Layered Raspberry Mousse

This was so light and refreshing, it was one of the favourites after the heavy BBQ dinner we had. It's also one of my favourite things to make as it's easy and the result looks stunning. It's a wonderful dessert on its own and marries well with other sweet elements too for a more special dessert. I've served this with a mascarpone hazelnut millefeuille at Easter two years ago and it was a big hit, but that's another recipe.

Layered raspberry mousse
from BBC Good Food magazine (September 2001)

4 x 125 g punnets of raspberries
3 tablespoons Kirsch or raspberry liqueur
1 tablespoon icing sugar
2.5 leaves gelatine
50 g castor sugar
150 ml double cream
fresh mint sprigs, to decorate

Put 1.5 punnets of raspberries into a bowl, pour in the liqueur and icing sugar, then gently stir until the icing sugar has dissolved. Leave to macerate while making the mousse.

Put the gelatine in a bowl of cold water to soften. Set aside 4 raspberries for decoration. Whizz the rest in a food processor, then put into a saucepan with the castor sugar and gently heat until the castor sugar has dissolved. While the raspberries are still hot, lightly squeeze the water out of the gelatine and stir the gelatine into the raspberries. Transfer the mixture into a bowl and leave to cool.

Whip the cream to soft peaks. When the raspberry mixture is cold and starting to set, carefully fold it into the whipped cream.

Spoon have of the liqueur raspberries in the bottom of the serving bowl or individual glasses, then half of the cream mixture. Repeat the layers and chill until set. Decorate with reserved raspberries and sprigs of mint.

Torta alla Gianduia

I love Nutella. I love it so much I eat it directly from the jar with a tablespoon. When I first saw this recipe, my first thought was, "What a waste of good Nutella!". The whole jar that goes into this cake would have given me many many spoonfuls of pure gourmandise. I don't think I was ever such a Nutella fanatic until I came to France. It's on crêpes, waffles, donuts, chichis, not to mention it goes wonderfully with brioche, this stuff is addictive. Nutella cake was too tempting to resist.

Torta alla gianduia
from How To Be A Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

For the cake:
6 large eggs, separated
pinch of salt
125 g soft unsalted butter
400 g Nutella
1 tablespoon Frangelico, rum or water
100 g ground hazelnuts
100 g dark chocolate, melted

For the icing:
100 g hazelnuts (peeled weight)
125 ml double cream
1 tablespoon Frangelico, rum or water
125 g dark chocolate

Preheat the oven to 180 °C.

In a large bowl, whisk the egg whites and salt until stiff but not dry. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and Nutella together, and then add the Frangelico, egg yolks and ground hazelnuts. Fold in the cooled, melted chocolate, then lighten the mixture with a large dollop of egg white, which you can beat in as roughly as you want, before gently folding the rest of them in a third at a time. Pour into a 23 cm greased and lined Springform tin and cook for 40 minutes or until the cake's beginning to come away at the sides, then let cool on a rack.

Toast the hazelnuts in a dry frying pan until the aroma wafts upwards and the nuts are golden-brown in parts: keep shaking the pan so that they don't burn on one side and stay too pallid on others. Transfer to a plate and let cool. This is imperative: if they go on the ganache while hot, it'll turn oily.

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, add the cream, liquer and chopped chocolate, and heat gently. Once the chocolate's melted, take the pan off the heat and whisk until it reaches the right consistency to ice the top of the cake. Unmould the cooled cake carefully, ice the top with the chocolate icing, and dot thickly with the whole toasted hazelnuts.

Diamants au Citron

These little "lemon diamonds" are real gems! The rich pastry is like a shortbread, good enough to eat on its own. In fact, while we were baking the pastry shells, some got slightly burnt, still edible, but not exactly presentable for a wedding buffet. So of course, we wolfed them down. They were so good that we kept asking Aunty Lina to burn more pastry!

Diamants au citron
from Grand Livre de Cuisine d'Alain Ducasse by Alain Ducasse

Pastry shells:
600 g plain flour, sifted
400 g softened butter
200 g icing sugar
2 egg yolks
granulated sugar

Lemon curd:
50 cl lemon juice
100 g castor sugar
400 g butter
zest of 6 lemons
600 g eggs
150 g castor sugar

For the pastry, mix all the ingredients together except granulated sugar. Roll the pastry into a long cylinder about 1.5 cm in diameter. Let the pastry rest in the fridge for 1 hour.

Brush the pastry cylinder with a beaten egg, and roll it in the granulated sugar to coat. Cut the roll into 1 cm-thick coins and place them onto a cookie sheet. Press the centre of each "coin" with your thumb to make a little well for the lemon curd. Let the pastry rest in the fridge again for 30 minutes.

Bake the pastry at 180 °C until golden, and cool.

For the lemon curd, mix the lemon juice, castor sugar, butter and lemon zest in a bowl and heat over a bain-marie.

Beat the eggs and castor sugar together until pale. Add to the lemon mixture and heat this mixture to 85 °C. Seive and refrigerate.

