Quick elderflower mousse

One of the quickest and most typical desserts in Estonia is curd cheese pudding - a mix of whipped cream and some curd cheese - that's usually served with some fruit or berries. Here's a twist on that recipe that uses more widely available cottage cheese. Instead of sugar, I've used undiluted elderflower cordial to sweeten the mousse, and give the dessert a lovely floral fragrance. The cottage cheese leaves tiny lumps in the dessert that I loved, but you may want to "warn" your guests (or press the cottage cheese through a sieve first).

Looking for more elderflower recipe ideas? Here are some:
Elderflower, coconut and lemon curd cake
Elderflower curd
Strawberries with elderflower zabaglione

Quick elderflower mousse
(Kiire leedrikreem)
Inspiration: Swedish Arla site
Serves 4

200-250 ml whipping cream
1 tsp of sugar
250 g plain cottage cheese
50 ml (3-4 Tbsp) elderflower cordial

Whisk the cream and sugar until soft peaks form. Add the elderflower cordial and continue whisking, until thick and airy. Gently fold in the cottage cheese.
Spoon into four dessert glasses, decorate with sliced fruit or berries.
Serve.

Lemon curd recipe

Lemon curd is something I make quite regularly. K. LOVES the stuff, and is happy to dash to the grocery store to pick up some lemon at any time, and I'm rather fond of that tangy and lemony spread as well. Last night I made yet another batch and gave a spoonful to our 15-month-old daughter. She would have happily licked some more :)

I love how versatile it is. You can eat it straight out of the jar, au naturel. Spread it over a slice of toasted brioche. You can drizzle it over some home-made vanilla ice cream, or, even better, fold it into the ice cream mixture before churning it into a delicious lemon curd ice cream. A simple raspberry meringue roulade/Raspberry Pavlova roll gets lifted to a totally different level when the filling includes some lemon curd. And, of course, it can play a star role in a festive cake.

Obviously, I'm not the first blogger to share their lemon curd recipe - Meeta, David, Lydia, and countless others have done it before me. But each one of us makes the curd slightly differently, so here's my recipe after all.

Lemon curd
(Sidrunivõie)
Makes 350 g



100 ml lemon juice (1-2 lemons, depending on size)
1 Tbsp finely grated lemon zest
3 large eggs, at room temperature
150 g caster sugar
100 g unsalted butter, at room temperature

If you're not using organic and unwaxed lemons, then wash them thoroughly with hot water. Juice and zest the lemons.
Bring about an inch / 2-3 cm of water into a boil in a small saucepan.
Take a heatproof bowl that neatly fits over the saucepan and whisk eggs, sugar and lemon juice in the bowl*. Place the bowl over the saucepan (the base of the bowl should not touch the simmering water!) and heat the mixture, whisking regularly, until it thickens. This will take about 10 minutes, the candy thermometer should register 71-72 C.
Take the bowl from the heat. Whisk in the butter, and fold in the grated lemon zest.
Pour into sterilized jar(s).

The lemon curd keeps for a couple of weeks in the fridge. It never lasts so long in our house.

* If you're very brave, then you can simply use a heavy saucepan over a low heat and whisk rigorously. I do it this way and have never failed, but the risk of cooking the eggs instead of slowly thickening them is obviously much highter.

Birthday cakes 2010

I threw two birthday parties this year - one to my university friends, one to my extended family (parents, aunties, soon-to-be-90-granny). That obviously meant two different birthday cakes :P

Coffee cake (my traditional birthday cake, recipe here):


Here's a close-up of the cake slice:


Raspberry meringue cake with cocoa nibs (recipe is still work-in-process, but the cake was absolutely delicious!)