MAKE LIGHT WORK OF DESSERT
Avoid a post-Christmas food hangover with sweet options that deliver full flavour without heft
For some, perhaps most, Christmas is a day of feasting bordering on gluttony.
With so many tempting dishes, traditional and otherwise, it’s hard to resist overindulging. And let’s face it, the majority of the food commonly served for this eat-a-thon could hardly be described as dainty or insubstantial.
This Christmas, though, I’m serving a couple of desserts that deliver flavour without heft — and without flour, for anyone at your table who happens to eat gluten-free.
One is a chocolate cake, not something that is usually considered light, but this one is. I borrowed the recipe from the renowned baker and cookbook author Alice Medrich, making just a few tweaks. She makes a chocolate souffle cake to which she adds a handful of chestnut flour, which gives the cake a subtle nutty, earthy aura.
It employs dark chocolate, but not super dark (60% cacao is recommended). I added chopped cooked chestnuts, too. The cake keeps extraordinarily well, so it can be baked a day or two in advance. Before serving, spread the top with lightly whipped cream.
For the second dessert, I wanted to make a cranberry version of the classic French lemon curd tart (not an original idea, but a good one). The filling is easy to make, substituting tart cranberry syrup for the lemon juice. In fact, if you taste it with closed eyes, you may mistake it for lemon.
In search of a crust that offered a bit more interest than the usual pate sablee, I consulted the large repertoire of the master baker David Lebovitz and found a hazelnut pastry that fit the bill nicely. Actually, the dough is a variation on one used to make the Italian cookies called baci di dama. You press it into a 10-inch tart pan and prebake it before pouring in the fuchsia-coloured cranberry curd.
For those with restraint, a small portion of either dessert could suffice.