Melting moments: Top 8 delicious desserts to delight this Valentine's Day
Picture: iStock
The less time we spend preparing food in the kitchen on Valentine’s Day, the better. Besides, as the 14th falls on Monday, we won’t want to start cooking fancy meals after work, even if we are still working from home.
My pasta main course takes about 20 minutes. Start by putting on a large pot of water to boil for the pasta. In a large frying pan, slowly heat two cloves of garlic and 5cm of fresh chilli, both sliced finely, in a dessertspoon each of olive oil and butter. Switch off to allow the oil to absorb the flavours. When ready to dine, cook the pasta of your choice per instructions on the pack. When cooked, add in frozen peas.
Meanwhile, add two handfuls of chopped up prawns and fresh parsley to the pan on high heat. Turn in the pan until cooked – three minutes. Add a generous splash of cream or more olive oil for extra sauce. Add salt/pepper to taste. Drain the pasta and peas and add to the pan to coat with the prawn sauce. Serve in warm bowls immediately.
Try this with a raw kale salad from Sabrina Ghayour’s superb Sirocco: Fabulous Flavours from the East cookbook (worth buying for this recipe). Its warm apple-based spiciness of soya, ginger, cinnamon, garlic and sumac contrasts beautifully with the creaminess of the prawn dish. Any kale, cabbage, mixed leaf salad works well.
For dessert, we took a shortcut and went shopping for frozen delights to be defrosted as needed.
A selection of 12 coffee, chocolate and salted caramel macarons are flavoured with a mere hint of Baileys liqueur. Natural almonds give them a typically macaron gritty texture and warm taste. As good as freshly made. Can be kept in the ‘fridge for five days, or defrost for 30 minutes for a light texture. Perfect for a sweet bite. Good value. We bought in Iceland, Ballincollig.
9.5
A crisp chocolate biscuit base is spiked with meringue pieces, on top a mint-flavoured icing, more biscuit, then a rich chocolate mousse layer topped with dark chocolate. A delicious blend of different textures, and not over-minted to refresh the palate after the main course. I sliced off fingers at different times for tasters and the large bar cut easily. The slices defrosted in about 20 minutes. Perfect for coming back for more later. Fair price. Made in France.
8.5
Eight éclairs come in four flavours and toppings: chocolate with pistachios, salted caramel topped with hazelnuts, hazelnut praline topped with crunch sugar wheat flakes and vanilla topped with chocolate flakes. A dainty selection. All are delicious, especially the dark chocolate one. A lovable treat. The salted caramel profiteroles in the brand are good too. Defrost all of them and save a few for another day.
8.5
A comfortingly short list of ingredients has 54% meringue and 32% cream with 11% raspberry sauce and 3% hazelnuts. Sweet and light as we would expect from a meringue, it has a delicious, tangy raspberry contrast, with hazelnut pieces on top. Defrosts easily in the fridge. The packet says six hours, but an hour was enough for tasters to enjoy.
8
The mascarpone, egg, cream and marsala are rich and creamy, while the chocolate biscuit layer gives it bite. And all topped with shavings of rich chocolate. This is one for lovers to dawdle over. If you don’t want to eat all of this at once, it can be turned out, halved with a warm knife and returned to the freezer for another night of luxury. You may however find you will want to finish it all.
Sumptuous.
9.25
A warm, comforting end to a meal, a good banoffee’s combination of creamy and crunchy with just the right amount of sweetness is why this dessert comes back into fashion every few years. This one has the usual digestive biscuit base, layered with dulce de leche caramel sauce, banana slices, and cream, and finished with good quality dark chocolate shards. Delicious. Three hours is the recommended defrosting time, but we found an hour was enough. Contains responsibly sourced palm oil.
9
Cream at 39% and 20% full-fat soft cheese are flavoured with lemon curd jellified with beef jelly. The biscuit crumb is made from rapeseed and palm oil (with no mention of a sustainable source of the latter). The balance between soft lemon and creamy is good, and the base has a nice gritty bite. For two, this can be halved with a warm serrated knife to keep some frozen for later. Reduced from €4.50, a bargain.
8
Hard to resist the name for the day that’s in it, and this one’s caramel flavour is new to us. The pack suggests it can feed 10, and it’s possible to cut two slices while still frozen and keep the rest for another day. Ice-cream has chocolate drops, milk chocolate coated pieces and a caramel flavour on a hazelnut biscuit layer with further chocolate topping with caramel chips. Classic for good reason. And no palm oil. For the sweet-toothed.
8.25
