Hello and Happy New Year. May 2018 be marvellous.
Here in the southern hemisphere, summer fruit is everywhere and we’re loving it. And just to ease ourselves out of our celebratory holiday mode and back into the working year, we’ve combined a refreshing summer tipple with the abundance of berry fruit to make a simple, delicious and pretty healthy dessert to kick off our blogging year.
We’ve used a mixture of champagne and Crème de Cassis which is known as Kir Royale but you can use any wine or even fruit juice as the base for your jelly.
To balance the decadence of further imbibing, even in jelly form, we’ve packed our dessert with anti-oxidants, vitamins K, C, B2, folate, potassium, magnesium and dietary fibre which are found in all those delicious berry fruits.
Who knew dessert could be so good for us.
Easy, quick, delicious, healthy, colourful and impressive. What a great start to the New Year!
Rosie
SUMMER FRUIT IN KIR JELLY
Serves 6-8
500 ml champagne or sparkling white wine
1 tablespoon Crème de Cassis
40 gm caster sugar (or to taste)
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
4 titanium strength gelatine leaves
250 gm raspberries
250 gm small strawberries, hulled
125 gm blueberries
125 gm blackberries
50 gm red currants or pomegranate arils (optional)
Have at the ready two 21cm x 11cm x 7cm deep (1.25 lit capacity), preferably non-stick, tins.
Bring half the champagne, all the Crème de Cassis and the sugar to a simmer in a small saucepan.
Meanwhile, soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for a minute or so until soft. Remove and squeeze out any excess water.
Remove the champagne mix from the heat and add the softened gelatine, stirring to ensure it has completely dissolved.
Add the remaining champagne and lime juice and allow to cool.
Meanwhile, gently mix the fruit together being mindful not to bruise it. If the hulled strawberries are bigger than your thumb, halve or quarter them.
Place a mixture of perfectly shaped fruit on the base of one of the tins as this will become the top of your dessert when it is turned out. Spoon the remaining fruit on top.
Pour all but 150mls of the champagne mix over the fruit, cover with plastic wrap and place the second tin on top. Weight it down with a couple of tins of tomatoes or the like and refrigerate for an hour or until set.
Remove the tins and plastic wrap.
Warm up the remaining 150mls of champagne mixture and pour over the surface of the fruit.
This initial weighting down keeps the fruit compact and more easy to slice and adding the last 150mls later prevents spillage and creates a firm base.
Refrigerate overnight or for at least 6 hours until firmly set.
Un-mould by sitting the tin in hot water for a few seconds before turning out onto a serving plate.
Slice with a hot knife and serve with ice cream, crème Chantilly or yoghurt.
TIP: Use any variety of fruit or wine you fancy, in this recipe. Just keep to the weight to liquid to gelatine ratio and ensure you choose fruit that is soft enough to cut through within the jelly.