Basbousa is a cake all the way from Egypt. It has a slightly granular mouthfeel as compared to normal cakes since it is made from fine semolina flour. Once cooled, a simple syrup is poured over it. The cake imbibes the simple syrup to become a moist, soft and spongy cake. So what gave me the opportunity to do this? Gulab jamun! I had a lot of the gulab jamun syrup lying around in the kitchen and I wanted to repurpose it in some way. If you're an Indian, you can probably relate. Initially this was going to be a solo cake but it ended up expanding to a plated dessert. To enunciate on the richness of the cake from the syrup, I went with dark chocolate ganache; specifically dark chocolate since its 70 percent or more cocoa prevents you from gagging from all the sweetness by lingering with some bitter back notes (and I’ll also take some of its heart benefits, please). For some relief to the palette, I decided to plate some sliced pineapple for some toned sweetness and acidity and garnished with some slivered almonds for some crunch.

Egyptian semolina cake

Basbousa cake:

• 1/2 cup semolina flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 cup yoghurt, whisked
• 1/4 cup whole milk
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1 egg

Preheat your oven to 180C. Grease a 6 inch round baking pan with butter and dust with all purpose flour. In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients and whisk thoroughly. Whisk in the yoghurt and milk, followed by the melted butter until a homogenous cake batter is formed. Add an egg and combine. Pour into the prepared baking pan and bake for about 25 minutes, or unutil a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool to room temperature.

Simple syrup:

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• A few strands of saffron

Combine the sugar, water and saffron in a pot. Bring to a gentle boil for about 5 minutes. Allow to cook completely. Soak the syrup into the cooled cake using a pastry brush.

Chocolate ganache:

• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 65g dark chocolate

In a saucepan, bring the cream to a slight simmer on a medium heat. Add and melt the chocolate, reducing the heat to a low. Remove from heat once combined.

Plating:

• Slivered almonds
• Pineapple slices

Place cubes of the basbousa cake on a plate. Pipe the chocolate ganache and garnish with pineapple slices and slivered almonds.

Let me present to you a spontaneous, unforeseen dessert that I literally whipped up at the eleventh hour. The truth is that I made crème pâtissière or French pastry cream for filling choux au craquelin. Sadly, my cream puffs did not rise (my craquelin biscuit was too heavy; I’m working on that!), as a result of which they were dense and undercooked and could not be filled with the pastry cream (I will be baking choux pastry again sometime in May, so be around!). As much as I was disappointed that my afternoon didn’t give me the results I hoped for, I’m still very glad that I gave choux au craquelin a chance!

As for the pastry cream, I did not want to squander it, so I used it in a very humble dessert: custard cups. For the individual components, we will be making crème pâtissière folded with apple sauce and swirled with whipped coffee, followed by crisp rolled apples dusted with brown sugar! These apples I've used are Rockit apples, grown in New Zealand. They're basically mini-apples which I saw at a grocery store and decided to give a try! A very simple dessert, however I wasn’t in the mood of committing to a complicated project, given the reason for the creation of this dessert. 

HOWEVER, I did use the presented circumstance for something constructive: this was a great time to redeem myself and make thinly rolled apple roses/ slices, which I fell short of in “royal echoes”! Oh alright, maybe the custard did help them to remain rolled, but at least I could cut the apple evenly and roll it without breaking!

Crème Pâtissière cups

Apple sauce:

• 1 1/2 apple, peeled, cored and chopped
• 1/4 cup cool water
• A pinch of salt
• A pinch of sugar
• Cinnamon powder

Combine the chopped apples and water in a pot. Cook on a low heat until the apples become tender and soft. Remove from heat and mash the apples, season with pinches of salt, sugar and cinnamon and pass the sauce through a sieve. Cool completely.

