The Girdle Buster Pie

This is an American classic called the girdle buster, meaning you don´t get any slimmer eating a slice of this one. This is so ridiculously easy to do, becouse you dont have to bake or whisk anything really, you just make the base in a foodprossessor, spread the softened ice cream over and pour the fudge on top. You can flavor and change this pie however you like and the possibilities are endless. You can use whatever flavor ice cream you like for example coffie, chocolate, strawberry, caramell......you get the idea . And you can flavor the fudge with cardomom or brandy or espresso coffie or or.......or or or.... It´s allways nice to have a pie ready in the freezer when friend or family comes around. Cover the pie with clingfilm film and a double layer of foil and the pie will hold for 6 months in the freezer.

The Recipe

375g digestive biscuits
75g soft unsalted butter
50g dark chocolate
50g milk chocolate

1 1/2 L vanilla ice cream

300g golden syrup
100g light muscovado sugar
¼ teaspoon Maldon salt or pinch of table salt
75g butter
½ dl kahlúa liquor
125ml double cream

Process the biscuits with the butter and chocolate until it forms a damp but still crumb-like clump. Press into a 23cm pie plate or flan dish. Form a lip of biscuit a little higher than the plate or dish if you can. This process takes patience as you need ideally to form a smooth even layer….. Sorry. Freeze this biscuit-lined layer for about an hour so it gets really hard.
In the meantime, let your ice cream soften, just enough to be scooped, in the fridge. Spread the ice cream into the hard-biscuit-lined dish to form a layer. Then cover in clingfilm and replace in the freezer.

Put the syrup, sugar, salt and butter into a saucepan and let it melt over a low to medium heat, before turning it up and boiling for 5 minutes, then turn off the heat and add the bourbon, letting it hiss in the pan. Add the cream and stir to mix into a sauce, then leave to cool. Once the sauce is cool pour it over the pie to cover the ice cream layer and then put it back in the freezer. Once frozen, cover with clingfilm again.

When ready to serve, remove from the freezer, take the whole pie out of its dish and cut into slices.

Oysters with Grapefruit Granita

I know oysters are not the traditional feast over christmas, but I think you can get a little tired of the salty pork meat and the big desserts. Off course you don´t change the classics but in between the big meals you can endulge in something a bit lighter and healthy....like seafood. I got these oysters from the market in downtown stockholm. The oysters are from Normandy in France and are a real delicatesse. If you are not a big fan of oysters you can add a bit of grapefruit granita to take away the intense salty sea flavor, but I actually like the fresh flavor from the sea.

10 oysters

For the Grapefruit Granita

1 cup grapefruit juice
½ tbsp vodka
½ tbsp sugar
3tbsp champagne vinigar or white wine vinigar

Mix the ingrediants together and stir until the sugar has dissolved.

Freeze for 1 hour. Then rake the frosted grapefruit into kristals with a fork and freeze again for 1 hour. Do the same thing once again and freeze until serving. The frozen grapefruit should be small kristals.

Christmas Gift Ideas

I like giving food for christmas and here are some of my ideas. Who wouldn´t whant to get some of these instead of a pair of socks??!! These recipes are as always on my web page, dead simple to make and can be made days in advance, but keep them in the refridgerator.
Chocolate Bars

500g dark chocolate 55%
1tbsp instant coffie
2dl mixed nuts, almonds and hazelnuts
1dl dried fruit, blueberries or raisins
1dl dessicated coconut

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water. Stir in the instant coffie.

Roast the nuts in the oven for 10 minutes at 180˚C.

Add the nuts, coconut and dried fruit to the melted chocolate and pour over a baking tray lined with baking paper. Spread evenly with a spatula and let coll in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Christmas Caramels

2dl sugar
2dl double cream
2dl syrup
1 tbsp butter
½ dl chopped almonds

Mix the cream, sugar and syrup in a pan. Bring to the boil, then turnd down the heat to medium-low and let simmer for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.

When the caramel is ready, mix the chopped almonds and stir in the butter. You can see when the caramel is ready you drop a little into a glass of cold water and if the caramel holds it´s shape and doesn´t dissolve, then it is ready.

Pour into little paper forms.

Red wine Chocolate Truffles

110ml double cream

225g semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

50ml red wine

1 tbsp kahlúa coffie liqueur

cocoa powder to dust

Pour the chopped chocolate into a medium-sized bowl. Bring the cream to a soft boil (lightly rolling bubbles) in a small saucepan over medium-high heat, and pour the hot cream into the chocolate. With a spatula, immediately stir together until smooth. Then stir in the red wine and liqueur until smooth. Refrigerate chocolate for about one hour, until firm.

Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper, and fill a small bowl with cocoa powder. One by one, with a spoon, scoop out some chocolate and form into one inch balls. This should make about 35 truffles. One by one, drop into the cocoa powder and roll around until covered, then drop onto the sheet. Refrigerate again for at least a half hour, or up to three days.

