CHOCOLATE CHALLENGE PART 3 - WHITE CHOCOLATE

My White Chocolate Wedding Cake

White chocolate is often derided as not being true chocolate, but I love it so much I chose it for my wedding cake. Firstly it looks so beautiful, like solid cream, and then the luxurious fl­avour  complements delicious summer fruits so well.  I also used this heavenly combination to win my title as UK Dessert Champion with this easy but delicious recipe.

WHITE CHOCOLATE RECIPE
White Chocolate and Cassis Soaked Summer Fruits Cheesecake 

For the base:
 110 g digestive biscuits 
 50 g butter 


 For the filling:
 250 g quark or curd cheese 
 286 ml double cream, whipped to soft peaks 
 1 sachet gelatine, dissolved in 3 tablespoons hot water 
 350 g best quality white chocolate 
 500 g any variety berry fruits (fresh or frozen)
 100 ml creme de cassis 
 150 g icing sugar 1 teaspoon arrowroot 


Preparation: 
Melt the butter gently in a pan or microwave and stir in the biscuit crumbs. Line an 8’’ pre-buttered tin, pressing the mixture down with the back of a spoon. Chill. 
Place the fruit in a sieve over a bowl. Pour over the cassis and lightly crush with a spoon to encourage the juices to drip below. Allow to thaw fully if using frozen fruit. 
 Melt the white chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Spread about one fifth in a thin layer across a clean kitchen worktop or marble slab with a spatula. Leave until barely set. 
Blend the quark in food mixer. Gently fold in the whipped cream , remaining melted chocolate and dissolved gelatine. Retain a few of the best fruits as decoration and fold in the cassis steeped fruits from the sieve. 
Pour the mixture over the biscuit base, cover with foil and chill for about 3 hours. 
Using the sharp edge of a knife make long splinters from the white chocolate. Decorate the cheesecake with white chocolate splinters and the retained fruit.

BOOK REVIEW - A White Chocolate Read 

One Hundred and One Dalmations by Dodie Smith

The levels of sugar in white chocolate suggest a sweeter read, and my choice is Dodie Smith’s One Hundred and One Dalmations. I first read it as a little girl, when I was told that Dodie Smith had once lived in my home town of Whitefield, a suburb of Manchester. This was astonishing news, and although I later discovered that the adult Dodie  had the good sense to relocate to Beverley Hills, this tiny piece of knowledge gave me hope that a real writer could live in a place as mundane as Whitefield.

Forget the Disney film, the book is a miracle of characterization, of both dogs and humans. Set in 1930s England, the story has some stirringly romantic notions, such as The Twilight Barking, whereby all dogs can gossip and communicate across country, thereby helping each other rescue the ‘dognapped’ puppies.

Naturally I’m going to mention food: most dramatic is Cruella De Ville’s peculiar diet of purple soup, black ice cream and pepper on everything. Reportedly, she was expelled from school for drinking ink! 

The ghostly dalmations rest by the fireside

Later, when the puppies are smuggled across the beautifully rendered English countryside, timid Missis goes in search of safety while her husband Pongo lies wounded. In a scene that has been compared to a doggy version of Du Maurier’s Rebecca:

‘She could see no house ahead of her because the drive twisted. It was overgrown with weeds… so wild and neglected that it seemed more like a path through a wood than the approach to a house. And it was so strangely silent… suddenly she was out in the open, with the house in front of her… very old, built of mellowed red brick… with many little diamond-paned windows and one great window that stretched to the roof.’

Inside the crumbling Jacobean Manor the very elderly gentleman ‘pet’ of an ancient King Charles spaniel makes buttered toast for himself and his canine guests in front of the open fire. Touchingly, he believes that Pongo and Missis are the much missed ghosts of long-dead carriage dogs. It is a beautiful scene and I admit to the influence of the manor on my latest book, The Penny Heart, set in dilapidated creeper-choked Delafosse Hall. An enjoyable book is one that leaves deep memories, and to me Dodie Smith wrote a sweet and stylish masterpiece. 




A huge thank you to Rebecca Mascull, author of The Visitors,  for inviting me to take part in the The Chocolate Challenge.

Take a look at Rebecca’s Chocolate blog post at:

http://rebeccamascull.tumblr.com/post/86149066018/chocolate-book-challenge 


I have tagged two new writers to take on the Chocolate Challenge, firstly Louisa Treger, author of The Lodger:

https://www.facebook.com/louisatregerwriter 


And secondly, Tessa Arlen, who has posted her super Chocolate Challenge at:


http://www.tessaarlen.com/iyntwood-chocolate-challenge/


This brings me to the end of The Chocolate Challenge; its been a great deal of fun and a lot of fun making the recipes and rediscovering my book choices.