Happy Valentines my little Cherubs!
I haven’t baked much, mostly because I haven’t had much time to post and such because work is busy and I am just soooo exhausted BUT for this Valentine’s day I decided to make something special for my ever so wonderful husband. Here comes the Charlotte aux Framboises.
It’s a labour of love I can assure you that it’s a rather easy/fool proof recipe but it’s best to get cracking the day before.
Here’s the recipe
Prep time: 60 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Ingredients (6 Portions) :
– boudoirs / lady fingers
– raspberry coulis (I guess it’s a kind of purée?)
– 500 g of frozen raspberries
– 150 g of crème fraîche
– 100 g of caster sugar
– 3 sheets of gélatine
– 2 egg whites
– 3 spoonful of strawberry coulis
The day before, take 300g of raspberry and crush them in a pan, cook it with very little heat on the hob.
At the same time, put your gelatine sheet in cold water.
Once the raspberries are liquid, add the sugar, mix well, then add the gelatine.
Then mix the creme fraîche into a chantilly, in a different bowl mix the egg whites until they’re firmly set with soft peaks.
In a big bowl, put the raspberry soup, then delicately fold into it the chantilly and then the egg whites. Leave in the fridge for at least 12 hours (but best to be on there overnight so it sets). It’s now a raspberry mousse.
Keep the rest of the raspberries in the fridge too.
Then you can prep a mould (if you done have a Charlotte mould, any round ish mould can do the trick!). To prep the mould you basically take the lady fingers, soak them shortly in some sugary water, then place them nearly into the mould. Once you’ve done that, add half of the raspberry mousse, smooth the top neatly. Then take the raspberries that were set aside, crush some of them with a fork and put them on top of the first layer of mousse. Then add the rest of the mousse.
Take some more lady fingers, soak them in sugary syrup and put them on the top to close it.
Put some cling film on top then place another bowl on top to keep it all closed.
Don’t worry if it overflows!
Put it back I’m the fridge for about 4 hours. After those 4 hours (or more!!) un-mould the Charlotte, cover it with raspberry coulis and decorate with the raspberries you have left.
If you feel like being a show off, you can tie a red bow around it too…
And voila!! Now I can’t wait to eat it!!
