Brandied oranges - the ideal weekend dessert

Brandied oranges with vanilla ice cream

Last night being Sunday night, we were looking for a dessert to go with Alvin from Masterchef's caramelised pork belly recipe. Thankfully, the Women's Weekly Cooking Class Cookbook came to the rescue with the recipe for Brandied Oranges (p. 96).

The upside to this recipe is that it's one of the easiest recipes I have ever, ever made. The downside is that there's lots of messy and time consuming preparation work. The results however are delicious. Here's the ingredients:

8 oranges
1 1/2 cups of water
1 cup castor sugar
1/2 cup of brandy
1/2 jigger of Cointreau or Grand Marnier (I used Grand Marnier)

Now, this is where I broke with following the recipe and went my own way.

• First of all, combine in a saucepan 1 1/2 cup of water and 1 cup of caster sugar. Stir until dissolved while bringing to the boil. Once the mixture has boiled, take off the heat and leave to cool.
• While the sugar syrup is cooling, use a sharp knife to peel the oranges down to the flesh, removing all the rind and pith on the oranges. Don't be afraid to cut deep and clean up any remaining pith. Make sure you peel the oranges over the bowl so as to save all the juice. They should end up looking something like the oranges below:

8 peeled oranges

• Now, cut the oranges along the white membranes and separate them into segments. The real fiddly bit is taking off all the membrane around the segments so that you're left with the beautiful, soft flesh. Again, make sure that you segment the oranges over the bowl so that all the juice is collected in the bowl. 
• By now, the sugar syrup should have cooled down, so now is the time to add the brandy and orange liqueur and stir until combine. Have a taste to make sure it's OK! 
• Finally, pour the sugar syrup into the bowl of oranges and stir gently to combine. Cover with cling  wrap and refrigerate until ready.

To serve, spoon the orange segments and the syrup into serving bowls or glasses and top with a good quality vanilla ice-cream or whipped cream and serve. I can really see myself making this for summer BBQs and easy weekend dinners.

The finished product!

Give it a try yourself and tell me what you think. Bon Appetit!

The challenge of chocolate mousse

Chocolate mousse - ready to serve

The making of chocolate mousse this weekend was a challenge on a number of levels, although in itself chocolate mousse is not a difficult dish. The secret is ensuring the elements are not over whipped or beaten so that they combine, but retain their lightness and fluffiness when refrigerated.

Firstly, getting started again on the Cooking Class Cookbook project after a fewweeks of culinary apathy was the biggest challenge that Scott had to face.

Secondly, this was the weekend that our niece was coming to stay over - she likes to help cook and this meant Scott had to find a recipe that would work well for a 6-year old to assist with. It was thought chocolate mousse, with relatively few (4) steps and a minimum of danger (aside from melting chocolate and using an electric mixer) would be well within the capabilities of both Scott and his assistant.

So without further ado, let's get down to business!

Ingredients are simple, namely:

• 125g dark chocolate
• 1 tablespoon brandy
• 4 eggs, separated
• 1 cup of cream, extra for serving

The recipe says it will serve 4. These servings are quite large, so you can also serve 6 with slightly smaller servings.

Step 1 - melt the chocolate in a double boiler over simmering water. Once melted, take the chocolate off the heat, allow to cool slightly and stir in the brandy then the egg yolks. Beat until the mixture is smooth and thick.

Step 2 - Whip the cream, taking care not to overwhip, otherwise it will be hard to fold in the cream. Once whipped, fold the cream into the chocolate mixture.

Step 3 - Whip the egg whites until soft peaks form, making sure again not to overbeat them as this will make it hard to fold them in.

Step 4 - Fold in half the egg whites into the chocolate mixture, then fold in the second half of the egg whites. Once combined, spoon the mixture into either 4-6 individual dishes or one large dish.

Step 5 - Refrigerate the mousse until firm. To serve, whip some extra cream and place on top of the mousse and shave chocolate over the top of the cream/mousse. (Tip: Use a vegetable peeler to grate the chocolate - this gives chunkier shards of chocolate.)

Step 6 - EAT!!!!!