, and put together a few hours before serving. The combination of pistachio biscuit crust, dark bittersweet chocolate cream, light vanilla whipped cream and tart fresh raspberries is just outstanding. Crunchy, slightly bitter and nutty, creamy, chocolatey, tart, fresh, cool, bright – decadent, sumptuous, and totally sensual. Can you tell by all the superlatives how much I loved this tart? 😉

The element which brought drama and a really natural beauty to the tart were the flutters of sweet purple flowers adorning the top. My local supermarket sells edible flowers in a little packet – all different colours and they are beautiful. I picked out the purple ones – pansies I think – and together, they made for a stunningly lovely presentation. You can find information on edible flowers at the Cook’s Thesaurus and also some very pretty photographs here and here. Flowers are a wonderful way to make food look visually appealing and beautiful, and after this result, I definitely need to start using them more often!

This tart will serve 10 – 12 people. Its very rich, so you dont need huge slices.

Pistachio Crust

  • 1 cup whole pistachios
  • 2 tbsp powdered/icing sugar
  • 5 tbsp flour (plus additional if needed)
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 4 tbsp cold butter
  • 1 egg + 1 egg white
  • 1 tsp vanilla

Using a coffee grinder, processor, your immersion blender – or even a plastic back and a rolling pin to smack them into submission! – grind and pulverise the pistachios with the powdered sugar. The sugar will ensure that the nuts dont go over into a paste – but watch them carefully. I usually grind the pistachios in two batches of 1/2 cup each plus 1 tbsp of powdered sugar.

Put the ground pistachios and sugar into a bowl. Add the flour and salt and toss to combine. Grate the cold butter over the pistachio mixture, and using the tips of your fingers, combine very gently. You could even use a fork left in the fridge to mix everything up. This mixture can be exceedingly delicate so be careful!

Beat the 1 egg and vanilla together, and add to the pistachio-butter mixture. Combine gently and quickly until the mixture comes together into a dough. If its really sticky, add additional flour, a tablespoon at a time until it comes together, but be gentle and work quickly.

Shape the dough into a ball, and refrigerate, covered for at least half an hour.

Preheat your oven to 175 C (350F). I used a 11″ tart pan with a detachable base and non stick surface for this tart. If your tart pan is not non-stick (and really, it should be if it has a detachable base), butter the pan well. Remove the dough from the fridge, and centre it on a the tart pan. Using your fingers, quickly spread and knead and push and prod the dough so it completely covers the pan. Line the tart with parchment/baking paper, and pour in some pie weights. I use dried beans – theyre much cheaper, and they work just as well!

Bake your tart for about 15 – 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, remove the baking paper and pie weights/beans, and place the tart crust back into the oven for a further 5 minutes or so, or until the shell has lightly browned.

Remove from the oven and let cool for 3 minutes or so. Whisk the egg white with a fork in a small cup or bowl. Brush the interior of the shell with the egg white. This is a great trick to ensure that the tart crust is “water proof” and does not become soggy when you add the pastry cream!

Set aside to cool completely before assembly.

You can make the tart crust up to 1 day in advance, and store in the fridge, covered until needed.

Bittersweet Chocolate Pastry Cream

  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 tbsp flour
  • 2 tbsp cornstarch
  • 2 tbsp cocoa powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 4 egg yolks
  • 2 cups cream
  • About 150 grams (1 1/2 small slab bars) best quality bittersweet chocolate – I used Lindt, broken into pieces
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan, whisk together the sugar, flour, cornstarch, cocoa powder and salt until well combined. Whisk together the egg yolks and cream in a small bowl, and whisk into the sugar-flour mixture until you get a smooth paste.

Place the saucepan over medium low heat, and bring slowly to the boil, whisking all the while. This will take you about 10 minutes – about 5 minutes into this time, stick your thumb in the mixture. It should be like quite hot bathwater. Add the chocolate now, and continue whisking for a further 5 minutes or so. The mixture will start to steam, and bubble, and will have become noticeably thicker.

Check that the mixture will hold a line when it coats the back of a spoon and you run your finger through it. If not, continue to cook for a few minutes further, whisking all the while. It should not take that long to get there, so be vigilant! And remember, the pastry cream will thicken as it cools, so the consistency at which you take it off the stove is not the consistency it will be when you finally assemble the tart!

Remove the saucepan from the heat, and whisk in the butter and vanilla extract. Strain the pastry cream through a fine sieve, and allow to cool to room temperature.

