Crepe au citron (Lemon crepe) & wonders of milk

There has been an ink disaster recently. My duvet cover has been stained with a big blue patch from ink leakage. *sigh* Don’t ask me how ink got anywhere near my bed. It is a long story. What I learnt from this incident is to soak the fabric in milk for about three hours and hand scrub the stain. It works! Some of the lighter stains disappeared and some got lighter so I am about to repeat the process until my duvet cover looks like new. It seems milk not only makes wonders to a cup of hot chocolate or coffee, it removes ink stain as well!! Handy.

After a long session of hand scrubbing those evil blue stains, I had about half a litre of milk left so instead of making more frothed milk for my favourite hot chocolate, some crepe will make me happy.

BASIC CREPE RECIPE

adapted from Nigel Slater's perfect crepe

Ingredients:

• 100g plain flour
• 50g unslated butter & more for cooking
• pinch of salt
• 2 free range egg
• 220ml whole milk
• 100ml water

CREPE AU CITRON RECIPE

• basic crepe
• lemon
• powdered sugar / castor sugar (for some sugary crunch)

Method:

1.  Melt the butter and let cool slightly.
2.  Break the eggs into the bowl of flour and mix.
3.  Whisk in the salt, milk and water until lump free.
4.  Stir in melted butter at the end.
5.  Heat a crepe pan with some butter and wipe it off with a kitchen towel.
6.  Ladle about 3 tablespoon of batter onto pan and quickly swirl around the pan to form a thin layer.
7.  Cook for about 1 minute one side until golden, flip and cook for 30 seconds.
8.  Repeat for the rest of the batter.
9.  Squeeze some lemon and dust a generous amount of powdered sugar / sprinkle with sugar on top.
10.  Garnish with a slice of candied lemon.

Tips:

• For a sweet crepe, add a tablespoon of sugar to the batter.
• The basic crepe can be served sweet or savoury, to your liking.

Continue

Mango chocolate cream layer

Crushed digestive biscuits in individual pots

On my way home one friday evening, I decided to treat M and myself to some homemade dessert but was only willing to spend a minimal amount of time making it. So I came up with something really quick and easy during my zoned out journey in the tube. What can be easier than a non-baking dessert? The best thing about this dessert, it is very flexible! Swap the ingredients with anything you fancy. Instead of using fresh mango, swap it with orange or strawberry. If you do not like fresh fruits, use any jam you have. If that is not easy enough for you, you can even top it off with Rice Krispies or Coco Pops instead! Like I said, anything you fancy.

Chopping up the fleshy mango

MANGO CHOCOLATE CREAM LAYER RECIPE

Serves 2

• 150g digestive biscuit (crushed)


• 150g dark chocolate


• 50ml milk


• 300ml double cream


• 2 tsp vanilla extract


• 1 mango (diced)

Methods:

1. Give the digestive biscuits a quick blitz in the food processor or crush them with your hands.


2. Melt the dark chocolate in a bain marie. Take it off heat when chocolate is almost entirely melted. Stir gently until smooth. Add in the milk and combine well. Set aside to cool.


3. Whip up the double cream with vanilla extract until soft peak and fold in the melted chocolate.


4. Place the crushed digestive biscuits into little individual pots, tumbler glasses or ramekins, depending on how you would like to serve them.


5. Scoop the chocolate cream mixture into the pots that are filled with crushed digestive.


6. Finish off with diced mangos.

Tips:

• To save time, you can melt the chocolate in the microwave. It is a lot quicker.


• Also instead of using fresh fruits, there is always the option of using jam or marmalade.

Continue