Pear and Chocolate Charlotte

One of my favourite French desserts is a Charlotte, and I had a tin of pears which needed using and a recipe from a French neighbour for making a chocolate and pear one. It doesn't need cooking, just chilling.

I bought a Charlotte mould when living there, but you can use any deep cake tin.

It's simple to make and delicious.
Charlottes can also be made with bread.

You need:

a large packet of boudoir biscuits [sponge fingers] or make your own 

200ml cream

a sachet of vanilla sugar [about 1 tbspn]
large tin of pears in syrup
150g dark chocolate
4 egg yolks

Open can of pears and pour syrup into a small bowl and slice the pears. Dip the boudoir biscuits into the syrup and line a Charlotte mould with them, keeping some back for the top.

Using an electric hand beater, beat the cream and vanilla sugar together till it's thick.

Melt the chocolate over a low heat. Turn the heat off and add the egg yolks, beating together till the mixture cools. Add the cream and mix together.

Pour half this chocolate mixture into the mould over the biscuits and add half the sliced pears; cover with the rest of the chocolate mixture and finally top with a layer of the syrup-soaked boudoir biscuits.

Put in the fridge for 12 hours, then carefully unmould the Charlotte.

You can see that a Charlotte mould is curved, so made in an ordinary deep cake tin it won't look quite the same. You could use fruit to make a Charlotte - strawberry, raspberry, blackcurrant, gooseberry etc The biscuits I used were quite thick, as I bought them in France, but any thinner boudoir biscuits work just as well.

There are some great Charlotte recipes here

Blackcurrant Clafoutis

 Am having a clear out of last year's fruit from the freezer, and found a bag of blackcurrants lurking in the depths. I have to say that they're not my favourite fruit - not sweet enough for me, but OH loves them. What to do with them? Didn't want another crumble or tart, so had a look in one of my cookbooks and found a recipe for an apple clafoutis - I was sure that blackcurrants would work just as well.
What is a clafoutis? A batter pudding/flan with fruit, usually cherries.
I 've seen many recipes for the batter, including one using yeast; I read through this one, then did it the wrong way round - beating the melted butter and sugar together instead of the sugar and eggs, but it didn't seem to have made any difference. I was a bit worried that the blackcurrants would be too tart, but in the sweet batter they were fine.


Preheat oven 220C/gas7 and grease a gratin dish with a little butter.


Put 500g of fresh or frozen blackcurrants [or cherries, thinly sliced apples, plums, blueberries] into the dish.
Beat 2 eggs with 100g of caster sugar and a tspn of vanilla extract. Stir in 150g of plain flour, 400ml of milk and 100g of melted butter till well mixed. Pour this batter over the fruit and bake for about 30 mins [if you're using frozen fruit, add another 5-10 mins].

 

I used the gratin dish I bought from a pottery in Alsace. The clafoutis had a good texture hot, but I preferred it cold.

I know it doesn't look very appetising in this photo, but there's a great contrast between the tart fruit and the sweet batter. It's more solid now it's cold.

Almondy Apple Dessert Cake

I'm always looking for new ways to use apples, and I found this recipe on Mary Berry's site. She calls it 'The very best Apple Dessert Cake'.
 It's a sponge cake mixture with an added tspn of almond extract, and you put half of the mixture in the bottom of a 20cm springform or loose bottomed cake tin, lined, then you put a layer of thickly sliced apples then the rest of the cake mixture. You sprinkle the top with flaked almonds and bake for about 45 mins.

You'll find the recipe here .

It's got a great almond flavour and a lovely moist sponge; I like the contrast between the cake and the apple layer, then the crunch of the almonds on top. We ate ours with some creme fraiche. I liked it cold, but my OH preferred it warm.