Crème pâtissière:

• 2 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 8g corn starch
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp. butter
• Prepared apple sauce

Whisk together the yolks and sugar, corn starch and vanilla extract until combined and double in volume. In a saucepan, heat the milk until it just starts to boil. Slowly drizzle a third of the heated milk into the eggs and sugar, whisking vigorously. Pour this mixture into the remaining milk and return to a low flame, stirring constantly until the pastry cream thickens. Remove from heat and combine the butter. Cover with a plastic wrap and cool in the fridge before folding in the apple sauce.

Assembly:

• 1 apple
• 1/2 tbsp. coffee
• 1/2 tbsp. water
• Brown sugar, for dusting

Pour the pastry cream into individual cups/ ramekins. Add the coffee and water to a bottle and shake until bubbly. Equally divide the mixture into the prepared cups and marble with a toothpick. Chop the apple in half and cut thin slices. Roll the slices and place them in the custard and dust with brown sugar.

Serve cold!!! 

This dish originates from me buying a whole bottle of rose concentrate for a workshop that needed two whole tablespoons of it. While half of the bottle has made me numerous afternoon rose milkshakes, I still have a long way to go and I hope to use some of it for recipes on my blog! I initially envisioned making an elaborate dessert, mostly as an excuse to finish it off, but I scraped that idea because I couldn’t think of anything past a rose coulis or sauce. Using so much of rose concentrate in a single dessert didn’t quite reason with my health-conscious consciousness. Instead, I decided to transform one of my favourite desserts, being apple crisp.

The base of the dessert is a rose and saffron apple crisp with a rose syrup macerated apple rose as a garnish. I mostly see desserts like these as an opportunity to try out new things! In this case it was learning how to cut an apple really thin and rolling it to form a rose. I don’t have a mandolin so I reasoned that I’d cut the slices with a knife. I got it right in my fifth attempt and suddenly saw myself with a knife and an apple for the final pictures for this post. The only problem was that I shot myself in the foot by not practicing for a whole month. This meant that my slices were too uneven and the rose broke. Instead, the final plate features a fan of apple slices, which I can totally live with but not without a mandolin which I need ASAP!

Apple crisp, with a rose-filled twist!

Apple crisp:

• 3 apples, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tbsp. rose syrup
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup rolled oats
• 6 tbsp. cold unsalted butter

Toss the apples, sugar and rose syrup in a bowl and allow to rest for about 15 minutes. Combine the brown sugar, flour and oats in a large bowl and cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Grease 6 large ramekins with butter. Arrange the rested apple slices at the bottom of each ramekin, until they reach half the depth. Fill the remaining ramekin with the oats and flour mixture. Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for 20 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool before unmoulding.

Macerated apple slices:

• 1 large apple, cored
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 3 tbsp. rose syrup
• A pinch of salt

Combine the water, rose syrup and salt to form the maceration liquid. Cut the apple in half and cut thin slices. Soak the slices in the maceration liquid for about 10 minutes before removing onto a large plate.

Plating:

Run a knife around the edge of a cooled ramekin. Invert it onto a plate. Fan out the macerated apple slices.

If you are making an apple rose: On a flat surface, place the apple slices end to end, slightly overlapping each other. From one end, being to gently roll the slices to form a rose. Garnish the apple crisp!

 This dessert is a play on textures and looks. A creamy panna cotta paired with a crunchy crumble and fresh fruit. But why looks? If you hadn't read the title and I asked you "what did I put the white chocolate in" you would've said the panna cotta. But of course, I did not.

Who new white chocolate would look like this? When you melt white chocolate and take it a little further, it caramelizes and attains this nutty, bitter-sweet flavour that pairs great in desserts. White chocolate is already really sweet, so this is like the go-to route. I don't know why, but the addition of black sesame in desserts sounds kind of "royal" to me. And when a found out that the grocery store across the street stocks that stuff, I immediately had to run and get it!

This dessert basically has 2 components: the panna cotta and the crumble. The crumble is basically melting chocolate, so to the core, one. For me, the characteristic of a perfect panna cotta is that it jiggles when you touch it- an indication that you have the perfect amount of gelatine in it, which is absolutely key.

The panna cotta is rich and decadent, the crumble is slightly bitter and nutty and the the citrus adds a zing to the dish. 

