‘Blast From the Past’ Recipe

Menu Mistress

Roast Apricot & Orange Blossom Fool (Serves 8)

I’m going to be taking a break from Menu Mistress over August so I thought that I would give you with a sweet treat to enjoy whilst I’m away! This is a recipe that I first shared back in August 2021. It’s a quick and easy recipe to have up your sleeve for those lazy summer days when the idea of making a dessert seems too much effort. The flavours are perfectly balanced; the sweetness of roasted apricots is delicately cut by whipped cream which is combined with a little Greek yogurt, orange flower water and honey. The recipe, from Diana Henry’s cookbook ‘Simple’, serves eight but it can be easily halved, although if I were you, I’d make the full recipe and treat yourself to the leftovers for breakfast!..

900g apricots, halved and pitted

75ml white wine or water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

115g granulated sugar

300ml double cream

4 tablespoons Greek yogurt

5 tablespoons orange blossom honey, or to taste, plus more to serve

3 teaspoons orange flower water, or to taste

Toasted almond flakes, to serve

  1. Put the apricots in a gratin dish, cut sides up, so that they lay in a single layer. Mix the wine or water with the vanilla, then pour it over the apricots. Sprinkle evenly with the sugar and roast in a preheated oven, 190’c fan, for 30-45 minutes until completely soft. Leave until cold.
  2. Remove eight of the best looking apricot halves to put on top of each serving. Puree the rest of the fruit and any of its juice in a food processor.
  3. Whip the cream until it forms soft peaks, then stir in the yogurt, honey and orange flower water.
  4. Fold the purée through the cream, don’t over mix – you want it to be marbled with the bright orange colour. (You can add more flower water to taste).
  5. Spoon into bowls, top each with an apricot half, if you want a little more sweetness drizzle with extra honey, then sprinkle with the toasted almonds.

Menu Mistress is taking a summer break…

I will be back …

Wednesday 28th August

with delicious new recipes for September!..

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Published by Menu Mistress

Cooking has always been something I've enjoyed, I have an extensive collection of cookbooks, some are well thumbed whilst others collect dust on the shelves; I can’t bear to get rid of any cook book, just in case one day I might use it for that one obscure recipe - light on a rainy day! I enjoy eating out and discovering new flavours, whether it’s just a local haunt or a ‘dress up’ to dinner restaurant - food is my hobby! In my opinion food is the one of the most important pieces of knowledge you need to know about any culture in order to really understand it, so when we go away, it’s not the local sights that I’m googling but the best place to eat! I'm not one of those fortunate cooks who can throw something together by looking at the contents of their fridge, I need a plan to work with, then I organise my fridge around the recipe. I am however a very organised person, you might even call me a control freak! I love the orderly fashion of a recipe, I find it soothing to have a plan in front of me, so the thought of trawling through my recipe books and trying new recipes is my idea of a perfect afternoon. But I realise that this is not everyones idea of fun, hence the birth of this blog. This blog is essentially for people who adore food but don’t have the time, patience or energy to search through cook books to find that winning recipe – that’s the job of Menu Mistress!

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