Barbados cream

Barbados cream:

Two weeks to go until the exams begin, and I honestly cannot wait. I am so looking forward to having more time to do nothing but devote lots of free time to this blog; at least until September, when I begin my PGCE course. To think, I’ve been in education since I was four! Unfortunately, this also means that I do have much less time to devote to my blog at the moment. So do forgive my very sporadic posts, at least for the time being.
I am really looking forward to this dessert, then. It has so much going for it. Consider; it is simple to make, contains gorgeous ingredients and most importantly is a dessert, which satisfies my need-for-sweet at the moment. I absolutely love Greek yoghurt. My mum used to make her own yoghurt when I was growing up, and I used to love it. I am ashamed to admit that when I was younger I used to eat it with everything, including on toast for lunch! When my mum began working when I was older we tried and tried to recreate that taste with shop-brought yoghurt, to no avail. We did, however, develop a growing fondness for Total Greek yoghurt. In fact, we still get the Total newsletter, although I haven’t actually tried any of their recipe suggestions. I am therefore really looking forward to making something great with Greek yoghurt. I have also heard a lot of great things about this dessert from people on the www.nigella.com website, and so cannot wait to try this for myself. My OH and I have decided to eat this on Sunday night, following a Thai green king prawn curry. Nigella talks about a number of fruit which go wonderfully with this Barbados cream; however I have a certain fondness for blueberries, and therefore decided to buy a punnett of these to eat along side, which I am sure will go wonderfully. I think it also appropriate to mention that Nigella specifies this for 6 and mentions that it will feed more, but I am greedily keeping quantities as they are. Not least, because my dad brought my OH and I a pineapple for the week and I thought that the Barbados cream will go wonderfully alongside for a weekly treat.
This recipe, then, involves double cream and Greek yoghurt mixed together until stiff, spooned into a shallow dish, sprinkled with a blanket of brown sugar, left in a cool place for 12-24 hours and then served alongside some wonderful fruit or another.

Ingredients: I purchased all of the ingredients easily in Tescos. The make of Greek yoghurt that you use is optional, but as I mentioned I love Total Greek yoghurt; it is so creamy and mouth-filling-ly thick. As I also mentioned, I brought a punnett of blueberries to go alongside. It seems as though blueberries are available all year now, which is good news for me, as I just love them!

Price: The double cream and yoghurt totalled £2.59. The punnett of blueberries cost me £1.99, so the whole dessert totalled £4.58, but of course, the blueberries are optional. I had no need to purchase brown sugar, as I had previously purchased this for the bananas and cream recipe.





Method: This really could not be any simpler to make than it gratifyingly is. The method simply involves beating together equal quantities of double cream and Greek yoghurt, until they are stiff but not too much so, spooning into a shallow dish and sprinkling with brown sugar. I want to mention that Nigella mentions that the dish must be shallow, and I would certainly second that. There is a lot of this cream, and a lot of sugar that needs to be sprinkled over, and so there really should be coverage of as much surface area as possible. I simply used a very shallow, but large, glass dish, which can be seen in the photographs. On the same lines, try to make sure that there is as much even coverage as possible. Secondly, Nigella mentions that it is best to leave this for 24 hours, which is what I did. I made this cream on Saturday night, and served it Sunday. This is hardly a problem, but best to be aware of this now, if in the early stages of planning. Other than these few, rather arbitrary, points, this really is exceptionally easy to make, and should be celebrated as such.





Result: WOW! I just absolutely loved this dessert. It was absolutely gorgeous, and has that sexy, voluptuous quality that all good desserts should have. The sugar had almost “melted” into an almost-sauce on top of the cream, which just absorbed into the cream on serving. The whole cream was absolutely divine. The word heavenly certainly springs to mind here. It was certainly creamy, but not overpoweringly so. The yoghurt provided the texture with smooth fatness and mouth filling fullness. I felt so opulent and luxurious eating this, so divine was it. I must also say that it was wonderful with the blueberries that I served it with. The sharpness of the blueberries complimented the creamy fatness of the cream exquisitely. In fact, I would certainly serve this with slightly sharper fruits, such as blueberries or blackberries and not creamy fruits, such as bananas or pears. I think this dessert certainly needs it. I am amazed that such few and simple ingredients can compliment one another so perfectly. This is certainly a case of the whole being gloriously more than the sum of its parts.

Other person’s perspective: My OH said that this was really nice, and the berries turned the dessert into a refreshing, light and summery dessert. He also loved the fact that the brown sugar made an almost syrup and loved that taste with the cream. I suppose the proof of the pudding was in the eating, as he ate two helpings and still wanted more.



Future changes: I am sure my OH knows more about food than he lets on, as he came up with a fantastic idea, which I think is culinary gold. He thought that it would be a great idea to spoon half of the cream mixture into the shallow bowl, sprinkle over half of the brown sugar and then repeat. I think this would be wonderful; surely just as nice as this dessert proper, but more enveloped in the brown sugar, which will obviously become more of an integral part of this marvellous dessert. I am actually really keen to try this, and as I still have nearly all of the ingredients, bar the yoghurt, I will do soon. My OH also says that he would love to try it as an aside to his favourite dessert so far; the apple and walnut crumble.

Rating; 5/5. This deserves no less.