An Italian classic. Panna Cotta.

Panna cotta:

• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 7g gelatine
• 4 tbsp. cold water
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

Combine the milk and sugar until there are no lumps. Heat the milk on a low flame until it becomes hot. While the milk is heating, hydrate the gelatine with the water. Once the milk is hot, whisk in the gelatine and remove from heat. Add the cream and vanilla and mix until combined. Pour into 6 ramekins/ sphere moulds. Allow to set completely (2-4 hours).

Caramelized white chocolate crumble:

• 200 g white chocolate
• 1 tbsp. coffee powder
• 2 tbsp. black sesame

Chop the chocolate into small chunks. Spread it out into a heat proof pan and place into a preheated oven at 160C until caramelized, stirring occasionally. Cool completely before breaking into smaller pieces. Add the coffee powder along with toasted sesame seeds, crushing into small granules.

Plating:

• Orange wedges
• Fresh mint

Unmould the panna cotta onto a plate. Add the white chocolate crumble and garnish with orange wedges and mint.

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 Chocolate: a quintessential part of desserts. But yes, chocolate has shaped (literally) many aspects of both sweet and savoury food and it is a really versatile ingredient despite its better known use in desserts. However, chocolate in savoury is for another day. Today I wanted to do none other than the famous classic: chocolate brownie. I wanted to do something with chocolate that would sit high on the plate and it popped into my mind! Now when it comes to brownies, there's always this element of preference. Some people like their brownie more firm, leaning towards the cake and others prefer their brownie to be nice and fudgy. Personally, I'm all for the fudgy interior. The difference is here and there in terms of ingredients but that small difference multiplies itself in the oven and will change the fate of your brownie. Fudgy ones will have more butter and chocolate and cakey ones will have less of those and more flour. If you are a fudgy brownie fanatic, there is a method where you add chunks of unmelted chocolate into your batter, so try it out!

As I said before, I wanted the brownie to sit high on the plate. And that's where the idea of making a double decker brownie came into mind. For the layer between the two bars, I decided to do a salted caramel. A little backstory- my first time (intentionally) making caramel was when I used it to test spun sugar. That turned out quite well and I decided to make caramel sauce which, subsequently, did not turn out well, but at least I wasn't left feverishly stirring caramel-y milk with a rock of caramel on a bed of praline (oops). I would certainly recommend to swirl your sugar around and add other ingredients to it when it just starts to golden up (tried and tested!). 

Now this would obviously be too sweet, so to make it more appealing, I decided to pair it with a bitter coffee foam (let's just assume "there's no such thing as too much chocolate" doesn't exist here). Its definitely an in-your-face addition but certainly worth it (and needed); plus we'd give anything for a coffee-chocolate combo, wouldn't we? This isn't very original but sometimes you come across a confectionary that seems just right; this is probably one of them.

Brownie:

• 2/3 cup all purpose flour
• A pinch of salt
• 220 gm. bittersweet chocolate
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup neutral oil
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 3 eggs + 1 yolk
• *extra bittersweet choc. chunks

Preheat your oven to 180C. In a glass bowl, combine chocolate, butter and oil and melt over a double boiler until all combined. Cool slightly. Add sugar and combine. Add one lightly whisked egg at a time and completely incorporate before adding the next. Combine flour and salt and mix until just combined and smooth. Add extra choc. chunks, if using. Pour in a greased pan lined with parchment paper Bake for about 25 minutes until only a few crumbs appear on skewer inserted. Cool and slice.

Salted caramel:

• ¼ cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp. water
• A pinch of salt + extra
• 1/8 cup milk
• 1 tbsp. butter

Melt the sugar, water and salt over a low heat in a heavy based pan. Once it starts to turn golden, add the butter and milk. Stir together on a medium heat until butter has melted. Make sure there aren’t any lumps. Sprinkle some extra salt.

Bitter Coffee Whip:

• 2 tbsp. instant coffee
• 2 tbsp. granulated sugar
• 2 tbsp. HOT water

Whip to stiff/ semi stiff peaks.

