Desserts Archives - Page 5 of 13 - Retro Food For Modern Times

Category: Desserts

19
Oct
2021

A Murder on The Orient Express Collab

categories: Celebrity Recipes, Desserts, Dried Fruit, Film, Fish, Poirot

All aboard! Welcome friends to a cooking and murder collab between Silver Screen Suppers and Retro Food For Modern Times. Jenny and I have been tallking about doing this literally for months! I am breaking my usual Dining with the Dame Format to cook recipes by the stars of the 1974 version of Murder on The Orient Express and half a world away in London Jenny is doing the same. Jenny provided the recipes and we agreed to watch the film on the same day!

Murder on The Orient Express 1974 – The Film

As with the Kenneth Brannagh 2017 film, the 1974 version of Murder on the Orient Express is a star-studded affair! The rather schlocky trailer describes it as the “Who’s who in the whodunnit”.

Albert Finney stars as Poirot Agatha Christie herself gave Albert the thumbs up in his portrayal of Poirot. (He was excellent, and his denouement at the end is amazing – he had to learn 8 pages of script off by heart to do it – but for me, David Suchet is, and will only ever be, the true Poirot).

Others in the cast include Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Jacqueline Bisset, Sean Connery, Sir John Gielgud, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave and Michael York to name but a few! Ingrid Bergman won an Oscar as best supporting actress for her role in this. Albert Finney was nominated but missed out to Art Carney from Harry and Tonto.

The film follows the story of the Agatha Christie novel with the luxurious Orient Express train stuck in a snow bank with no one being able to get on or off the train. One of the guests is stabbed to death in the night. It is up to Hercule Poirot to discover whodunnit!. He soon learns that the victim is connected to the kidnapping of Daisy Armstrong 5 years before. And the group of seemingly disparate strangers on the train may not be all they seem!

The stroy is based on two true events, the first being the very famous kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby i n 1932, the second was an incident when the Orient Express was trapped for 6 days in a blizzard in Turkey in 1929.

But now, we would like you to head over to the buffet car to sample today’s menu,

The Menu

Trout in Cream Saice

For your dining pleasure on today’s journey from Istanbul to Caiais, we are delighted to be serving Trout with Cream Sauce, a recipe by Ms Ingrid Bergman.

This was delicious! Trout is such a delicate fish and the lemony cream sauce was a perfect accompaniment to it. I served mine with chips (very un Orient Express), beans, broccolini and some cherry tomatoes. It was also incredibly easy to make!!! Without the chips, it is an elegant and light dish which would be worthy of the Orient Express!

The whole time I was making the trout I was singing the Billy Bragg / Wilco song :

Ingrid Bergman, Ingrid Bergman
Let’s go make a picture
On the island of Stromboli
Ingrid Bergman

And I deft anyone who knows this song to do otherwise!

Ingrid Bergman plays Greta Ohlsson in the film and she won the Academy Award for best-supporting actress for her role. I would give her an Oscar for that trout recipe because it was chef’s kiss mwah!!!

Prune Fool Syllabub

To end your meal, we are serving Prune Fool by Ms. Wendy Hiller. Wendy plays Princess Dragomiroff in Murder. I feel that the Prune Fool, despite its name has the hint of gravitas equal to such a grand dame!

I LOVED the Prune Fool! The prunes and currants (I didn’t have sultanas in the red wine combined beautifully with the cream and shortbread. Eating this made me feel like a grownup. for something that is so simple to make, the end result is sophisticated.

I feel both of these dishes would meet Poirot’s approval!

Just as an aside, it appears as if, whilst on the Orient Express, Poirot has eschewed his normal tisanes and sirops for a little glass of…creme de menthe? Drunk via a straw no less.

But, I digress, back to the Prune Fool.
I know I am biased but how pretty is it?

Here’s the recipe:

Cooking for this was so fun! I loved the film as well! And it is always fun to have a shared project. Thank you Jenny for the recipes and for joining in particularly on one of the big hitters like Murder on The Orient Express. (Let’s not wait 6 months before we do another!!!) And if anyone else would like to Dine with the Dame and me, please let me know!!!

If you would like to see what Jenny cooked and how she celebrated Murder Sunday, head over to Silver Screen Suppers for a look!

I’ll be back next week with a more traditional version of Dining with the Dame – Murder on the Orient Express 2 (Electric Boogaloo).

Have a great week and happy watching!