The pastry cream can be made up to 2 days in advance, and stored, covered (with parchment paper spread over the surface for preference), in the refrigerator until needed.

Vanilla Whipped Cream

  • 1 1/2 cups heavy cream – 2 tbsp of cream removed from this amount
  • 1 1/2 tsp agar agar
  • 2 tbsp icing sugar
  • 1 vanilla pod, split, and beans scraped – or 1 tbsp vanilla essence/paste

Measure out 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream. From this amount, measure out 2 tbsp, and remove to a small bowl. Sprinkle agar agar over the 2 tbsp of cream, and set aside for a few minutes to allow the agar agar to dissolve into the cream.

Whisk the remaining cream (by hand if youre macho – with a stand mixer or handheld electric beaters if youre me!) until it just begins to hold soft peaks. Add the reserved cream and agar agar mixture, the icing sugar and the vanilla, and whisk until the cream holds stiff peaks.

The agar agar will ensure that the cream holds its shape for about six hours.

I would prepare the whipped cream just before assembly.

Assembly

  • Pistachio Crust
  • Bittersweet Chocolate Pastry Cream
  • Vanilla Whipped Cream
  • Raspberries – About 1 1/2 pints (1 1/2 small packets)
  • Pretty edible flowers for additional decoration (optional)

Place the tart crust/shell on a good working surface. For the kind of pretty decoration that I created here, I actually centered the crust (in pan) on a small lazy susan that I had from Ikea – this helped move the tart as I was placing raspberries and piping cream.

Pour in the bittersweet chocolate pastry cream, and using a palette knife or even a spoon, ensure that the pastry cream is evenly covering the tart shell, and is smoothed on top.

For this tart, I placed half the vanilla whipped cream into a piping bag with a small round tip (and topped it up when needed). If you want to get extra fancy, you could use a star tip, but that for me would be gilding the lily!

GorgeousPipe a border of whipped cream around the edge of the tart. Now take the raspberries, one at a time, and using the small tip, fill the raspberry with whipped cream, and pipe a small circle of cream at the opening of the raspberry. Place the raspberries onto the pastry cream in circles – working your way from outside in.

Once the tart has been covered with raspberries, begin placing the flowers. Pipe small circles of cream between the raspberries, working from inside out, and on each small circle of cream, place a single flower. You could cover the entire tart with raspberries and flowers, or, as I preferred to do, leave the outer edges with the decadent chocolate cream peeking out.

Refrigerate the tart until ready to serve. Assemble no more than 6 hours before consuming!

When you are ready to serve, remove the tart from the pan, leaving the bottom intact.

Enjoy the pleasures of this most lovely of desserts.

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Passion Fruit Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream

24 Nov

Yum!Yes, we were totally inspired yesterday by the astonishing, gorgeous raspberry tart at Nathalie’s Gourmet Studio. I think I might have become too excited, and pushed myself too hard, because last night I slept for over 12 hours. But today, I am feeling better. Not 100%, but good enough to write down this recipe.

AngelKitten and I decided to make ice cream. I knew I had a whole bunch of passion fruit from my organic delivery guy and so I suggested we start with that. But we were still obsessing about the raspberry tart, and so we decided to make a swirl of flavour – the tart brightness of passionfruit melded with the lush ripeness of raspberries. We also felt that the colours of both together would be beautiful … and oh what a pretty sight the final ice cream is! Gorgeous, happy making. And the taste is out of this world.

We started by making a double batch of vanilla custard which would serve as the base for the flavoured ice cream. If you dont want to add vanilla, leave it out, but for me, at least, the combination of the fruit and the vanilla is outstanding – the vanilla adds a musky note that helps the two flavours to meld. Its also one of my favourite flavours ever, and I just wanted to add it! We wanted to end up with about 5 cups of vanilla custard, and we also wanted about a cup each of flavouring.

Making ice cream is relatively simple, but you need to keep in mind the varied sweetness of the different elements you are adding to the mix. Because the fruit was not very sweet, we added sugar when we boiled it down – and therefore, we subtracted that amount of sugar from the custard. We also added only 8 egg yolks (4 per batch) – whereas most ice creams use 6 egg yolks per 3 cups of milk/cream. We wanted to keep the fruit flavours foremost (say that 3 times fast), and felt that 4 yolks per batch would ensure the creamy silkiness of the ice cream, without making it too French custard-y.