Assembly:

• Mint leaves, for garnish

Sandwich the caramel between 2 brownie slices. Dollop or quenelle (if you're feeling fancy) the coffee whip.

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I absolutely love using lemons in both savoury and sweet. From their zesty scented air that they gladly accompany in a cake to the tangy relief in a sorbet or ceviche, I’ve used them quite a lot here. When I first pictured this dessert (or more accurately, I pictured an out-of-focus dish as I hadn’t yet decided what it was going to be), it was bathed in afternoon sun. That reminded me obviously of lemons and lemons remind me of a lemon cake that I made not so long ago. What I really like about that cake is that it’s really moist and light, and seeing that my dessert  was to be summery, what better choice! 

While choosing its accompanying components, I decided to go with a lemon-honey-mango theme because all of these ingredients work really well together and they are also monochrome yellow, so a nod to my original imagination of this dish. For some texture, I initially decided to do some sort of crumble but then the idea of a honey granola popped into mind. I’ve made a lot of granola in the past and trust me it can’t have been a better choice to pair with the cake. It’s really nutty and slightly sweet with the honey and the addition of dried cranberries dubs it into a honey “gemstone” granola! With the mango, I got my inspiration from a dish I saw on TV. It basically had a burnt peach component where they charred the outside of the peach on a grill until black but to keep the inside still sweet. Obviously, I didn’t want to take the mango that far, so I held the mangoes over an open flame long enough to impart a smoky flavour and enough to keep them bright still! 

My last component is a honey caramel sauce. Another addition that would certainly brighten this up would be some plain-flavoured ice-cream. You don’t have to make the ice cream; I didn’t because I wanted it to make ice cream quenelles (just a fancy way to serve ice cream!), but it was so humid that when I initially plated it, it ran down the entire plate, so opted not to put it in the final plating. So much for errors! I'm a huge fan of this combination and I hope you like this summery dessert too!

Lemon cake:

• ½ cup + 6 tbsp. sugar
• ½ cup softened butter
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1¼ cup flour
• ½ tsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• A pinch of salt
• ½ cup buttermilk
• Zest from 2 lemons

Preheat your oven to 180˚C. Lightly grease a loaf pan with oil and line with parchment paper at the bottom. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Then gradually blend in the egg and vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking powder and incorporate into the creamed butter-sugar mixture. Add the baking soda to the buttermilk and incorporate into the batter. Gently fold in the lemon zest. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 40-45 minutes.

Honey “gemstone” granola:

• 1 cup oats
• ¼ cup almonds
• 1 tbsp. pistachios
• 1 tbsp. sunflower seeds
• 1 tbsp. pumpkin seeds
• A pinch of salt
• A pinch of cinnamon
• 2 tbsp. honey
• 2 tbsp. neutral oil
• Dried cranberries

Chop the almonds and pistachios. Combine with all other ingredients except cranberries. Spread evenly onto a parchment lined baking tray and bake for about 20 minutes at 180˚C until golden brown. Remove and mix once every 5 minutes. Once cooled combine chopped cranberries.

Honey caramel:

• ¼ cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp. water
• A pinch of salt
• 1/8 cup milk
• 1 tbsp. butter
• 2 tbsp. honey

Melt the sugar, water and salt over a low heat in a heavy based pan. Once it starts to turn golden, add the butter and milk. Stir together on a medium heat until butter has melted. Make sure there aren’t any lumps. Stir in the honey.

Vanilla ice cream:

• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup cream
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• ½ cup caster sugar
• 6 egg yolks

Combine milk, cream and vanilla in a pan. Bring to a boil and set aside for 10 minutes. Whisk the yolks and sugar in a bowl until thick and pale then whisk in the milk mixture. Pour the mixture into a pan and stir on a low heat until thickened. Cool the mixture. Churn in an ice cream machine until semi solid before placing in the freezer for about an hour. 

