Passion Fruit Posset

With the sight of summer ever closer, the meals get lighter and fresher. The heavy casserole and soup recipes, gradually get pushed to the back of the recipe books. The salad recipes become more used, the desserts become less chocolate and sponge based, and more fresh fruit based. Its also the time i start using all the tropical fruit that i love: I could never tire of eating mango and passion fruit!!

If you had to pick a fancy dessert, that seemed really difficult, but isn't, then a posset would definitely be it. Having grown up watching my mum do a lemon version every time she invited people over, there was no doubt in my mind, that it was easy, and super delicious. With my recent craziness over passion fruit (you'll understand in a few posts), it seemed like an obvious choice to combine the two!! Plus, i had a dinner party that i was cooking for, so it was an obvious choice, as these can easily be made a day or two ahead.

Serve them in individual pots, topped of with extra passion fruit. Serve them with crisp coconut biscuits (recipe coming soon!!!). If you wanted to add another element, top with small cubes of mango, and sprigs of mint for extra colour.

Ingredients

600ml double cream

120g caster sugar

6 passion fruit

1 lime

coconut biscuits to serve, optional

1. Put the cream and sugar, into a saucepan. Gently heat up until the sugar has dissolved, then bring to the boil, and reduce to a simmer for 3 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, scoop out the pulp from 5 passion fruit, and pass through a sieve. I prefer to blitz the pulp, for a couple of seconds, so the juice separates from the seeds better.

3. once the cream has simmered, take off the heat and stir in the passion fruit juice and lime juice.

4. allow to cool slightly, before pouring into ramekins. chill for 4-6 hrs or overnight

5.  to serve, spoon over the flesh from the leftover passion fruit. Serve with coconut biscuits, if wished.

Mango and Coconut Cream with Pistachio Brittle

If you wanted the quickest (homemade) dessert in the whole entire universe then look no further, because trust me this is quicker than walking to your local supermarket, and buying something, unless you live right outside a supermarket, and can run around it like Usain bolt.

I thought i might mention that it utterly delicious, but then for someone who could eat about 10 mangoes per day, and never get bored then i suppose i might be a bit biased. Whatever you do though, use alphonso mangoes! Oh, and once you've made the brittle, I would hide it away until you need it, because unless you have super strong will power, then you might find it magically disappears! 

In this version photographed I used coconut cream (hence it's very white), instead of cream, which is a great option if your lactose intolerant, or if you prefer not to eat dairy/animal products. Instead of using a small expensive tins of coconut cream, I used a tin of coconut milk, and the solid part which had naturally separated (sainsburys own is the best to use), then just whipped it, with the same amount of cardamon. If you don't like cardamon, or want to freshen up the dessert, grated lime zest would also work well.

Serves 4

Ingredients

5 tbsp caster sugar
50g shelled pistachios

300ml double cream, or coconut cream
2 tbsp caster sugar
10 cardamon seeds, shelled, crushed into a powder
400g alphonso mango puree, or flesh of a fresh mango blended
fresh mint to garnish, optional

1. Toast the pistachios until fragrant, roughly chop 
2. In a pan, heat the sugar with 1 tbsp water until it dissolves and cooks to a golden brown caramel
3. Mix the pistachios into the sugar, and spread on baking paper and leave to cool
4. whip the cream with the sugar and cardamon, until it forms soft peaks 
5. divide the mango between 4 glasses, spoon over the cream
6. roughly break up the brittle, sprinkle over. top with a spring of mint.