'Slut-Red' Raspberry Chardonnay Jellies

My dad turned 64 on 4th July and I cooked him a birthday meal to celebrate. After much deliberation I decided on a menu made up of dishes that I'd never cooked before: Pork belly with a star anise plum sauce, garlic potato croquettes and Parmesan crusted creamed spinach followed by Nigella Lawson's 'Slut-Red' Raspberry Chardonnay Jellies. I was a little intimidated by the huge list of ingredients and cooking processes for all the dishes but I took it one step at a time and everything somehow came together as planned.

After an afternoon in the kitchen, I was proud to present the birthday meal I'd slaved over and everyone loved it - it just goes to show that in the kitchen it's worth taking a risk sometimes. 

This blog entry will cover the dessert course portion of the meal which served 4. The recipe serves 6 (which meant extra desserts for the day after!).

Ingredients

1 x 750ml bottle good fruity chardonnay

300g raspberries

1 vanilla pod (split lengthwise)

16g gelatine leaves

250g caster sugar

double cream (to serve)

Method

Place the wine and berries in a bowl and allow to steep for half an hour. Strain the wine into a saucepan and keep the raspberries to one side. Heat the wine with the vanilla pod until nearly boiling and leave to steep on one side for 15 minutes.

Soak the gelatine leaves - which you can find in the supermarket these days - in cold water for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, after removing the vanilla pod, reheat the wine and stir in the sugar until it dissolves; allow to boil if you want to lose the alcohol.

Add a third of the hot wine to the wrung-out gelatine in a measuring jug and stir to dissolve, then add this mixture back into the rest of the wine and stir well. Strain into a large jug.

Nigella's recipe recommends placing the raspberries, equally, into six flattish, clear glass serving bowls, and pour the strained wine over the top. I didn't have enough suitable bowls so decided to use martini glasses for a few of my desserts.

Allow to set in the fridge for at least 3 hours, though a day would be fine if you want to make this well ahead, and take out of the fridge 15 minutes before serving.

Serve some double cream in a jug and let people pour this into the fragrant, tender, fruit jewelled jelly as they eat.

The finished desserts and my dad enjoying his!

Please note all photographs used in this blog entry are actual pictures of my cooking, not file photos.