Dairy, egg and gluten free chocolate chantilly cream...

The copper cauldron came back out today as I could not resist making dairy and egg free chocolate chantilly. I read it in bed last night and could not believe my luck. Not only did it require minimal ingredients, the process also sounded pretty easy with no sight of the usual cross referencing to other recipes/culinary words which often takes a further 20 ingredients and 48 hours to prepare, wrapped up in a single word (yes you, mousseline forcemeat in my inaugural dish (scroll down)) lulling you into a false sense of ability. However, you have got to have strong arms - you would need to be able to hold a copper saucepan over a bowl of ice/cold water in one and an electric whisk in the other. I pared down the recipe as it was 9pm on a Wednesday night - 100ml filter coffee and 112.5gm dairy free dark chocolate of your choice heated gently over the stove until melted and married, then the cauldron is plunged into a bowl of cold icy water and the chocolate is whisked until thick and creates a ribbon when it falls back onto itself. It takes longer than you first expect but it does come together so patience is key here. Chill in the fridge. I licked all the cooking utensils after - after all, I haven't had chocolate chantilly / mousse in about 3 years...

Thank heavens for molecular gastronomy! (And Larousse of course)

AF Contessa Corn ice cream

It's one of those days where everything I touch turns to dust (recipe testing choux and forgot to turn oven down again and in another recipe, and unforgivably rookie mistake of using baking soda instead of powder...) - high hopes then for my corn ice cream. Sweet and salty, corn ice cream could be considered the marmite of the dessert world and would more likely appeal to those who are familiar with oriental desserts - think sweet salty red bean paste mochi etc. It is after all, the preserve of south-east Asian childhood dreamers of the orient kind and therefore an apt follow-post to my recent excursions to ippudo and cay tre.

The verdict: the Italian half is not crazy about turning vegetables into dessert (not even carrot cake) and especially not ice cream... But, nothing beats the novelty of corn ice cream, and whilst we shouldn't like it, we do. Shhh.

The recipe:

Heat one cup almond milk with 2tbps cornflour dissolved in a touch of water. Stir on low heat until thick. Add in 1/3 cup sugar and a dash of salt. Stir until dissolved. Off the heat add in 160gm sweet corn purée* and blend together with a stick blender. Chill then freeze, stirring every 30 minutes. 

*If very lazy, blitz sweet corn and do not bother to sieve as bits of translucent corn "skin" could convey maximum authencity especially when stuck between ones teeth - charming. 

Allergy Free Contessa Chocolate Sorbet

Pacojet is definitely top of my lust-list for 2015. For those not familiar, this is the specialised fine, in all it's literal sense, food making machine and therefore ideal for making ice cream, mousses, baby food, etc, and perhaps even chocolate - now that's an idea! Anyway, back to ice cream; I have made ice cream and sorbet many a time, however, I do not own an ice cream maker - definitely not one as fascinating as the Paco - and being as forgetful as ever, I often forget to keep whisking/ churning the ice cream when it has gone into the freezer. Not that the dreaded ice crystals stop me from eating the whole thing anyway..but I would rather Pacojetify it, if you know what I mean. But space is rather unforgiving in our kitchen, so perhaps it is timely to do some in depth research into the process of making ice cream without the gadgets. Very established ice cream authorities insist the key to ice cream is the composition of sugar, fat (including nut fat) and solids. Oh, that and the lack of ice crystals, which should be achievable if the mixture were frozen in the shortest time possible, with enough violent whisking in between. Surely that would mean freezing the mixture hot...? Instead, the key is to chill the mixture before freeze/whisk/freeze/whisk..

I'm determined to make at least one successful batch of ice cream / sorbet before advancing to trial-ing my own ideas. This is a grave departure from my usual but one hopes with good reason - whilst we were in Santa Barbara we had the most fantastic chocolate sorbet, from Spoon or something similarly called; for anyone visiting, it is that outfit opposite "Jane", the restaurant. Yes, chocolate sorbet. I've never even heard of chocolate sorbet. And it's dairy and egg free...Ok, so I live a very sheltered life, but not anymore - gluten, dairy and egg free chocolate sorbet, homemade. Paco-me-up.

