Easy and Elegant Life

The Search for Everyday Elegance and the Art of Living Well.

I’m Dreaming of a White…

(Image via:DeliciousMagazine.co.uk where a recipe can be found as well.)
(Image via:DeliciousMagazine.co.uk where a recipe can be found as well.)

… Chocolate soup with fresh, frozen fruit.

My very good friend, The Architect, can cook. It was his “white chocolate soup” that inspired this post. I was recently a guest at a “cook out.” The dinner was presented buffet style, with fish painted china, the drinks in crystal or silver, damask napkins and silverware elevated the tone of a backyard grill-a-thon. All the usual suspects were there: hamburgers, sausages, hot dogs and potato salad along with unexpected accompaniments like mozzarella stuffed cherry red hot peppers, a grilled vegetable relish and a marinated salad. And then there was this incredibly easy and elegant dessert.

This would serve about six people, unless I got to it first.

Scandinavian Iced Berries with Hot White Chocolate. (Recipe with compliments from The Architect, who stole it from J. Sheekey’s in London.)

Using a double boiler melt 2 large bars of fine white chocolate very slowly – Incorporate 1 cup heavy cream, 1 tablespoon good vanilla and one jigger dark Jamaican rum.

Use the following assortment: raspberries, black berries, pitted cherries, blueberries and green grapes. If you can find the small wild strawberries, use them as well. Freeze the berries in a single layer – on a baking sheet – to keep the berries from sticking together ; Once frozen pour the fruit into a zip lock bag and keep in the ice box until serving time.

Serving time: Place two big hand fulls of berries in a wide rim soup bowl (old Majolica plates – the dark green ones – also look splendid) and allow to rest for five minutes or so. Then drizzle hot white chocolate ( to cover) over the berries – and top with mint leaves – or a few (unfrozen/fresh) red raspberries for extra color. Add one coin silver table spoon and gobble them up quickly. Serve with cold champagne. Or a demitasse.

Bonus: it makes a great smoothie the next morning. The Architect keeps a zip lock bag of the fruit in the freezer. Substitute vanilla yoghurt for the white chocolate sauce, of course.

13 thoughts on “I’m Dreaming of a White…

  1. Thanks for the perfect menu for my annual Mother’s Day celebration in my back yard for my 96 year old Mom, brothers and sister, with all their children! I’ll give all the credit to you, I promise.

  2. Should you find a great recipe for drinking chocolate, I would love to have that one too! I have a large collection of china demitasse cups, saucers and spoons that I would like to use for serving something other than espresso. Isn’t chocolate now considered an anti-oxidant and good for our health? My collection started with a demitasse cup and saucer my lovely mum brought home with her from Antoine’s in New Orleans, on their honeymoon in the ’40’s.

  3. This recipe not only looks and sounds superb but must taste sublime. I am a fan of J Sheekey’s so I have no doubt it is very delish. Thank you for visiting French Essence and I look forward to reading lots more here, xv.

  4. Hmmm, do you think that it is evenings like this that have contributed to my five lb. gain? I chalked it up to not being able to run distance anymore.

  5. No, Elegantologist. You are very thin and seem incredibly toned and energetic. Think of this as the perfect antioxidant dessert, will you? Berries and chocolate. (I’ll experiment using fat free half and half – and get back to you.)

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