Christmas Florentines

Why not give something you made yourself for christmas this year, like these christmas florentines. I think it´s always a special thing when you get something from someone that has put in some effort and creativity into a present. You could make some homemade vanilla sugar like i gave my mom and dad last cristmas where you pulse 4 vanillapods with 1kg of sugar in a foodprocessor, some red wine chocolate truffles which I will do this christmas or saffran pears in a jar where you add 1g of saffran to 1 can of pears and put it in a nice jar wich everybody would like to eat with some vanilla ice cream.

100g special K cornflakes, bashed into fine crumbs
90g flaked almonds
50g dried blueberries
50g dried apricot, chopped
397g can condensed milk
300g milk chocolate
60g dessicated coconut

Heat the oven to 180˚C and line a baking tray with a sheet of baking parchment. Put the crushed cornflakes, almonds, blueberries and apricots in a bowl and mix well together. Stir in the condensed milk until all the ingredients are sticky. Spoon tablespoons of the mixture onto the sheet and leave some room for spreading. Flatten each spoonful with the back of the spoon and bake for 10-12 minutes until golden brown.

Melt the chocolate over simmering water. When the cookies are cool, spoon or brush the base of the cookies with the melted chocolate and dip in the dessicated coconut. Leave until the chocolate has set and serve or put in a box as presents. Will keep for 5 days in a airtight container.

My Birthday Vanilla & Mascarpone Cheesecake

Yes it´s my birthday today...28 years old...... and I mean ooooold. A simple non-bake vanilla cheesecake will brighten up my day. I made 6 individual cheesecakes out of the recipe but you can just as well make 1 big one and serve 6 - 8 people.

16 digestive biscuits
50g butter, melted
250g cream cheese
250g mascarpone cheese
1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped out
2 eggs
1 ½ dl sugar
3 gelatin sheets, soaked in cold water
1dl double cream, whipped

the berry jelly
1dl frozen strawberries
1dl frozen raspberries
1dl frozen blueberries
1dl sugar
3 tbsp whiskey

Crush the digestive biscuits and stir in the melted butter. Line a baking tray with baking paper and push the biscuit crust down with your fingers to make the base. Chill in the fridge for 30 min.

Add the cream cheese, mascarpone cheese and vanilla seeds to a bowl and whisk together.

In another bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar until fluffy.

Melt the gelatin sheets in a small pot with a tbsp of the cream cheese mixture and then pour back into the cheese mixture bowl and whisk together. Add the egg mixture to the cheese and fold together. Then fold in the whipped cream.

Pour into the cake tray and set aside.

To make the berry jelly, add the berries and sugar to a hot pan and toss. Add the brandy and let sugar dissolve. Add the gelatin sheets and let cool for 5 minutes. Pour over cheese cake and chill over night.

Poached Pear & Marzipan Pudding

I was very pleased with this one, becouse it was such a dead simple pudding to make and absolutely effortless. The combination of the smoothness of the poached pear, the sweeteness of the marzipan and the crunchy dough on top just works very well. And to top it all off.... serve with some cool vanilla mascarpone or some vanilla icecream.

Makes 4
2 pears, halved, peeled and the core removed
4 tbsp caster sugar
4 dl water
1 vanilla pod, cut length wise and seeds removed
50g marzipan
150g butter, room temperature
100g caster sugar
2 eggs
100g flour
flaked almonds, for sprinkling

Add pears sugar, vanilla pod, vanilla seeds and water in a small pot and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and poach gently on low heat for 10 – 15 minutes.

Work the butter and sugar together in a bowl with a spatula. Add the eggs and continue working together. Add the flour and work to a dough.

Preheat the oven to 180˚C. Put ½ a pear and poaching syrup in each individual ramekin dish. Scatter some marzipan over and scoop a heaped tbsp of dough on top. Sprinkle some toasted almonds on top and bake for 30 minutes. Serve with some ice cream or vanilla mascarpone.

Chocolate Truffle Pot – with Meringue Topping

2 ½ dl double cream
200g dark chocolate
3 egg yolks
50g butter
zest from 1 orange
½ dl whiskey or cognac
1 vanilla pod, halved and seeds scraped out
3 egg whites
2 tbsp granulated sugar
pinch of salt

6 servings

1. Put the double cream, vanilla seeds and vanilla pod into a pot and bring it to the boil. Add the chockolate and butter and let it melt into the cream. Take off the heat and stir the egg yolks in one by one. Add the whiskey and orange zest to the chocolate and stir. Pour into small serving glasses and cool for 30 minutes.

2. Whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff. Then add the sugar and continue to whisk until the sugar has dissolved. But the meringue on top of each glass and run a blow tourch or a brulée burner over to give a baked effect. If you don´t have a blow tourch you could put under a hot grill in the oven for 2 minutes.