Raspberry & redcurrant jelly with vanilla ice cream
Photographer:
As I type I look out not through the bushy pot plants and into the wee kitchenette which runs along the back of the studio, but instead I see through the office kitchen, its expansive windows and out onto George Street in Dunedin. Sara and I took to the skies before the morning light filtered through the wintry sky and landed in this fair city just before 9am this morning. We are lucky enough to be here for work, and by work I mean catching up with our fellow bloggers from the south, brainstorming all things food, cooking, styling and photographing and of course eating the fruits of our labour. It’s tough work!
This recipe features in our new Fisher & Paykel History book. When we cooked and shot it it was the first time I had ever made jelly from scratch and it was worth the effort. The deep red colour and the intense flavour of the berries worked beautifully with the ice cream and sugared redcurrants. Give it a go!
Ingredients
Serves 10
Jelly
2½ cups caster sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 orange
500g raspberries
250g redcurrants
8½ titanium-strength gelatine leaves
Ice cream
15 egg yolks
1½ cups sugar
2 vanilla pods
3 cups milk
5 cups cream
Pinch salt
Sugared redcurrants
1 egg white
½ cup caster sugar
30 redcurrants
Method
Jelly
1 Combine the sugar and lemon and orange juice with 1 litre of water in a large saucepan and stir over a medium heat until all the sugar dissolves. Bring the mixture to the boil and add the raspberries and redcurrants.
2 Reduce the heat and simmer until it is pulpy; this will take about 4–5 minutes. Remove from the heat, stand until cool. Refrigerate overnight to allow all the flavours to develop.
3 Line a sieve with muslin, place over a large bowl and sieve the mixture. Discard the solids.
4 Measure 1 litre of the liquid. Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for several minutes until soft then remove and squeeze out all the excess water. Pour 250ml raspberry liquid into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and add the gelatine, stirring until dissolved.
5 Stir the gelatine mixture back into the remaining raspberry liquid then pour into a 1-litre jelly mould and refrigerate overnight or until set.
6 Dip mould briefly in hot water then turn out on to a plate and serve.
Ice cream
1 Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until light and fluffy.
2 Split the vanilla pods lengthways, scrape out the seeds.
3 Heat the milk, cream, salt, vanilla pods in a saucepan.
4 Gradually add approximately one-quarter of the warmed cream mixture, ladle by ladle, to the egg mixture, whisking continuously to make sure that it
is mixed in. Then transfer this mixture back to the saucepan with the remaining cream mixture.
5 Over a low heat, stir the cream mixture until it thickens.It should coat the back of a wooden spoon, and when you run your finger in a line over the back of the spoon, the cream should not run. At this stage, take the cream off the heat and strain through a metal sieve.
6 Either transfer this mixture to an ice-cream maker or pour it into two shallow dishes and freeze overnight.
7 If you froze the ice cream in dishes, the next day blend the ice cream in batches in a food processor until smooth and creamy.
8 Refreeze for at least 2 hours before serving.
Sugared Redcurrants
1 Place the egg white in one bowl and the caster sugar in another. In batches of about 10, place the redcurrants into the egg white. With clean hands, remove the redcurrants and roll them around in the palm of your hand to remove any excess egg white.
2 Place the redcurrants into the caster sugar and shake to completely cover.
3 Repeat with the remaining redcurrants being sure to leave the finished berries in the sugar.
4 Serve spoonfulls of jelly with ice cream. Sprinkle with sugared redcurrants.
