Blackberry Fool à la Thalia Ho

Here we have another recipe from Thalia's book Wild Sweetness.  She is the Brisbane-based creator of an award-winning food blog called Butter and Brioche.  And her new book is a honey.  Regular readers will have seen my Anzac Day post of her recipe for oat biscuits with rosemary, apricot and white chocolate.  They were a real winner with everyone.  And I'm keen to try out lots more of her recipes.

Thalia calls this one Currants and Cream, but as I had to use blackberries instead, I've called it a fool.  No, not your local silly person, but that English dessert of fruit purée mixed with whipped cream or custard.  I remember when sharing a house with several other students years ago, I tried to make a dried apricot fool but not having a blender or processor, it ended up a kind of fibrous, orangey-brown mush.  Not pleasant, my dears.  Thank goodness for a well-equipped kitchen these days.   

so sweet, so fruity, so delicious

Serves 4-6:

ingredients:

115g./4 oz white chocolate, finely chopped

400 mLs/14 oz thickened/heavy cream

125g./4.4 oz blackberries or blackcurrants

50g./1.8 oz white or caster sugar

2 tbs Chambord or Crème de cassis

Method:

You make the cream by placing the chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl, then - 

Pour 240 mLs/8 oz of the cream into a medium saucepan, bring it to the boil, then pour it over the chocolate

Put it aside for a minute to melt the chocolate, then give it a good stir till well-mixed and smooth

Now grab some clingfilm and cover the bowl, making sure you've pressed the clingfilm onto the surface of the chocolate mixture - you don't want a skin to form

And into the fridge it goes for around 6 hours to chill

While it's chilling, get on to the fruity part by putting the fruit and sugar and liqueur into a medium saucepan

Heat over medium-low till the fruit slumps (says Thalia) - i.e.  goes limp but still has some shape, and the juices are thick and syrupy

Into the fridge it goes to chill also

When you're going to eat this, put the chocolate cream mixture into a bowl, add the rest of the cream, and beat with electric hand-beaters or in a stand mixer till you have soft peaks

Gently stir in the fruity purée, till you have beautiful dark-pink streaks throughout - don't go crazy here! - you want a beautiful rippled effect 

Place it back in the fridge for an hour to chill right down

Serve with a crunchy little Amaretti biscuit or biscuit/cookie of your choice

Confession time:

I made an oopsy with this recipe.  A friend dropped in, and I wasn't concentrating, so instead of boiling 240 mLs of the cream, I boiled the whole darn lot of it!  And guess what?  It worked perfectly.  I put it in the fridge for 6 hours, then whipped it till soft peaks, stirred in the fruit - ét voilà, perfectly beautiful blackberry fool.  So maybe do it my way, and make it easy on yourself

Notes:

Use a good quality white chocolate like Lindt; it's a beautifully thin and well-tempered chocolate so I was able to just break it up with my fingers - no knives involved :-)

I used frozen fruit as it's not blackberry season here, and it's very difficult to get blackcurrants at any time.  It took about 10 minutes to get to 'slump' stage

Use whatever fruity liqueur you fancy, or a couple of teaspoons of vanilla extract

bring the cream to a boil

pour the hot cream over the white chocolate

gather your fruity ingredients

into the saucepan for some slumping :-)

bubble bubble toil and trouble - till slumped

6 hours later - spoon in the syrupy fruit

stir gently through the chocolate cream

and ... eat with a golden spoon - tee hee

© Sherry M.