Finally, it was a simple process of mixing up 2 batches of ice cream in the ice cream maker, and when they were both still soft, combining them in a large serving container. We then just used a knife to ripple through, and let it all freeze and bloom overnight. This is home-made ice cream of the most joyous kind – fresh, bright and preservative free. Its going to be served as part of our Thanksgiving! Yum.

Makes 2 batches of ice cream, which you can swirl, or leave separate, as you wish. You will need an ice cream maker to ensure simplicity of work – but if you dont have one, freeze the flavoured creams, and every few hours, whizz in the blender until they are frozen and solid. Not as good, but still better than anything you can buy.

Vanilla Custard

Makes approximately 5 cups

  • 2 1/2 cups heavy cream
  • 2 1/2 cups milk
  • 1 vanilla bean pod or 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 1/2 cup caster sugar
  • Pinch of salt
  • 8 egg yolks (the whites reserved for another use – they can be frozen very successfully)

Combine the heavy cream, milk and vanilla bean (or essence) in a medium pot over medium low heat. Heat the cream mixture slowly, stirring occasionally, until it just starts to steam, and reaches 80C/175F on a candy thermometer. If you dont have one (though you should! Theyre cheap and SO useful!) just wait until the cream starts to steam – about 5 – 10 minutes.

While youre waiting for the cream to start steaming, whisk the caster sugar, salt and egg yolks until the yolks are very light and golden coloured. They will be creamy looking. This is just perfect. The caster sugar will have completely incorporated into the eggs as well.

As soon as the cream has reached 80C, take it off the heat, count to ten (I dont know why, may be to let it cool a few degrees? Ive always done this though!), and pour about half of the hot cream into the egg mixture, whisking all the while. Pour the egg cream mixture back into the pot, and return to a medium low heat, stirring constantly.

You want the egg cream mixture (your custard) to reach 85C/185F, as you constantly stir. This should only take a matter of a few minutes… You can tell the custard is ready when it lightly coats the back of a spoon, and a line drawn down the middle of the custard on the spoon stays intact. You shouldnt really be stirring for more than a few minutes – you dont want a thick cream, just a lightly thickened custard, with the eggs properly cooked through.

Strain the custard into a bowl, top with parchment paper, and allow to cool to room temperature. Once at room temperature, put in the fridge for a few hours before making ice cream.

Passion Fruit Syrup

This will make about 1 cup of passion fruit syrup

  • 18 – 24 passion fruits, which should equal about 1 3/4 cups passion fruit pulp with seeds intact (Do note that passion fruits vary wildly from place to place. In South Africa, and the US, they tend to be thin skinned and very juicy. Here in Malaysia, they are thicker skinned, and less giving of pulp. You should figure out approximately how many you need for about 1 3/4 cups)
  • 1/4 cup caster sugar

In a clean pot, combine the passion fruit pulp and the sugar. Over medium heat, stirring constantly, allow the passion fruit and sugar to incorporate with each other, and the pulp to darken and thicken a bit. This should take between 5 – 10 minutes. The mixture will boil up, and the colour should become a dark yellow gold. As soon as the mixture is to your liking, strain and sieve into a separate bowl. You should have about 1 cup of passion fruit syrup. Allow to cool to room temperature and then refrigerate until cold.

Raspberry Syrup

This will make about 1 cup of raspberry syrup

  • 1 3/4 cup fresh or frozen raspberries
  • 1/3 cup caster sugar
  • 1 tbsp water

Combine the raspberries, sugar and water in a clean pot. Over medium low heat, stir and crush the berries into the sugar and water. They will let go of quite a bit of liquid and become a mushy pulpy bright red mess. They will smell and look totally gorgeous, like the colour of red Burmese rubies. Allow the mixture to boil up, and thicken. It should take only about 5 minutes or so. Sieve and strain the syrup into a small bowl and press the seeds to extract as much juice as possible. Allow to cool to room temperature and refrigerate until cold.

Passion Fruit Ice Cream

  • 2 1/2 cups vanilla custard
  • 1 cup passion fruit syrup
  • 1 – 2 drops natural (IndiaTree) yellow food colouring (optional)

Mix together the vanilla custard and passion fruit syrup. If you really want to, add a few drops of natural yellow food colouring, but its not necessary. For a really smooth ice cream, run the mixture through the sieve to ensure that its completely mixed.