To assemble these "lemon diamonds", put the lemon curd into a pastry bag and dollop a dome of lemon curd into each pastry shell.

They may be decorated with a sprinkling of lime zest.

Snow-topped Spice Cake

This is almost like a gingerbread, but much more airy and the spices more subtle. The batter smelt heavenly! Joanne and Aunty Lina insisted on adding more orange zest than the recipe required, I'm personally not a fan of orange-flavoured desserts, but it was two against one... In the end, everyone loved this cake so I guess it was a good thing. We decorated our cake with orange segments coated lightly in a spice syrup.

Snow-topped spice cake
from Feast by Nigella Lawson

4 large eggs, separated, plus 2 extra large egg whites
125 ml vegetable oil
125 ml water
2 tablespoons runny honey
200 g dark muscovado sugar
75 g ground almonds
150 g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon all-spice powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
zest of 1/2 an orange
100 g castor sugar

Preheat the oven to 180 °C.

Whisk together the yolks and oil, then add the water, honey and dark muscovado sugar. Add the almonds, flour, baking powder, bicarb, salt, spices and zest, folding in gently.

In another bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form and then gradually add the caster sugar. Fold the egg whites into the cake mixture, and pour into a 25-cm well-buttered Bundt tin.

Cook for 45 minutes, or until the cake is springy on top and beginning to shrink away from the edges. Let the cake cool in its tin on a rack for 25 minutes before turning it out.

When it's completely cold, spread the top of the cake with royal icing. To make royal icing, beat one egg white until just frothy, then gradually add icing sugar, beating continuously until a thick icing is formed. Blend in 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. Usually, for 1 egg white, 1.5 to 2 cups of icing sugar are needed.

Chocolate fondant with Griottines

Many of you asked for my recipes, so I'm putting them up here. I'll start with the desserts since these were the most requested...

Chocolate fondant with Griottines
from Larousse du Chocolat by Pierre Hermé

150 g dark chocolate 70%
4 egg yolks
150 g castor sugar
200 g soft butter
100 g cocoa powder
30 cl cream
150 g Griottines, plus some for decoration

Break the dark chocolate into little pieces and melt over a bain-marie. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until pale. Then beat the egg-sugar mixture into the chocolate.

Sift the cocoa powder. Beat the cocoa powder with the butter. Mix into the chocolate mixture.

Whip the cream until stiff. Fold into the chocolate mixture, and then fold in the drained Griottines.

Line a loaf tin with clingfilm. Pour the mixture into the tin, cover with more clingfilm, and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.

To serve, turn out the fondant onto a serving plate and decorate with more Griottines.

NB: Griottines are cherries macerated in a syrup of alcohol and Kirsch.

Our wedding

An invitation...

Our wedding was held at Bidache in France. It is a small Basque village in the Pyrenées-Atlantiques. We had the good fortune of organising the wedding in a large 18th-century country house belonging to Amelie's family. It certainly added to the charm of our small Basque wedding.

Our invitation cards were designed by Trixie and put together by Joanne, the Photoshop expert. The photo was taken by Joanne in Paris last summer, can't remember the exact location but it was not too far from the Eiffel Tower.

We arrived at Bidache on Tuesday night. After that was 3 full days of cooking! Yes, we decided to cater for the wedding ourselves. It took Trixie one whole week to pore through all her cookbooks (and she has a ton of them!) and to decide on the menu. An enormous feat, we were exhausted every night, but we made it thanks to everyone who chipped in - our parents, Joanne, Joel and especially the head-chef, Aunty Lina. Our dear friends, Astrid, Lenka, Marianne, Philippe and Xavier, came on Friday to help out too. They were exceedingly efficient! After this experience, they were speaking of starting up a company specialising in organising weddings, so to those getting married soon, remember their names!

The menu:

Starters: Bacon-wrapped sausages, prunes stuffed with foie gras wrapped with thin slices of dried duck magret, yogurt balls rolled in a mix of coarsely ground red, green and black peppercorns, smoked salmon and radish canapes, grilled peppers and feta canapes, foie gras and apple-raisin compote canapes, roquefort and walnut canapes, grilled aubergine-mozarella-basil roll-ups, melon and mint wrapped in Serrano ham, anchoide with figs, spiced chickpeas, zucchini dip, blackened aubergine dip, parmesan puffs, sausage rolls, mini chorizo and tomato frittatas, roasted cashew nuts with rosemary, almonds with cocao powder and Espelette chili, pastry parcels filled with tomato and olives, sausagemeat and applesauce, goat's cheese and pesto.

Mains: Goat's cheese, leek and walnut tart, onion and rosemary tart, smoked salmon and dill tart, vodka-marinated steak, seared encrusted carpaccio of beef, zucchini salad, spicy roasted pumpkin, beet salad with balsamic dressing, minted potato and green bean salad, potato and pea salad with pesto, barbequed meats - sausages, duck magret, beef, pork ribs. To accompany the barbequed meats, there were shallot and mustard butters, shallot and spiced red wine confit, and salsa verde. Salsa verde goes especially well with grilled beef.