19
Jul
2021

Date and Frangipane Tart

categories: Desserts, Name Plates

Hello, people of the internet. Greetings from lockdown 5 thanks to a few people in Sydney having a “Let them eat cake” attitude to the health of the people of Victoria. In return, we are going to stay at home and eat a delicious Date and Frangipane tart so, in the long run, we win. In the short term? F*** you Gladys. Your lax excuse for a lockdown in Sydney has put so many Victorian lives in danger.

Well. That was truly not how I intended to start this post. But sometimes you just need to give in to what your subconscious mind needs to say. Now my little rant is over, this is how I meant to start. What do an almond cream filling for pastries, a tropical flower, stinky gloves and a 16th century Italian Maquis all have in common?

The answer is that all are called Frangipane.

Back in the day, the leather gloves worn by the nobles would often get very stinky so Frangipani the man invented a bitter almond perfume to remove the reek from said gloves. This perfume was either made from, or inspired by, the scent of the frangipani flower.

French chefs of the time were inspired by the scent of the perfume to make an almond pastry filling which they called frangipane

I could not find any pictures of the eponymous Frangipane. So here is a random 16th century Italian nobleman with some tart, flowers and, of course, some stinky gloves.

Seriously though, this tart is delicious. And the apple juice and brandy caramel sauce? That Italian nobleman will be chef kissing and announcing “Bella, bella”.

Here’s the recipe from Neil Perry via Good Food

Have a great week! I’ll be at home, planning something very special for this coming weekend!

31
Jan
2021

REPOST – General Satisfaction

categories: Baking, Berries, Custard, Desserts, England, Lemon, Limoncello, Meringue, Pudding

Pop quiz hotshots…

General Satisfaction is:

a) A minor character in the Stanley Kubrik classic Doctor Strangelove,

b) A new character in the game Clue / Cluedo. ” It was General Satisfaction in the billiard room. With the Candlestick” or,

c) A Victorian nursery pudding with the most awesome name ever?

I made this to take to my family on Christmas day and let me tell you…general satisfaction became major happiness as people tucked in. And who would not be happy with this mix of lemony berries, topped with sponge finger biscuits liberally soaked in limoncello, topped with a lovely lemony custard and then baked with a meringue topping?

Yep. It’s like you’ve died and gone to heaven….

One of the side effects of the Paleo diet is that I seem to have become hyper-sensitive to sugar. The first version I made of this was so sweet I actually couldn’t eat it, Someone else in the house had no such qualms. He’s lying in a diabetic coma as we speak.

My first introduction to General Satisfaction came from recipe came from Tamasin Day-Lewis’ Supper for A Song . There is also this version online:

General Satisfaction

I “unsweetened” this by swapping out the jam for a slightly more tart lemon curd and adding some fresh (frozen) berries into the base mix. I also added some limoncello to the custard mix. Just because…name me one thing that isn’t made better by a liberal splash o’ booze. And you know, it is the season….

It was still pretty sweet though.

This is at it’s best straight out of the oven with the custard runny and the meringue all crispy. However the last few pieces were also pretty good at room temperature a few days later as part of an afternoon tea.

And if you make this, true to it’s name, I promise you will not be disappointed!!!

I am also interested to know what are most kookiest food names you have come across? General Satisfaction must be right up there but I would love to know yours!!!

Wishing you and yours not only general satisfaction but super happy fun times for 2015. May it also be the year you learn to stop worrying…

Signature 1

General Satisfaction

Print Recipe

A lovely tangy take on a Victorian nursery pudding.

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

1 level tbsp cornflour
425g full cream milk
1 vanilla pod, split, seeds scraped (or 1 tbsp vanilla essence)
3 large eggs, separated
5 tbsp caster sugar
170g lemon curd
1 cup mixed berries, thawed if using frozen
1 tbsp warm water
1/4 cup limoncello, maybe a bit more….
10–12 savoiardi or sponge finger biscuits

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180c.

For The Custard

Mix the cornflour with 1 tbsp milk.
Pour the milk into a small, heavy saucepan. Add the vanilla seeds, empty pod and cornflour mix.
Bring to the boil, stirring then drop the heat and simmer, still stirring for a coupe of minutes. Remove from the heat.
Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl then whisk in a tablespoonful of the milk mixture. Repeat three times then pout the combined egg and milk mixture into the warmed milk.
Set the pan back over low heat, and whisk until the custard thickens and is perfectly smooth. Don’t let it boil. Remove from the heat, and whisk in 2 tablespoon of the sugar and half of the limoncello. Set aside to cool.

For The Lemon Berry Sauce

Mix the lemon curd with 1 tbsp of just boiled water until runny and pour into the base of a medium baking dish.
Scatter the berries over the curd then press them down with a potato masher to flatten them down a bit and get their juices running.
Lay the savoiardi on top of the curd and berry mix and sprinkle with the remaining limoncello.
Poor the cooled custard over the biscuits, straining if it is lumpy.