Pour into ice cream maker, and allow to process for 1 hour. When the ice cream has been made, it will be very soft. Scoop into a container, cover and place in the freezer.

Raspberry Ice Cream

  • 2 1/2 cups vanilla custard
  • 1 cup raspberry syrup
  • 1 – 2 drops natural (IndiaTree) red food colouring (optional)

Mix together the vanilla custard and the raspberry syrup. If you really want to, add a few drops of natural red food colouring. For a smooth, well mixed ice cream, run the mixture through a sieve.

Pour into ice cream maker and allow to process for 1 hour. When ice cream has finished processing, it will be very soft. Scoop into a container, and proceed to make passion fruit and raspberry ripple ice cream, or place in freezer.

Passion Fruit Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream

  • 1 pint container passion fruit ice cream (still at semi-soft stage)
  • 1 pint container raspberry ice cream (just made)

We used a medium sized, rectangular metal baking tin with 3 inch sides. Use whatever shallow container you wish. We scooped out alternating heaping tablespoons of ice cream, three in a row, all the way across the baking tin. We then smoothed over the top, and used a knife, pulled across the tin, to ripple the flavours and colours together.

We then covered the ice cream with parchment paper, and plastic cling wrap, and froze for at least 24 hours to allow the ice cream to harden and the flavours to bloom.

Absolutely gorgeous, and totally worth the effort! Enjoy!

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White Chocolate Raspberry Tart

10 Sep

Raspberry TartToday is a day of celebration – it is the end of the Ramadan and the Rosh Hashanah. Two very intertwined religions, and their holidays. Well, on a day like today, you just have to celebrate. So I came up with this vegetarian (but unfortunately not vegan) white chocolate raspberry tart. The pastry cream was imbued with the rich lusciousness of white chocolate, such a perfect match for tart sweet bright raspberries. I dont usually do fruit with chocolate, but this is the exception that proves the rule.

This is a phenomenal tart. And I can say that because I have made some pretty damn brilliant tarts in my day…. but this one. It was so very good. The pastry crust was like a sugar cookie – dense, buttery, flaky and scented with vanilla. The pastry cream was literally stuffed full of Callebaut white chocolate. It was so creamy, it was sinful … but the great thing about it for me was that it looked like any garden variety vanilla pastry cream. It was only upon tasting that the ambrosial flavour of white chocolate made itself known. I adore good surprises like that! And the organic raspberries were the perfect counterpoint – tart and bursting with last of the summer sunshine, they made the white chocolate cream even more chocolate-y. This was one of my best tarts by far.  And the best part was seeing family eat it so happily on this most family of celebration nights… BSA’s son was surprised I made it from scratch 😉 It takes quite something to impress a 13 year old, so I was happy. Heh.

I put this tart together in literally half an hour (not including the wait times for baking and cooling off). Baking the pastry took very little time – but you need to make sure its baked through, because once it comes out of the oven, there is no more baking to do. I didnt bake it blind – I just made sure I poked tons of holes in it with my fork. It shrunk a bit, but I baked it in a 9 3/4″ spring form pan, so a little shrinkage was okay. The pastry cream took minutes to make, and about 20 minutes to cool in the fridge. Putting raspberries on top wasnt really work … but it was fun! I was actually a little shocked at how easy it was to make this tart – the return was so big, that I should have slaved for hours on it. It was a joy to present something so decadent and yet so easy to make.

Start at least 2 – 3 hours before you plan to serve this tart (or the day before) as you do want it to set up in the fridge.

Serves 8 people

Sweet pastry

  • 1 1/2 cups flour (all purpose is fine, but if you have pastry flour, use that)
  • 1/4 cup sugar – I used powdered sugar, which I find gives a finer result
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, frozen
  • 1 egg
  • 1 – 2 tbsp vanilla essence

In a small bowl, mix together the flour, sugar and salt. Use a fork and make sure it is all combined.

Grate the butter over the flour mixture, and using your fingers, toss to combine well. You should have oatmeal flakes of butter within the flour mixture.

In another small bowl, or cup, beat together the egg and the vanilla essence. Use more vanilla essence if you think your essence isnt very strong or flavourful.

Pour the egg mixture over the flour mixture, and using your hands, knead to combine. You should have quite a soft dough.

Tip the dough out onto a clean surface, and knead two or three times to get it soft and pliable. Using the heel of your palm, smear the dough away from you. This will spread the frozen butter in thin layers throughout the dough. Do this two or three times.