Plating:

• Mango wedges (skewer some mango wedges and hold them over an open flame for a few seconds)

Start by "smearing" some caramel in the centre of the plate. Place 2 slices of the cake, surrounded by the granola and mango wedges. (Serve with ice-cream after admiring the plate!)

 Funnily, (three years later and  I'm still wondering if this is a word) the idea for this sorbet- themed dessert popped into my mind when I was sitting in my room with the AC turned on.  So, I had this stunned moment of having a great idea similar to a brain freeze but for a completely different reason! I wanted the dessert to be themed around a sorbet with a sweet sauce and some crunchy bits so I knew what I wanted to do and what it should look like right from the very beginning. This was really exciting to make because I was testing out a lot of new techniques- making tuiles and spun sugar for the crunchy elements. 

Tuiles are almost like a wafer; they’re very thin and add great crunch to both sweet and savoury dishes. The interesting part about them is that you can actually shape them into curls or cones straight out of the oven! You have to be ready to burn your fingers though because you can only shape them within a few seconds and after that they become brittle and can’t be shaped. Since this was my first time making them, I decided not to try to do a lot, so I broke them up into shards instead. 

Tuiles were great to make and all, but the MOST EXCITING part of this dessert was, without a doubt the spun sugar. Spun sugar is basically caramel but in thread form. You basically run a fork through caramel and flick it back and forth and you collect golden threads over a long spoon handle; really exciting and cool.

I didn’t want the dessert to be too sweet and the lemon sorbet was just the right ticket- tangy and sweet. But I must say the sorbet was the most time consuming element of all because I didn’t use a churner. If you’re like me and aren’t using a churner, I recommend starting the sorbet the afternoon before so it freezes in time. I wanted the plating to be a little fun, so with my sauce which is a mango coulis, I splattered it over the plate and then placed the sorbet with the spun sugar encasing one half of it!

Lemon sorbet:

• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 tbsp. lemon zest
• ¼ cup lemon juice

Place the sugar and water in a large pan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a low, simmer for 2 minutes and remove from heat. Cool completely. Stir in the lemon juice and zest. Pour the mixture into a container and freeze uncovered for about 1 hour until semi solid (a layer of sugar crystals forms at the top). Mix to break up crystals and return to the freezer. Stir the sorbet mix once an hour for about 4 times before refrigerating for 6-7 hours (or overnight, if you’re patient) until firm. Alternatively churn in an ice cream machine. Scoop two large scoops and join them to form a sphere. Refrigerate until plating.

Tuile:

• ¼ cup plain flour
• ¼ caster sugar
• 1 egg white
• 1 tbsp. honey
• 40 gm. unsalted butter, slightly melted

Preheat oven to 180˚C. Blend all ingredients in a blender. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.  Thinly spread the mixture in a large sheet onto the parchment and bake for about 10-15 or until golden brown. Cool completely.

Mango coulis:

• 2 small mangoes
• 3 tbsp. orange juice
• A pinch of salt
• 1 tbsp. granulated sugar, if needed

Blend all ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Sieve the coulis.

Spun sugar:

• ¼ cup granulated sugar
• A pinch of salt
• A few drops of lemon juice

Evenly sprinkle the sugar and salt over the base of a heavy based pan and place over low heat. Add the lemon juice. Keep moving the sugar every 2 minutes to avoid burning. Melt the sugar over the heat slowly tipping the pan over to evenly melt. Once the caramel starts to colour, keep swirling until it turns and even golden brown. Remove from heat and place in a pan of warm water. Oil the handle of a long handled wooden spoon and rest each end on a tall jar so it remains suspended. Hold to forks back to back. Dip the prongs in the caramel and with the prongs pointing downwards flick forwards and backwards across the handle and sugar threads will form. Re dip the forks as necessary and flick until a reasonable amount of sugar draped from the handles. Carefully remove.

Plating:

• Lemon zest

Splatter the mango coulis onto a plate. Place the sorbet sphere on the coulis and top of with lemon zest. Break two shards from the tuile and place on the sorbet. Wrap the spun sugar threads around the sorbet.