For The Meringue

Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then whisk in the remaining sugar, little by little until you have a firm shiny meringue.
Spoon the meringue over the custard.
Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for about 20 minutes until the meringue is pale golden and crisp when you tap it.

Notes

Adding a little bit of the milk to the egg, prevents the egg from cooking.

31
Dec
2020

18th Century Trifle

categories: Desserts, Trifle, Vintage Recipes

When you can’t find the music to get down and boogie, all you can do is step back in time. Ball of confusion when nothing is new and there’s nothing doing, step back in time

– Kylie Minogue, Step back in Time

I feel that ball of confusion is probably a polite way to describe 2020. Maybe in a subconscious desire to block out the present, I decided to step back in time with dessert on Christmas Day. And when I say step back, I mean step waaaayyyy back. We ate a dessert that could have sat on the table of poor old Mad King George – an 18th-century trifle! Fitting I think as so many of us came near to losing our sanity at least once over the last 365 days!

You will note that most of the pictures of my trifle have the dish adorned with some ivy leaves. I not only did this to up the Christmassy green and red of the recipe but when washing said dish before making the trifle I dropped it in the sink and broke a bit off the bottom. It still stood perfectly well but was not very sightly! It was way too late to go and buy another trifle dish so it had to be disguised!

The recipe called for Boudoir biscuits. I had never heard of them before. But, in my imagination they are a glamorously louche biscuit eaten by the French only in the privacy of their bedrooms. Turns out it is just the French name for what we here would call sponge fingers or savoiardi. It also turns out that pretty much every country has a different name for these sweet treats – my favourite being the name used in Uruguay and Venezula – “plantillas” meaning little plants!

So first thing we do it give our little plants a good old watering in some booze. I used marsala because I had some but the recipe suggests sherry. I also really like the label on the marsala bottle. It has a jaunty little horse, with what looks like a plant pot on its side, pulling a wagon containing what is presumably a keg of marsala. Is the plant meant to be a boronia plant? And is the plant the same thing that the little horse is wearing on his head?

Incidentally, marsala wine was first brought to England in the 18th century so using it is not entirely out of place!

I topped the soaked biscuits with custard and then topped the custard with the syllabub. The recipe asks for the trifle to syllabub be decorated with “blobs” of red currant jelly. I went to 3 supermarkets but I could not find red currant jelly for love or money! The shelves were piled high with all sorts of condiments containing cranberries. But no redcurrants in sight! I subbed in some raspberry jelly and fresh raspberries for my topping.

The trifle was delicious!! And proof that a step back in time can be a wonderful thing!

18th Century Trifle – The Recipe

This recipe comes from Sarah Edington’s excellent book Classic British Cooking.

This will be my last post for 2020 so, as ever thank you all for reading and commenting and being a part of this! I wish you and yours a fabtacular year ahead!

2021 here we come!

03
Oct
2020

Orange and Cinnamon Creme Caramel

categories: Desserts, Food Holiday, France, Orange

Happy Caramel Custard Day everyone! Yes indeed there is a day for every sort of food imaginable and October 3rd is Caramel Custard Day! I am celebrating with a Moroccan twist on the classic French dish with an Orange and Cinnamon Creme Caramel.

No one in my family, except me, is a great lover of sweet things. As a result, I didn’t have too many desserts growing up. The one thing we did have and which my mum cooked to PERFECTION was a creme caramel. So, I know what a good creme caramel looks and tastes like. The caramel needs to be a nanosecond away from bitterness, the custard smooth and silky, the top a shiny mirror glaze and the almost ombre effect of the darker caramel soaked custard at the top and the paler pure custard at the bottom.

My problem is, I have, up until now been absolutely terrible at making it myself! I tried to make a creme caramel recipe from Cantina THREE times. Twice the caramel went all crystally. Another time there was no sauce only a hard set toffee that was stuck to the bottom of each of the serving dishes!

Not so with this recipe which came from Lousie Frank’s Winter which is a fabulous book. I’ve made many great dishes from it and, as it was a Tasty Reads selection will no doubt pop up here again!

The Recipe

This version of a creme caramel was lovely. The cinnamon came through quite strongly, the orange not so much. When I make this again, I will sprinkle some orange zest over the top of the completed desserts to really ramp up the taste of the orange. You could, of course, leave one or both of them out completely if you are not a lover of orange or cinnamon and this would still be a damn fine Creme caramel.

So on October 3rd what do we say to Caramel Custards? We say…

Have a great weekend everyone!