Roll the dough into a ball, put it back in the bowl, and refrigerate for ten minutes or so to let it all just come together.

Preheat the oven to 175C (350F). Have a pie tin, or a spring form cake pan (I used a 9 3/4″ pan) ready.

Take the dough out of the refrigerator, and tip it out onto a clean surface. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough to about 1/8″ thick, or to fit your pan.

The dough should be malleable enough, and yet cold enough, so it wont stick to the surface, or to your rolling pin. If it sticks, it has not sat in the fridge long enough, so put it back for a few minutes.

Once you have rolled out the dough to your liking, roll it onto your rolling pin, and centre it over your pan. Place it gently in the pan, and using your fingers, make sure all the edges are even. My spring form pan had very high edges, so I just folded the dough over and crimped it to come up about half way up the pan. It worked out fine!

Put the dough back into the fridge for five minutes or so to get over being rolled and prodded! This is an important step so dont forget it!

Once you take the unbaked crust out of the fridge, poke multiple holes in it with the tines of a fork. Dont forget to go up the sides!

Bake in the oven for 25 minutes or so, or until completely baked through and very lightly tan in the centre. You will know if its baked fully or not by the texture of the crust. If its soft, malleable, it has not baked long enough. If its firm, and solid feeling, its fully cooked. Decide on how brown you want it – for this delicate tart, I decided to let it barely get a blush of bronze.

Set aside to cool.

White Chocolate Pastry Cream

  • 1 1/2 cups milk (I used lowfat)
  • 1 + 1 tbsp vanilla
  • 1 cup best quality white chocolate
  • 1/4 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 tbsp flour
  • 2 tbsp cornflour
  • 3 egg yolks

In a small saucepan, heat the milk, 1 tbsp vanilla and white chocolate over medium low heat, stirring occasionally, until the white chocolate melts.

Meanwhile, mix the sugar, flour and cornflour together very well with a whisk. Add the further 1 tbsp vanilla and the egg yolks, and whisk extremely well until everything is thoroughly combined.

When the milk is quite hot, take about 1/4 cup of milk, and add it to the egg mixture. Whisk very well. Turn the heat up on the milk mixture, and allow to just come to the boil. Add all the egg mixture at once, and turn the heat down. Stir until very thick.

If you are worried that the pastry cream is lumpy, you can sieve it, but its usually unnecessary as long as you have whisked the ingredients together very well at each stage.

Put aside to cool, about 10 – 15 minutes.

Assembly

  • Cooled crust
  • White Chocolate Pastry Cream
  • About 2 cups fresh raspberries, lightly rinsed if needed

CelebrationPour the pastry cream into the crust. Arrange the raspberries on top in a pretty pattern (I usually just make rings but do as your heart desires). Refrigerate for at least 1 – 2 hours.

If you are making this tart the night before, prepare all the elements separately, and assemble them together a few hours before serving.

Serve and Celebrate!

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Raspberry Curd

21 Jul

Pure Raspberry TasteThese last few weeks, I seem to be inspired by my conversations with people online. Articles, notes, photographs, comments … all these things make me think of different foods and ideas. And of course, eating – Nathalie’s Gourmet Studio last night was a veritable treasure trove of inspiration, and reading about other people’s favourite meals makes me think of different connections and ideas. I was chatting with my dear friend, Floating Lemons, and she mentioned that she was hoping for raspberries picked from her garden. I dreamed of raspberries that night! They are such a perfectly gorgeous fruit – and most of the time, they need no adornment. Well, may be a little cream, but thats totally optional. At the same time, I was reading Tamasin Day-Lewis’ cookbook, Kitchen Classics, and in it, she had a raspberry curd tart…

It looked so dramatic and so gorgeous, but what really intrigued me was the raspberry curd. When I first encountered lemon curd, I could not imagine the alchemy needed to produce this tart sweet creamy fondant. It was like lemon candy, but softer; jam, but creamier; pudding, but clearer. Fruit curd was always one of those things that terrified me – I was sure I would try and cook it and it would turn into an almighty mess, coating me and my kitchen with drippy gloopy failure. Well, I stand here before you to tell you that fruit curd is unspeakably easy to make. It does take effort, dont get me wrong, but the benefit outweighs the pain. Home made fruit curd trumps anything you can get in the markets – especially if you are vigilant and use all organic ingredients.

