Authors: Nigella Lawson
Forever Summer (32 page)
When it is ready to serve, turn out the semifreddo on to a suitably sized plate and drizzle this manilla-coloured log with honey, and sprinkle with the toasted pine nuts, before slicing. It thaws quickly as it stands, but that is part of its heavenly-textured charm. If you’ve got some dark, syrupy – indeed, honey-coloured – pudding wine to drink while you eat this, so much the better.
Serves 6–8.
VIN SANTO ICE CREAM WITH CANTUCCINI
One of the loveliest puddings, if it quite counts as that, to order in restaurants in Tuscany, is a glass of vin santo, that resinous, intense, amber-coloured holy wine, with a few almond-studded biscuits to dunk in. The idea for this comes purely from that: the ice cream is further deepened by the addition of treacly muscovado sugar, and the wine in it keeps it voluptuously velvety, even after being frozen. You don’t absolutely need to serve the cantuccini biscuits with it, but the combination is pretty well unbeatable.
1 x 584ml tub double cream
200ml vin santo
8 egg yolks
6 tablespoons light muscovado sugar
1 packet cantuccini biscuits
Heat the double cream in one pan, the vin santo in another. Whisk the yolks and muscovado sugar together and, still whisking, pour first the hot vin santo and then the warmed cream into them. Pour this mixture into a good-sized pan and make a
custard
as normal. Allow to cool, then chill and freeze in an ice-cream maker or without, following the usual
instructions
. Serve by scooping out into small wine glasses, giving everyone some cantuccini to dip into the deep, almost incense-intense ice cream.
Serves 8–10.
BRIOCHES
There is a reason why this recipe is here. A year or so ago, in Sicily, I got up late one morning, went to a bar for breakfast and saw that instead of serving ice creams in cornets, they wodged a helping in the middle of a split, vaguely orange-scented brioche. I sat in the square, with a cup of coffee on the table, this exotic bun in my hand, having the best breakfast of my life.
Yes, I know that – especially in the heat of summer – making brioches at home is only one step away from madness, but you don’t have to do this the purist way. Even if you don’t feel like making everything from scratch, promise me the next time you invite people over for supper, you buy some little brioches from a proper pâtisserie and the best ice cream you can find, and serve them up, together, for the best pudding you will ever provide. Should you, however, feel like going in for a little domestic goddessery, then you need to have a blueprint to hand. I make the brioches much as I came across them in Sicily – that’s to say, without their French, globe-topped, crenellated form – just shaped simply into slightly bulbous oblongs, their form a cross between a normal roll and a pain au chocolat. Round or rectangular, though, it doesn’t matter: you just want them to provide a light, cakey casing for the ice cream that, burgerlike, they will later contain.
1 sachet easy-blend dried yeast
50g caster sugar
15g salt
500g white bread flour, plus more for kneading
juice of half an orange
6 eggs, beaten
250g soft unsalted butter
for the glaze:
1 egg yolk
orange juice
half a teaspoon of salt
Put the yeast, sugar, salt and flour into a bowl, and add the orange juice and beaten eggs to mix to a dough. Using either a dough hook or your hands, knead until you obtain a smooth elastic mixture which will take about 10 minutes with a mixer or 20 minutes (sorry) by hand.
Cut the butter into small pieces and add them to the dough a little at a time, letting the dough absorb the butter in the mixer before you throw in the next piece. If you are doing this by hand then squeeze the butter into the dough gradually in the same way. Once the butter is absorbed keep kneading the dough until it is smooth, glossy and elastic.
Cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave it to double in size at room temperature; this will take about one and a half to two hours.
Knock back the risen dough by gently punching it to expel the air – which is one of the most gratifying things you will ever do in the kitchen – and then form it into a
smooth ball putting it back into the bowl and covering again. Put the dough in the fridge for a couple of hours or ideally overnight, but don’t leave it longer than 24 hours.
