1/3 cup Splenda (or other sugar substitute to taste)
½ tsp baking soda
25 gms cooking oil
To pour on top4 tbsp water
1 inch ginger grated
The seeds of one cardamom
I small piece of cinnamon
1 clove
The juice of one lime
2 tbsp Splenda
How to
For the cake
In a food processor crush the almonds, skin and all till it resembles coarse flour
Add the eggs, then the baking soda, the Splenda and finally the oil and blend till well mixed
Place in a baking pan and bake at 180° for 20 minutes. Check the cake and see if you need to cook it for another 10 minutes. It needs to be browned on top.
Remove from the oven and set aside
To pour on top
Bring to a boil all the ingredients marked from 1 thru 4
Take it off the fire
Add ingredients marked 5 and 6 and stir well
Strain the liquid into a pouring jar
Gently pour this liquid over the cake till it is well soaked.
6 eggs (separate the eggs. We need only 3 yolks but the whites of all 6 eggs)
2 tbsp sugar free cocoa powder (we use Hersheys)
6 tbsp Splenda / Natura / Stevia or other sugar-free equivalent, according to taste.
How to
In a double boiler, add the 3 egg yolks, cocoa powder and the sugar substitute and blend carefully and thoroughly till it resembles molten chocolate, no lumps, no bubbles.
In a food-processor whip the egg whites till they form stiff peaks. Do this carefully. Egg whites can turn to runny liquid very easily.
Fold the chocolate mixture into the egg whites and blend carefully till well mixed, making sure that you don’t liquidize the mousse.
Spoon into pretty bowls / ramekins and cover with clear plastic wrap and freeze.
They’re nothing like Scylla and Charibdis, in case you’re wondering that this is a story about a Greek tragedy or perhaps some impossible conundrum for which there is no solution.
Not at all.
Posset and syllabub are two desserts me and old SO (my Significant Other) came across quite accidentally one day, when we eschewed our usual Koshy’s Fish Molee (me) and sausages and eggs (him), in favour of the Oberoi Hotel’s posh Le Jardin restaurant.
Once in a while, we hanker for their buffet spread of cold cuts and cheeses, their salads and soups and their view of the gardens. We also miss their patrons who eat silently, without arguing with each other, banging on the cutlery and crockery. (I’m not complaining Prem, just making a point.)
So after seconds (me) and thirds (him) we were ready for dessert.
Now in most restaurants, everything on a dessert table is either filled with sugar or flour, usually both.
I may have mentioned in an earlier post that SO and I have been trying, unsuccessfully for more than fifteen years to stick to the Atkins Diet, which, devoid of carbohydrate, is supposed to shrink us down into wispy nothings.
It’s not happening. But we haven’t given up.
I came back from the dessert table sadly, telling SO, “There’s nothing for us here.” I may have wiped a tear from my eye.
One of the waiters, a sweet fellow named Siddharth, I think came over.
“Ma’am, you should try the posset,” he said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s a dessert made with cream, lemon and sugar substitute,” he said. “No carbs,” he smiled, handing me a thimbleful. Actually a shot-glass.
It was the most delicious, non-carb dessert I’d had in ages and I am ashamed to tell you that I had four shots. SO had six. We wiped the Oberoi clean of their posset that day.
I asked Siddharth if he would be so kind as to share the recipe with me.
“I’ll give you the easy version,” he said generously. I’m not much of a cook, and he must have picked that up.
“Get a few lemons, some heavy cream and some sugar substitute. Mix it together till it’s delicious. Stick it in the microwave for two minutes, it will bubble. Cool it. Enjoy.” he explained on one breath.
I didn’t need him to repeat a word. It was so easy.
I came home and Googled it. I discovered to my delight that posset is a popular dish from 14th or 15th century England. Pre Shakespeare obviously because he gets Lady Mac to use poisoned posset to bump off the guards in Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 2.
“The doors are open, and the surfeited grooms Do mock their charge with snores. I have drugg’d their possets That death and nature do contend about them, Whether they live or die.”
I discovered syllabub on Wikipedia. It’s a similar dessert, but thicker and more sinful. I’ve made a few modifications from the 16th Century, since one’s tastes change over time.
The original syllabub recipe calls for placing a bowl under a cow and milking it full, but there don’t seem to be any milking cows near where I live.
