Chocolate and cherry roulade

To celebrate Chocolate Week here's one of my favourite recipes for a chocolate and cherry roulade which comes from my book An Appetite for Ale. Unusually it contains two different types of beer! You can obviously leave one of them out though a cherry beer is the perfect pairing with it.

Making a roulade might sound daunting but is actually no more difficult than making a chocolate mousse providing you have the right kit (see below)

For the roulade

175g Belgian dark luxury chocolate*

2 tbsp stout, porter or black coffee

5 large eggs, separated

125g caster sugar

For the filling

350g pitted morello cherries or stoned fresh, black cherries

2 tbsp Kriek or other cherry beer or cherry juice

1 tbsp kirsch (optional)

284ml carton double cream

1-2 tbsp caster sugar

To assemble

Icing sugar

You will need a 33cm x 23cm shallow rectangular ‘swiss roll’ tin, some non-stick baking parchment, several large bowls and an electric hand whisk

Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas 5. Lightly grease the baking tin and line with a piece of non-stick baking parchment.

Break up the chocolate and put it in a bowl with the stout, porter or coffee. Set the bowl over a pan of simmering water, making sure the base of the pan doesn’t touch the water. Leave to melt, stir once to amalgamate and take off the heat.

Put the eggs and sugar in another bowl and whisk together for a couple of minutes until light and moussey. Fold in the chocolate mixture with a large spoon.

In another bowl - and a clean whisk - whisk the egg whites until they just hold their shape. Add a couple of tablespoons of the egg whites to the chocolate mixture to lighten it then fold in the rest of the egg whites lightly without overmixing.

Tip the chocolate mixture gently into the baking tin and lightly and evenly spread it over the base of the tin. Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes until the top is risen and firm to the touch.

Leave the roulade in the tin, cover with another sheet of baking parchment and lay a damp teatowel over the top. Leave for at least 3 hours. Meanwhile drain the cherries, if bottled or stone them if fresh, halving or quartering them if they’re particularly large. Put them in a bowl, with the kriek and a few drops of kirsch and refrigerate.

To assemble the roulade lay a large piece of baking parchment on your work surface and dust it with sifted icing sugar. Carefully tip the roulade onto the paper. Peel away the baking parchment off the base of the roulade and trim the edges.

Strain the cherries, reserving the juice. Lightly whip the cream until just holding its shape, fold in the kriek or cherry juice and sweeten to taste. Spread the cream over the roulade leaving a space round the edges and scatter the cherries on top. Using the paper roll the roulade up like a Swiss roll (don’t worry if it cracks), carefully transfer to a serving plate and sift over a little extra icing sugar.

* you don’t want chocolate that is too high in cocoa solids for this recipe. Choose one of about 55-60% cocoa solids (available in the baking section of supermarkets)

What to drink: As I said this was originally intended to go with cherry beer but a chocolate stout or a sweet red wine like a Recioto della Valpolicella would work well too. Serve the cherry beer in a champagne flute - it looks amazing!

Photos © Vanessa Courtier

Lemon and cherry possets with fruit marshmallows

It might seem perverse to choose a dessert from a barbecue book* but the Pitt Cue Co crew are as good at trashy desserts as they are at meat. And you need to finish off your BBQ somehow, don't you?

So here, from Pitt Cue Co: The Cookbook . . . "A cute, citrusy and velvety post-pork refreshment. These possets can be made well in advance and will suit all sorts of fruit, which makes it a pretty perfect get-me-out-of-the–shit dessert candidate.

Serves 5–6

cherries 500g

demerara sugar 40g

blackcurrant jam 20g

vanilla pod, split lengthways 1

double cream 600ml

caster sugar 170g

lemon juice 100ml (about 2 lemons)

Marshmallows (see below)

Set aside a cherry for each posset, to use as a garnish. Remove the stones from the remaining cherries and cut them all in half. Put half the cherries into a bowl with 20g of the demerara sugar and set aside to macerate for 1 hour.

Put the rest of the cherries into a pan with the other 20g of demerara sugar, the blackcurrant jam and the split vanilla pod and cook on a low heat for 10 minutes, until softened. Remove the vanilla pod, blitz the cherries to a thick pulp in a blender and pass through a sieve to make a thick purée. There should be about 70–80g. Set aside.

Divide the macerated cherries evenly between serving glasses, reserving the juices. The cherries should just cover the bottom of the glass. Put the glasses into the refrigerator to chill.

To make the posset, bring the cream and sugar to the boil in a pan, whisking to ensure that the sugar is well combined. Take the pan off the heat and pour in the lemon juice, then pass the mixture through a fine sieve. Take the glasses out of the fridge and pour the posset on top of the cherries.