Making fruit curd is, for me, a deep and intense meditation on the fruit. It is extremely relaxing because you really need to focus only on the ingredients in front of you, and how they come together to create something so different, yet so essentially the same as their individual parts. Butter, eggs, egg yolks, fine sugar and fruit. Thats it. Whisk it constantly over a low, slow heat and watch magic happen – literally. It will come together and thicken, and deepen in flavour, but it wont over cook as long as you keep the heat low and slow. You will come away with a thick jammy (but not jam) mix, that literally trembles when you serve it so delicate it is, that is the esesnce of the ripe fresh fruit.

I have made loads of different curds, but this one feels very exotic in a way. May be someone in Europe would feel the same about a pineapple curd, but the deep fuchsia colour and the bright raspberry taste make this unique and special to me.

I have made this two ways – in a tart a la Tamasin Day-Lewis, and rippled into a warm rice pudding. The first is rather dramatic and stark, but pretty sensational. The second is comforting and yet sophisticated all at the same time. However, dont be constrained. Use it as a spread for breakfast, stir it into yogurt, or eat it by the spoonful for the sheer joy of it. Its a wonderful present too. People are astonished that you can make it, but they are also so pleased with something so out of the ordinary.

This recipe makes about 3 1/2 cups of finished raspberry curd. If you want to keep it or give it away, please follow jam bottling protocols. I used all mine up, so there wasnt much to save but there was a whole lot to savour 😉 I will give the recipes for the tart and the rice pudding separately.

  • 450 g / 1 lb fresh raspberries (about 1 1/2 cups after sieving)
  • 2 eggs + 3 egg yolks (I use organic for this)
  • 1 cup superfine brown sugar (see below)
  • 1 cup / 8 tbsp butter

I use an immersion blender in two places in this recipe. It makes things very easy, and it also enables you to liquidise and refine in your cooking bowls, rather than have to transfer from a blender or food processor. It simplifies things, but if you dont have one, use a blender or processor and adjust accordingly.

In a bowl, using an immersion blender, liquidise the raspberries. They should be pretty much a thick bright pinky red puree – no berry or flesh left whole.

Over the top of another bowl, place a sieve. I use a nylon sieve that sits on top of the bowl – this is very useful for jobs like this because it will take a lot of liquid all at once. Pour out the raspberries into the sieve, and using a spatula or wooden spoon, coax the juice and flesh through the sieve into the second bowl. This can take a while, and I usually like to do it slowly and thoughtfully. Its part of the process 😉

Once the sieve holds nothing more than tons of raspberry seeds, lift it off the bowl, and using your spatula, scrape the thick juices that cling to the bottom of the sieve. Measure off your pureed fruit and you should get about 1 1/2 – 2 cups. Set aside.

Whisk your eggs, egg yolks and sugar together.  I use light brown organic sugar in this recipe, but I was concerned about its fineness. I used the immersion blender to pulverise the sugar so that it was super-fine (not quite powder, but no large granules either). If you have super-fine sugar, skip this bit but its quite fun! If you do grind it fine, then just add the sugar to the eggs and whisk well. You want a light yellow thick ribbony mixture.

Prepare a bain marie (water bath) on your stove top. I have already written about how I dont use double boilers. A medium sized saucepan, filled about 1/3rd with boiling water, and a large metal bowl set atop, do it for me. If you have a double boiler, go for it! Basically, you never want the mixture to boil. You want to keep it at a very low heat for at least 15 – 20 minutes.

In your metal bowl, set over the saucepan, melt the butter. Once the butter is completely melted, whisk in the egg mixture and the raspberry puree. And now, just keep whisking. It may take you 10 minutes or longer (it usually takes me about 20 minutes of constant whisking) but eventually, this very syrupy thin concoction of butter, eggs, sugar and fruit will start to thicken. For me, this process is all about faith! And bravery to be honest. First time I made it, I was scared I was going to scramble the eggs, but if you keep the temperature very low (the water does not have to be at a boil – a simmer will do), and keep whisking whisking whisking, it will turn out beautifully.

You are looking for a soft whipped cream consistency, so that as you whisk, you see the tracks of your whisk in the curd. When it gets to this point, and it may take a while, your curd is done. Take it off the heat, pour and scrape it into a clean, cool bowl, and cover with a cloth. Let it sit and cool, and solidify, for at least an hour or more and then refrigerate. It will deepen in colour and become thicker, so that it stands up on a spoon.

Bottle, or use in desserts, spread on toast or scones, and delight in the taste of summer.

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