Amarula chocolate mousse

I rarely bother with desserts, but for Valentine's Day I figured I'd put in the extra effort. Amarula is a South African cream liqueur made from 'the unique fruit of the marula tree'. My girlfriend, being Zimbabwean, has a fondness for this stuff. You can make this mousse with other liqueurs too. Just keep in mind that you may want to reduce the quantities. A single tablespoon of Bailey's, for instance, would most certainly be enough.

170 g good quality dark chocolate, 70% cocoa solids, broken into small pieces
125 mL heavy cream, whipped into soft peaks
4 eggs, separated
60 mL Amarula
50 g butter, cut into chunks
2 tbs white sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartare
pulp from passion fruit

Heat a little water in a large saucepan until it begins to simmer. Reduce heat. Place a bowl over saucepan and add chocolate. Stir chocolate as it melts to prevent scorching. When melted, add the Amarula and take off heat.. Stir in gently and then add in the butter, chunk by chunk. When fully incorporated, add the egg yolks one at a time.

In another bowl, combine egg whites with cream of tartare. Whisk and whisk and whisk, gradually adding the sugar. When the egg whites hold soft peaks, gently fold egg whites into chocolate mix. Then fold in the whipped cream. Cover and refrigerate for a couple of hours. To serve, spoon carefully into glasses and top with a little passion fruit pulp.

Blackberries coated in white chocolate

By chance I noticed both blackberries and white chocolate were on special at the supermarket today. Nice, I thought. I sampled one of the berries and they were pretty good.

Out of all the fruits, aside from chilli and capsicum and tomato and all those other ones that most people consider vegetables, my favourites are easily, easily the berries. Blueberries and blackberries especially.

Ingredients:

1 x 125g gram tub blackberries (you could also use blueberries, raspberries or strawberries--go with what's affordable and good)
most of a block of white chocolate

To melt the chocolate, put a little water in a small saucepan. Heat over a medium flame. Place a metal bowl over the saucepan. The bottom of the bowl shouldn't come in contact with the water. Too, I mean, the water should never boil. White chocolate, even moreso than milk chocolate and dark chocolate, needs to be melted slowly or you'll balls it up. Break the white chocolate into pieces and drop said pieces into the bowl. When they start to melt, drop the heat to low. Stir the chocolate from time to time. When completely melted, start dipping the berries in. Me, I just jammed a toothpick in them. That made it easier. If you were ultra lazy you could, of course, arrange the berries on a plate or dish and just pour the white chocolate over them.