Allow to cool, then return the glasses to the fridge for 4 hours to set.

To serve, arrange the marshmallows on top of each posset. If you like, you can blowtorch the marshmallows until just browned andmelting. Finish with a cherry on top.

Marshmallows
(makes lost)

gelatine leaves 12g (about 1–2)

water 30ml

caster sugar 200g

liquid glucose 20g

fresh free-range egg whites 80g (about 4 eggs)

finely grated zest of 1 lemon

fruit purée, optional 80g

cornflour, for dusting 70g

icing sugar, for dusting 70g

Maldon sea salt, a pinch

Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

Put the gelatine leaves into a bowl, cover with cold water and leave to soak until soft. Put the 30ml water, caster sugar and glucose into a large pan and heat until the temperature reaches 121°C on a sugar thermometer.

In a free-standing electric mixer, slowly whisk the egg whites and lemon zest on a medium speed until they reach stiff peaks. When the sugar mixture reaches temperature, take the pan off the heat. Squeeze out the gelatine leaves and add to the pan, mixing gently. Be careful: the mixture may bubble and splutter a bit. Turn the mixer to the lowest setting. With the mixer running, gently pour the hot sugar mixture down the side of the bowl into the egg whites, then increase the speed to medium and continue to mix until the whites are cool, glossy and stiff, about 8–10 minutes. Fold in the fruit purée, if using, until well combined.

Scoop the mixture into a piping bag with the smallest nozzle available. Combine the cornflour and icing sugar and sift over the prepared baking tray – this will stop the marshmallows from sticking. Pipe little marshmallow teardrops on to the greaseproof, about the width of a 10p piece with a nice quiff. Put the tray into the fridge for 1 hour to allow the marshmallows to set.

What to drink: Not an easy one. I would be tempted to serve a sweet sparkling red like a brachetto d'acqui or a Cabernet Franc ice wine like this Peller one here. (But not a sparkling shiraz - too strong, too dry)

* A lot of the savoury recipes also involve sub-recipes that would take up too much space but don't be discouraged - the book, which is published at £20 by Mitchell Beazley, is awesome. Photograph © Paul Winch-Furness.

Rustle up a Red Nose Pudding!

If you’re organising a Red Nose Day tasting tonight here’s a zany idea for a pudding that I devised for a Sainsbury’s magazine feature a couple of years ago when I interviewed TV presenter Phillip Schofield for Comic Relief.

It’s based on the classic French cherry dessert Clafoutis, a crisp sweet batter with cherries - or rather, red noses . . .

serves 8-10

2 x 425g cans of black cherries
3 tbsp of kirsch, cherry brandy or brandy (optional but good!)
4 medium eggs
60g (2 1/2 oz) caster sugar
110g (4 oz) plain flour
A pinch of salt
400ml(14 fl oz) whole milk (i.e. not skimmed or semi-skimmed)
Finely grated rind of one medium unwaxed lemon
A little flavourless oil for the tin
Icing sugar to serve

You will need a shallow rectangular cast iron dish or baking tin about 30cm x 20 cm or 1.5 litres (2 1/2 pints) in capacity

Get the cherries and batter ready two to three hours before making the pudding. Drain the cherries and place in a bowl with the kirsch or cherry brandy, if using. Mix lightly together with a metal spoon and leave to macerate, stirring the cherries into the juice a couple of times. To make the batter put the eggs in a food processor or liquidiser with the sugar, flour, salt and half the milk. Whizz together until smooth then gradually add the rest of the milk. Add the lemon rind and whizz again then pour the batter into a large jug, cover, and leave in the fridge until ready to use.

To bake the pudding preheat oven to 190°C/375° F/Gas 5. Brush the baking dish or tin lightly with the oil and put in the oven for 5 minutes to heat up. Drain the cherries (reserving the juice - a treat for the cook!) and tip into the base of the dish. Give the batter a final stir, pour over the cherries and bake for about 25 to 30 minutes until nicely puffed up and brown. (Check after 20 minutes and if it seems to be browning too quickly turn down the heat to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4.) Sift icing sugar over the pudding and serve with pouring cream or vanilla ice cream.

Recommended match: A cool cherry-flavoured fruit beer (Kriek) would be the perfect match with this although you could drink a southern French Muscat or other dessert wine.

Don't forget a number of retailers are selling wine in aid of Wine Relief which is contributing to the Red Nose Day charities. You can find my pick of what's on offer in the Guardian though some are no longer available as part of the promotion.

The photograph which is not of my recipe but one very like it is © Lilyana Vynogradova - Fotolia.com