pistachio meringues with blackberry and elderflower granita

Meringue is one of those things that I find very therapeutic to make, the added bonus being it's always so wonderful to eat too. In the Winter it's comforting with a heavy unctuous chocolate or toffee topping, and in the Summer (well, the sun has been out for a couple of days, so we could be forgiven for thinking that it must be nearly Summer!) what better way to finish off a meal than with a sweet, crisp meringue, dotted with nubs of bright green pistachios, and then piled high with floppy clouds of double cream, and topped off with a tart and refreshing granita?

Firstly, start by making the meringue the day before.

75g shelled pistachio nuts

4 egg whites

200g golden caster sugar

1 tsp cornflour

1 tsp white wine vinegar

Line a baking tray with baking parchment and heat the oven to 120C / Gas 1. Tip the pistachios into a shallow baking tin and toast in the oven for 7-10 minutes. Blitz in a food processor or chop roughly and then set aside.

In a clean bowl whisk the egg whites until they are stiff, but not dry. Gradually whisk in the sugar a spoon at a time until it's all been incorporated and the mixture is no longer gritty. Quickly whisk in the corflour and vinegar, which you have mixed together into a paste, and then lightly fold in about three quarters of the pistachios.

Spoon the mixture onto the baking tray to make four round shells with a slight hollow in the middle for the filling. Then sprinkle over the remaining pistachio nuts, and bake low in the oven for about an hour, or until they are firm and crisp on the outside. If they brown too quickly you may need to turn the oven down, or put the tray lower down in the oven. When they are cooked leave in the oven to cool - preferably overnight.

To make the Granita.......

225g blackberries (or other soft fruit of your choice)

250mls elderflower and blackcurrant cordial

juice of 1 lemon

....simply puree the fruit with the cordial and push through a fine mesh sieve. Add the lemon juice and then pour into a shallow container and freeze for about an hour. By this time the granita should be starting to freeze around the edges.

Gently stir the crystals with a fork and then put the container back into the freezer. Keep doing this every half hour, taking care not to crush the crystals too much otherwise you will lose the lovely 'grainy' texture.

When the mixture has reached the consistency of a firm slush it's ready to be eaten.

Finally, when you're ready, assemble the meringue with the cream and granita and serve straight away. I know I'm definitely looking forward to a long, hot Summer. It's the perfect excuse for eating lots more lovely meringue with refreshing fruit granita!

banana chocolate muffins with banana fudge glaze - definitely not for the faint-hearted!

I make no apologies for yet another post about chocolate (I feel there may be a theme developing here!) after all, chocolate is possibly one of my favourite things (what, you hadn't guessed!) and always seems to work wonderfully well in any context; this recipe being no exception......and these muffins have got banana in them, so that makes them healthy, right?

Adding the banana to these chocolate muffins was the result of needing to use up some sad looking bananas that were sat in the corner of my kitchen slowly turning a deeper and deeper shade of black! When they were cooked they looked a little bare, so I made up a fudge sauce and threw in some more chopped bananas (well there were quite a few to use up!) and voila, there you have it.....soft, chewy chocolate/banana muffin, drizzled with buttery banana fudge mmmmmm!....

Banana Chocolate Muffins with Banana Fudge Glaze

(Recipe) Cabbage Roses & Cupcakes

225mls single cream

50g cornflour

100g dark soft brown sugar

3 tbsp cocoa

75g butter

125g dark chocolate

75mls sunflower oil

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

125g golden caster sugar

125g plain flour

2 and a half tsps baking powder

1 large banana chopped

Fudge Glaze

50mls double cream

175g soft brown sugar

50g butter

1 chopped banana

Put the cream, cocoa, brown sugar, and cornflour into a saucepan and whisk together over a medium heat until boiled and very thick and smooth. Take off the heat and beat in the butter and broken up chocolate until melted and combined into a thick, glossy batter. Next, add the oil, vanilla, one of the eggs and mix this in. Finally add the caster sugar and the remaining egg and beat again until smooth.

Then, sift the flour and baking powder into the chocolate mixture, add the banana and beat through until combined.

Pour the batter into muffin cases or tins and bake for 25-30 mins at 180C/ 350F / Gas 4.

To make the glaze, melt the butter and sugar together in a small pan until the sugar has melted. Add in the cream and boil for 2-3 minutes stirring all the time. Take off the heat and add in the chopped banana. Stir and leave to cool until it has thickened enough to drizzle over the muffins and cover them.

These are best eaten on the day that they're made, but they also make a delicious, and very tempting dessert eaten warm with ice-cream and extra banana fudge sauce!

twisted candy!

You see the thing is......

while I really do love eating good, fresh, healthy, wholefoods, I can also be tempted to go over to 'the dark side'!

This was one of those times; standing in the checkout queue yesterday, absently waiting my turn, blissfully unaware of the temptation ahead, I spied this twist on a Cadbury Creme Egg

It was calling me, with it's iridescent yellow and red and bluey-purple wrap, well....it was a done deal, and I snuck home furtively with my elicit hoard!

Ah - but what's it like inside the wrapper I hear you ask? (Ginny I thought I'd elaborate!) Well, I ate the evidence before I could take any more photos, but it's basically a chunky twist of chocolate with a creme egg centre. Packaging aside - I still prefer the original though, for it's gooey fun-of-eatingness!

No recipe this time, just a pic of a candy wrapper that I wanted to share - just because......!

Arte Y Pico.. PostScript

I was amazed, and delighted, to find that Marye at Baking Delights had also passed on this award to me - two in one week! - Thank you Marye; as you say, for a non-blogger it must seem crazy to get excited about a picture to put on your blog. But really it's more about the fun and networking of the blogshere, and all the wonderful people you meet along the way!
Check out Marye's blog, it's inspiring and full of lovely recipes and interesting articles.