It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a fabulous New Year.

Holy Smokestacks, Batman!

So sue-t me!

There are all different types of fats involved in cooking. Lard, tallow, suet, duck fat, ghee, butter, oil, olive oil... the list goes on.

However, essential in a Christmas pudding is suet... which makes finding suet an exciting adventure. Apparently, there can be a big difference between Suet mix and actual suet... but actual suet is a bit thin on the ground here and I haven't located a butcher who will do me up some suet of my own. (Wow, I wonder how many times I can say suet in a sentence? Suet, suet, suet... anyone else think the word suet looks really weird?)

Anyhoo, I've given the old Tandaco Suet mix a burl in my christmas pud. Hopefully it will taste great and not weird. In addition, there are rasins, currants, sultanas, candied peel and lemon rind... and not actually a whole lot more. There's also on interesting recipe for fruitarian pudding (which is without suet) so I may try that one in the future as well.

I like aeroplane jelly! Aeroplane Jelly for me! I like it for dinner, I like it for tea, A little each day is a good recipe!

Nine out of ten people like chocolate. The tenth person always lies.

Well, going on the success of my last cream, I thought I'd try another. And what better to try than Chocolate cream, because really - who doesn't love chocolate?

(Now, before you all jump about saying you hate chocolate, I know not everyone loves it... but it sounds poetic, so just let that one through to the keeper. *wink* )

CHOCOLATE CREAM

INGREDIENTS. - 4 oz. of chocolate
2 oz. of castor sugar (that's superfine sugar for you yanks.)
3/4 of an oz. of gelatine
2 yolks of eggs
1/4 a pint of cream
1/4 of a pint of milk
1 teaspoonful of vanilla essence

METHOD. - Simmer the milk and chocolate together until smoothly mixed, let it cool slightly, then add the yolks of eggs and stir until they thicken, but the mixture must not boil or the eggs may curdle.
Dissolve the gelatine in 1 tablespoonful of water, strain it into the custard, and add the vanilla essence.
Whip the cream stiffly, stir it lightly into the custard, turn into a prepared mould, and stand on ice or in a cool place until firmly set.

TIME. - From 20 to 30 minutes. SUFFICIENT for 1 mould.

Can you see what we're making here? It's effectively chocolate mousse but with a less fancy name.
You want to make sure your chocolate mixture is pretty cool when mixing it with the cream, as mine was a bit warm and so my mousse was more solid than it should have been.

Very tasty, but also very rich as I used dark chocolate. Use milk chocolate for a lighter taste.