@ allergy free contessa, x

Recipe from the barefoot contessa, adapted, of course...

1 cup sugar (I usually half the sugar amount but frozen stuff really need that sugar)

1/2 cup cocoa powder (I used 100% cocoa blocks instead...)

1 shot espresso

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp sea salt

2 cups water

1 1/2 tbsp coffee liqueur (we used Patron as that's gluten free and what we had at home)

Put everything except the Patron into a saucepan and heat over low heat stirring constantly. Off the heat, add the Patron and chill in the fridge. I left mine for 24 hours (because I forgot about it). Put it into the freezer for 2-3 hours then blend/whisk every hour after until you are happy with it. Then leave to freeze proper for 6 hours minimum.

Personal experience notes : 

1) Scouring the internet and everyone tells me I need to whisk the damn thing more often in the first two hours and that's what I was doing these two years past... But, Julia Child, the other (or the original) goddess, insists instead that the first freeze needs to be for 2-3 hours until it is set, and it worked a treat.

2) add alcohol - panacea, even for ice cream.

3) Julia Child suggests leaving the sorbet in the fridge for 30 minutes before serving - but, like all other things, I like my ice cream / sorbet hard.. other things being bread of course (scroll down for the recipe)

4) do not eat chocolate sorbet for breakfast. not everyday anyway.

Dairy free cashew nut based ice cream

It would seem in the nick of time that we noticed that almost every aspect of my life is food related, including the scents in our home, what with all that lamb and candles, sugo, choux and pho testing and what not. In fact, not only do our cushions, upholstery and hair reek of lunch, it would appear that even the pores of my very body is food-scented.. Mango bodywash, Parsley Seed toner (which makes me smell more like an anti-mosquito spray than parsley but nevermind), Cocoa Butter, Mint Tea body creams and Ginger & Lime hand cream. I had hoped that in sleep we would escape from food but the basil and mint candle is a dead give away.

If only our need for food were satisfied by scents of smell, then I would be a very successful walking talking food-smell vending machine. That or if anyone needs anti-mosquito spray, you know where to go...

In that scented vein, I'm bent on making something which does not require any heat less it releases more smells. My cashew based ice cream is all blend and no heat... And it's dairy, egg and gluten free too.

@ allergy free contessa, x

Recipe:

Soak one cup cashews in one cup water overnight. Blend cashews and water with 1/3 cup maple syrup, 1/4 cut coconut oil, 1 tbsp vanilla extract and salt to taste. Blend as well as your machine allows and chill then freeze, stirring every 30 minutes after first 2 hours.

Allergy free brownie

When first told of my intolerances, my biggest preoccupation was that of dessert (and of a butterless life). Swearing off rice and wheat etc. is all in a day's work but dessert, biscuits, pastry, and all things sweet are the French on one's toast, the salt on all chips, the coco before the pop.

It is my very nature to obsess with finding replacements and I started with something easy (and not too dear to my heart for fear of total and utter failure): brownies. This recipe I "converted" from la barefoot and call it beginners luck at that time but it worked rather well. Note however that this recipe falls strictly into the cakey-brownie camp, for fear of over promising on gooeyness and chewiness...

@ allergy free contessa, x

Melt 450gm allergy free dark chocolate in a Bain Marie over low heat. Off the heat stir in170gm trex (vegetable shortening). In a separate bowl, mix 45gm potato flour with 150ml water and add in 3 tbsp of instant coffee granules, 2 tbsp vanilla extract and 150gm sugar. Add the melted chocolate to this mixture and let cool completely. Combine 150gm allergy-free flour with 1tbsp baking powder and some salt. When cooled, lightly mix the two and if desired, toss about 30gm of allergy free choc chips in AF flour and add that in too. Bake in a 12x18inch pan in oven preheated to 180degrees for 25 minutes.