Desserts: Almond cake, snow-topped spice cake, torta alla gianduia (Nutella cake), chocolate fondant with liquered cherries, lemon tartlets, raspberry mousse.

We had lots of fun in the kitchen!

Everything was DIY. Wedding souvenirs for the guests were hand-made by Joanne and us. With these personalised wine glass tags, our 80 guests would recognise their glasses easily.

Mass booklets were printed and tied.

Our wedding day started bright and early. After a good breakfast, we started assembling the canapes for the party. Everyone helped out and the few hundred canapes were done in a flash.

In the meantime, the tables were set, candles were put out, etc. More and more people arrived, and the house was getting lively. Philippe went to pick up the flowers. Bao had a knack for making bridal bouquets.

The wedding was at 3pm. We got into our wedding gear. After 3 days of non-stop running around, it was show time!

The church was beautifully decorated by Sharon and Hoon Yung the day before. Christine and Albrecht brought the barley stalks for the pew decorations. The delightful church music was played by Jennah on the flute and Leigh on the piano. They were very accomodating to our demands (Leigh was ready to strangle us during the rehearsal 3 days before). Felix was our lead singer and Jennah sang the lovely Salve Regina.


The bride arrived at the church at about 3.15pm. She was accompanied by Joanne, Aunty Lina and parents.




The bridal entrace was Bach's Cantata 208. Trixie and her father were preceded by Camilla, the flower girl and Erik, the page boy.


The mass began. It was carried out in english and french, as our families spoke no french and the priest, Père Dunate, spoke no english. The mass booklet (produced again with Joanne's expert Photoshop skills) was thus prepared in both languages. Despite not speaking a word of english, Père Dunate was very kind and accomodating, putting the non-french speakers at ease during mass. Sharon read the first reading in english, Christine read the psalm in french, and Joanne read the intercessory prayers in english.

Ginny, Tony, Sharon and Leigh were our witnesses. We're very touched they came all the way from Singapore and Jersey to share this day with us.

Erik did a wonderful job as our ring bearer. The pretty pillow was made by Alice who also did a great job on Trixie's dress.

We exchanged rings....


signed the register...

And now as Mr and Mrs Shankar Sachidhanandam, we debarked on our journey together.

We exited the church under a shower of bubbles. It was so pretty. Bubble-blowing continued outside the church. We had our unanticipated share of rice and confetti too.

After the church ceremony, we all walked back to the house through the picturesque main street. Bidache had its typical Basque red and green windows. It was a beautiful day and the bubbles, laughs and fun continued all the way.

The party at the house was kicked off with champagne, along with the starters, while Blue Perspective (our very own special guests from Jersey) got their gear hooked up for the music. In no time, we were entertained with classy jazz music, whipped up by five very talented young musicians - Jennah, Anthony, George, Henry and Thomas.

The traditional "bouquet throwing act", well executed by Trixie, resulted in Jennah being the next in line to be married, according to tradition... Unfortunately, we were unable to get away from the typical "Yam Seng", which was faithfully initiated by Leigh.

Throughout the evening, food and drink flowed, accompanied by fantastic music. Blue Perspective was accompanied at several occasions by Peter and Leigh. Felix and Joel joined in too. Everyone was so impressed with the band. We were certainly very lucky to have them play at our wedding. Unable to resist the catchy music, dancing followed.

While the majority of us were too busy eating and drinking, a determined "BBQ crew" was out digging a pit and getting the fire going, in preparation for the great cookout to come. Succulent duck and beef was soon to follow, along with juicy sausages, to be washed down by dark Bordeaux reds. A slab of pork ribs topped up the meat platter. This was by far the best BBQ we've ever had. The meats were grilled to perfection under the expert hands of Marianne and Nico. By the way, Marianne is from Argentina and has BBQ in her blood. By the time we had the cheese and desserts, we were so stuffed!

The party wound down at about 2 am, but a small group of us stayed up talking, drinking and laughing all the way to 5 am. Many of our guests brought sleeping bags to stay overnight, some even camped in tents in the garden. The next morning we had a good breakfast/brunch with the leftovers. We had originally planned scrambled eggs and sausages but didn't in the end as there was just too much food left. Nico commented that we had catered for 200 instead of just 80. (In fact, we were eating leftovers for 3 weeks after the wedding!) At mid-morning, people started leaving as some had come a long way. Our families stayed with us for 3 more days, enjoying the Basque countryside. And we had a BBQ dinner every night!

We left Bidache on Wednesday, after the week-long wedding celebration, preparations included. We had the time of our lives, and we hope that our guests did too. We're very touched that they made the journey from Singapore, Australia, USA, UK, Germany, Amiens, Grenoble and Bordeaux. We're also eternally grateful to the people who helped out during the wedding, our dear families and friends who cooked, served, cleaned, and made sure everything went smoothly, leaving us, the newly-wedded couple, to fully enjoy every second of our special day. Of course, we cannot forget our photographers, Igor and Joel, who gave us such beautiful souvenirs. Lots more photos can be found on http://www.flickr.com/photos/trixshank. Enjoy!