Lemon Creams w/- Cherry Compote

Remember Surfing the Menu - that tv show with Ben O'Donoghue and Curtis Stone? Happily for we/us (?) locals, Ben now lives in Brisbane so we can eat his food anytime, but before that, he lived and chef'ed in London.  And in his holidays, he came out to Australia and made tv shows.  It always made me laugh watching them pretend to be old buddies, when you could tell they drove each other crazy.  And watching Curtis pretend he gave a rat's patootie about surfing.  (Oh, and where the heck did he get that jaw?).

They did make some nice dishes though, and one of theirs to be found in Delicious magazine is lemon creams.  It is quite a rich dish, but I guess if you are surfing it off, the calories don't matter:=).  Ben and Curtis just say "what the hell!".  

We didn't go surfing, but we did have a busy night, having friends over for dinner, and seeing our niece off in a limousine no less to her birthday bash.  And our friendly neighbour Princess Pia came over for a quick drink before dinner too.  Thank goodness, dinner was already made!  This dessert needs to be made the day before, so get started early if you are having friends to dinner.

gorgeous limo!

ingredients:

900mls thickened cream
zest and juice of 2 large or 3 small lemons
170g. caster sugar 

for the cherries: 
zest of 1/2 orange
200mls red wine
1/2 stick of cinnamon
1 clove
2-3 tsp caster sugar
1/2 doz. grinds of the vanilla bean mill or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
200g. frozen cherries (no need to thaw)


Method:

Lemon creams:

Heat the cream to scalding point (lots of little bubbles around the edges, some steam coming off the top of the cream)
Remove from heat and cool for a few minutes
Throw in the zest, juice and sugar and stir well
Cool it down a bit, then pour into 6 ramekins (or moulds if you want to turn them out later - I didn't!)
Cover them with clingfilm, or just shove a baking tray over them
Leave to set in the fridge overnight

Cherry compote:

Zest, wine, cinnamon, clove, sugar and vanilla go into a smallish saucepan
Bring to a simmer
Pour in the cherries and bring to the boil
(add more sugar if you find it needs it)
Simmer for 5 minutes (I had mine at quite a hearty simmer)
Turn it off and let it cool down
Bung in the fridge

(I made the creams the day before, and the compote in the afternoon of the dinner so it had plenty of time to chill)

Spoon on a few cherries and some syrup to each ramekin
Go to bed after dinner with a huge smile on your face and a big belly:)

ingredients for the lemon creams  

pouring the sugar into the heated cream   

stirring in the zest, juice and sugar   

ingredients for the cherry compote  

wine, zest etc go into a smallish saucepan   

tip the cherries into the simmering syrup     

let it cool, then into the fridge to chill  

cherry compote spooned over the lemon cream 

my lemony doodle  

my slice of lemon doodle