Before you are ready to cook the brioche buns, let the dough come to room temperature. When it is no longer cold, turn the dough on to a floured surface and knead again to make a large ball then pull off even-sized pieces to make about fourteen small rolls, shaping them into smooth rounds or ovals. You may want to make just about seven rolls and freeze the rest of the mixture as most of the ice-cream recipes above will not stretch to fill fourteen buns (but will certainly be enough for seven).
Put the shaped brioche buns on to baking sheets and glaze them with the beaten together egg yolk, orange juice and salt then leave to rise for about an hour until almost doubled in size. I know there is quite a bit of salt in the glaze but one of the wonderful things about these buns is the contrast between sweet and salt.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6.
Glaze again before baking and cook for about 15 minutes until the brioches are golden brown and sound hollow when you tap their bottoms. Leave to cool on a baking rack.
Makes about 14 buns.
RED-HOT CHILLI SYRUP
Make this red-flecked, heat-infused syrup, leave to cool and pour over vanilla or chocolate ice cream (opinions are divided in my household over which provides the more fabulous combination) and feel the sun flare up inside you. OK, so it sounds odd, but the heat from the chilli is more of a peppery, spicy warmth than savoury kick. It’s not that different from the sweet heat of crystallised ginger, come to think of it, which is itself glorious heaped over a pale mounding of vanilla ice cream.
250g caster sugar
250ml water
1 long red fresh chilli, unseeded and very finely chopped
Put the sugar and water into a saucepan, and dissolve the sugar over a gentle heat. Then turn up the heat and bring to the boil and let bubble for 15 minutes or so until the liquid’s reduced and you have a clear viscous syrup. When it’s ready it should give the back of a wooden spoon a sticky glossy coating when you dip it in, but do not stir at any stage in the proceedings, or the syrup will crystallise.
Take off the heat and tip in the chilli, swirl (but again, do not stir) then pour into a glass jug to cool slightly, and then the syrup, now coral-tinted from the chilli, can be stirred so that the red flecks are distributed throughout, rather than just being suspended on the top.
You can keep this syrup in a tightly lidded glass jar till you need to use it. Should it set too hard, just stand the jar in a bowl of warm water to loosen up a little.
Makes enough for about 12 bowls of ice cream.
The traditional unit for cocktail mixing is a shot, which is equal to 25ml. If you haven’t got a shot measure you could always use an old medicine cup, as unless you have some teeny-tiny measuring jugs it is hard to be accurate - not that accuracy is necessarily knife-edge here. Despite the precise quantities specified below, remember that this is really all a matter of taste.
Sugar syrups are available in specialist Off Licences, but if you can’t track some down then make your own.
In a saucepan mix double the quantity of sugar to water over a low heat until the sugar melts. Then bring to the boil and simmer until you reach a syrupy consistency, remembering that the longer you simmer the thicker and stronger your syrup will get.
Allow to cool and then keep in the fridge; it will keep for a couple of months so it’s worth making a big batch if you’re in a cocktail-making groove.
Elderflower and Passionfruit Cooler
BLUE LAGOON
You need to have a certain determination of spirit to start mixing drinks with Blue Curaçao, but I’ve always found something liberating about having scant concern for good taste. This drink looks like the ocean – you just want to swim right into it – and is something of a citrussy killer.
60ml (4 tablespoons) Blue Curaçao
30ml (2 tablespoons) vodka
7-Up
lime juice
Pour the Blue Curaçao and vodka into a glass, fill up with 7-Up and add a spritz of lime juice. Shut your eyes and knock it back.
Makes 1.
PINA COLADA
I think this is what’s known in the trade as a classic cocktail. Others may sneer. Let them. And if you’re too embarrassed to stand at a bar and order one, stick Barry Manilow on the turntable and pour freely at home. Cocktail umbrella optional.
100ml white, dark rum or Malibu
100ml pineapple juice
50ml coconut cream
handful of ice cubes
Put the ingredients into a blender and whizz on the cocktail-shaker button till smooth. Pour into a tall glass.
Makes 1.
ELDERFLOWER AND PASSIONFRUIT COOLER
This is the perfect drink to have by the pitcherful for summer lunches in the garden: easy to make, easier still to drink.
elderflower cordial