The first of the season!

I really love this time of the year here in New Zealand where there is an abundance of fresh produce, green asparagus, red strawberries and raspberries and many other delicious fruit and vegetables. Mmmmm I can't get enough and the visit to the Farmers Market on Saturday morning was a real treat and my shopping basket was full.


This was a yummy dessert I made the other night and you may want to try this.

We were watching Marco Pierre White's program the other night and this was one of the recipes that he served, for one of the desserts for his show ~ Marco's Great British Feast.

Eton Mess
{ A public school classic thought to have been invented when a dog sat on a carefully created picnic pudding}

Meringue ( If you do not wish to make your own meringues store bought,
would be fine)
8 egg whites
400gm icing sugar
1 lemon

Mess

1 punnet strawberries
1 punnet of raspberries
20g icing sugar

Vanilla cream

500ml double cream
400g icing sugar
1/2 vanilla pod
1 small tub of vanilla icecream

Garnish 4 sprigs of fresh mint.

Preparation

1. To make the meringue, place the egg whites into a mixing bowl and whisk to stiff peaks.
Add one 1/3 of the icing sugar and whisk thoroughly. Whisk in another 1/3 of the sugar and then finally the last batch and ensure that it has dissolved well. Finally add in half the juice of a lemon. The mixture should have formed soft peaks. Spoon the mixture into a piping bag and squeeze onto a baking tray. Bake in the oven on a low heat (around 20C )
Take out when completely dry - this should take 1-2 hours. When cool break up into small chunks.

2. Put half of the strawberries and all of the raspberries into a bowl. Add 20 g of icing sugar and crush to a pulp using a fork. Put to one side.

3. To make the vanilla cream put the double cream into a bowl along with the seeds of the vanilla pod and 400g of icing sugar. Semi whip until it thickens.

4. Chop the remaining strawberries into halves and add into the bowl of vanilla cream.
Add the broken pieces of meringue and fold together.

5. To serve take 4 chilled martini glasses and put 1 scoop of vanilla ice cream into the bottom of each. Add a dessertspoon of the fruit pulp and 2 dessertspoons of the cream and meringue mix.
Garnish with a few mint leaves on each.



Have a happy day
Hugs
Carolyn