Foodie Friday On A Saturday - Mummy Lou's Birthday Dessert Edition

Ok if it isn't already obvious this little old post should have been up yesterday but as you might know it was Mummy Lou's birthday :) so things were a bit hectic at times. We started the celebrations on Thursday when after my doctors appointment  (don't ask !) we went to the Metro Centre for a little shopping and eating trip. The day started well with free Starbucks hot chocolate in the car park to celebrate their new drive through opening :) I will definitely get a shot of hazelnut syrup in the my hot chocolate the next time - it was yummy! We then did a bit of shopping to enable Mummy Lou to spend here birthday money, she got a lovely new purse, a Yankee Red Velvet candle, and some faux ugg boots to use as slippers in the winter. She bought me a few bits in Primark, TK Maxx and in Yankee Doodle Candy where we stocked up on Nestle Butterfingers NOM!!. We then went for a meal in Chiquitos - I love Mexican food so we went for the 2 course lunch menu for just £7.99 each excluding drinks - my mum had Nachos For One, and the Spicy Chicken and Melted Cheese Quesadilla, and I had the Mushrooms Con Queso and the Goats Cheese and Sweet Potato Salad which was gorgeous! We were so stuffed we didn't have a dessert but we did return home via the insane new Krispy Kreme store which had opened that day - It was crazy - the queues were about 20 minutes if you wanted a single doughnut, thankfully my mum wanted a double dozen - two boxes of 12 doughnuts - 1 variety box  and 1 box of classic rings instead of a birthday cake so I was served pretty quickly. My first ever bite of a Krispy Kreme was a dangerous one - I ate way more than I should have done being wheat and gluten intolerant but the stomach pain was soooooo worth it :)

Unsurprisingly yesterday we weren't really hungry all day we did have a doughnut or so with visitors just to be social you understand ;) but we didn't really eat much till about 6pm when I'd continued the Mexican theme and made massive dish of nachos with homemade salsa, and some other dips, and some of my Spicy Mexican Cornbread - we accompanied that with a bottle of nice white wine. About an hour and a half later I made dessert something I've made many, many times before Frozen Berries With Hot White Chocolate Sauce - I'm almost apologising in a way for calling this a recipe - it really is that easy - if you don't do sweet and sickly don't make this - although the berries are quite tart the sauce is VERY sweet! We got the original recipe from American cook Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa At Home cookbook hence the American measurements and terminology 

Frozen Berries With Hot White Chocolate Sauce

2 Half Pints Fresh Raspberries

2 Half Pints Fresh Blueberries

1 Pint Fresh Strawberries Hulled and Sliced Thickly

1 Cup Heavy Cream

10oz Good White Chocolate 

1/2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract

This recipe imo makes it's more complicated then it needs to be, since you need to freeze the fruit first, but this is my quicker and lazier version 

1 Box / Packet Frozen Mixed Berries / Summer Fruits

1 x 300ml Carton Double Cream

300g White Chocolate 

1 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract 

1. About 10 or so minutes before you want to serve divide your fruit up into between however many people  you want to serve and put into bowls. We used roughly half a 500g pack of Tesco Mixed Summer Fruits which included raspberries, blackberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, and white currants - We are pretty greedy so play it by eye. If your using frozen strawberries you might want to take your fruit out a bit earlier and they can sometimes be pretty hard even after the sauce.

2. Time for the sauce - get a heatproof bowl together over a pan of simmering water. Break up the chocolate and add it to the bowl - we used a mixture of Lindt and the cheapest one Tesco had to offer. Then add about 200ml of the double cream to the bowl.These quantities are just a guide really, you can alter the amounts of cream and chocolate to alter the consistency of the sauce, more cream equals a runnier sauce, more chocolate equals a thicker consistency especially when it's cooled. Then add you vanilla extract to the bowl - please use extract the flavour is so much better than the essence - this is a catering sized bottle from Costco but most supermarkets sell it now. I've used a little bit more than the original recipe here but I used some slightly poorer (and cheaper!) white chocolate then recommended.

3. Gently stir the ingredients over the simmering water until the chocolate has melted into the cream. Please try not to get any steam or water into your mixture as this can make the sauce grainy. You should be left with a mixture that pretty much resembles condensed milk.

4. Pour the hot sauce over the frozen fruit - the sauce melts the fruit and and starts to solidify when it hits the cold bowl and frozen fruit, grab a spoon and eat :)

Yeah I said this wasn't for the faint hearted ! - This recipe easily makes enough for 3 greedy people! but my mum always likes to take a spoon to the left over sauce and she wanted to try it with Krispy Kreme! Lol Depending on the quantities used this sauce can be used as a fondue or a dip, and even with the addition of more chocolate as the basis for white chocolate truffles! The quantities really are just a guide put in what you have and experiment - once the sauce is cooled you can pop it in the fridge and reheat gently as needed but ours very rarely makes it that far! This is a stupidly easy recipe that looks really impressive, yes it's sweet but the tartness of the berries really balances it out even so I wouldn't recommend eating more than a small bowl at a time.

This is one of mine and Mummy Lou's favourite desert recipes because it is so quick and easy around 10 minutes or less from start to finish - not something you want to eat on a regular basis but for a treat it's well worth it, what's your favourite pudding and what's your quick dessert standby let me know in the comments?