More Dessert!

Agbalumo Jelly

In my last post I told you that some more ideas concerning agbalumo (white star apple/African star apple) were floating around in my head. Using the same drink as previously concocted I decided to try making it into a jelly for another light dessert. And it worked! Naturally I was quite pleased with myself, so I am happy to share my recipe with you.

Normally one would use gelatine to make a jelly, but since it wasn't available I used our homegrown tapioca. It is not the most refined product to use, unlike pearl sago which gives a different texture to the dish. Buying the local tapioca you will find it comes in small lumps as hard as rock. In order to make it easier to use I ground it in small portions in a spice grinder.

Before 

After

It is not advisable to use it as shown on the left because it will not cook evenly, despite soaking.









The ground tapioca gives a smooth result without any lumps.






And now for the recipe.

Ingredients:

500ml (1/2l) of prepared agbalumo drink at room temperature, 50g ground tapioca

Method:

Place the tapioca into a bowl and add the drink, stirring to dissolve. Cover and allow to stand for about 3 hours. Then pour it into a pot and place on high heat. Now this is a bit tedious but essential. You have to stir it gently continuously to prevent sticking or even burning. Remember that tapioca is just starch. When the lot comes to boil reduce the heat so it is just simmering but continue stirring. You will know when it is ready when the colour changes from opaque to a clear orange which will take between 15 to 20 minutes. Pour into prepared serving cups or glasses and chill for several hours. If the jelly is solid enough you might want to turn each portion onto individual serving dishes and serve with a topping of your choice. My own was a bit too soft because I didn't give it enough time to set before serving. So I left the jelly in the glasses and just decorated with vanilla cream. This amount gives two generous servings.

Agbalumo Jelly

If you enjoyed my recipes you might want to check here for more delicious concoctions!

Dessert Anyone? Blancmange With A Difference

I can't say I know anyone who does not like dessert. Either at the end of a meal or as a little treat anytime! There is such a huge variety of sweet concoctions that it is often difficult to decide what to have.

But if you make it yourself instead of buying it then simple is best. So today I want to give you an easy recipe and as far as I know a brand new one which I have just created! Remember the agbalumo drink I posted about a little while ago? Well, I decided to experiment a little, having had a "what if" idea.

I thought if I take the drink I made and turn it into a blancmange/pudding/dessert it should be quite palatable. And it truly is easy to prepare. And tasty!

Agbalumo Blancmange

No special equipment is necessary, except some small moulds to set the pudding. If none are available, moin moin cups can be used or some wine glasses. Use what you have.

And here is the recipe:

Ingredients

500 ml of prepared agbalumo drink, 40 g of cornflour

Method

Rinse your moulds with cold water and keep to one side. This is to prevent the blancmange from sticking when you want to turn it out!

Place cornflour into small bowl and add about 4-5 tbsp of the agbalumo drink, stir to dissolve. Put the remaining drink in a pot and bring to boil. Take off the heat and whisk in the cornflour slurry. Return to the fire and stir until it bubbles up. Remove from heat immediately and pour into the prepared moulds. When the puddings are just warm place them in the fridge for several hours to set.

This quantity gives 4 small portions (for people watching their weight!) or 2 normal sized ones. The recipe can easily be doubled or tripled for a family meal!

When ready to eat, turn the agbalumo blancmange onto individual dessert plates and serve with homemade chocolate or vanilla sauce. A dollop of whipped cream could also be placed on top!

Let me know if you want a recipe for any of the sauces mentioned above.

Ready to be enjoyed!

Agbalumo Drink - Version 2

The large bottle of the agbalumo drink from yesterday's post didn't last long, so I decided to make more. I also thought if I could improve on it. Because I had read about using sugarcane instead of granulated sugar, I wanted to use it this time round.

Fresh sugarcane already peeled

The sugarcane cut into cubes

Sugarcane is not as sweet as regular sugar, so I was ready to use the lot, if necessary.




I also decided to use fresh ginger instead of ground and forget about the vanilla. And I wondered how it would turn out if I cut up the agbalumo really small and removing the seeds and then chopping it fine in my food processor!

Two finger lengths of fresh ginger

Ready to be pureed

The idea being to extract as much goodness from the fruit as possible!






So I started to process the fruit. But the machine was rattling and shaking in a terrible way. So I added some of the water used in the recipe. That was better but still not right. More water and medium speed for 3 minutes. Then I added some of the cubed sugarcane and the ginger and run the processor at full speed. It didn't chop the sugarcane at all, only the ginger. By now the motor was too hot to continue, so I poured the lot into a large pot and added the remaining water, forgetting the cardamom. Then I proceeded like before, bring it all to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. After 10 minutes I tasted for sugar and found that it wasn't sweet at all, so I added 1 cup of sugar to the brew and finished the cooking process. While it was still simmering I noticed that the colour was  more translucent rather than opaque like the previous batch. Note to self: fresh ginger is preferable to ground ginger! Next came the cooling and draining as before.

The mushy fruit  and solid sugarcane

This was a serious lesson in what not to do when preparing agbalumo! DO NOT USE YOUR FOOD PROCESSOR!!! As I mentioned in the last post, the fruit has a certain gummyness. And it promptly deposited all of its gum onto the interior of the processor bowl. It took almost 3 days of hard labor to get rid of the stickiness, the last bit had to be removed with nail varnish remover! It was sticky like when you pull a label off a bottle, if you can picture what I mean!

Next: DO NOT USE SUGARCANE THE WAY I DID. It is a total waste of perfectly good sugarcane because it cannot release its sweetness that way. Only use it if you have someone who can juice it beforehand.

And do not forget the cardamom! 

But cutting it small and removing the seeds is my choice from now on because it does intensify the flavour. Otherwise use the recipe as before.

Better colour than previous

CHEERS!

I hope everyone had a good giggle! Till next time

Agbalumo Drink - Version 1

A couple of weeks ago my daughter sent me a picture of a glass of juice, unusual juice! Made from a fruit which is in season from November/December to March/April and usually just eaten as is. It is called agbalumo in Yoruba and udala (udara) in Igbo; in English it is White Star Apple, African Star Apple being a variation and finally the botanical name Chrysophyllum albidum. I had heard that this fruit is particularly good for diabetics (not me but my husband), but personally I don't like its texture and gummyness. But maybe a juice would be more palatable.

So last Sunday I went to a farmers market and saw beautiful ripe agbalumo and decided to buy some and try my hand at this juice.

Fresh Agbalumo

 

 The picture was on Kuluwaz Instagram page here , but no recipe. On to her blog next where there are fabulous recipes, but still no juice. You can find her blog here. So going back to the Instagram post I saw that the original recipe was obtained from kitchenbutterfly and used with some variations. So I headed over to that site, which is here, and found it immediately. Since I had more fruit than stated in the recipe I made my own adjustments.But first I had to find the recipe. 

 

Here is what I used:

14 ripe agbalumo, 2 l water, 1 1/2 cups sugar, 2 generous tsp ground ginger, 16 green cardamoms, seeds crushed in a small mortar and pods removed, 2 tsp vanilla extract.

How the drink is made:

Wash and cut up the fruit into smallish pieces, leaving the rather large seed in. Place in a rather large pot and add the water and remaining ingredients. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. Turn off heat, open lid and allow to cool until warm. 

Line a colander with a draining cloth (cheesecloth or clean dishtowel) and place on a bowl or pot, large enough to take all the liquid.

The cooked fruit and spices draining

When most of the liquid has drained off take the ends of the cloth and twist together in a ball and squeeze out any remaining juice. Due to the nature of agbalumo the leftovers can be used like chewing gum, which children are very fond of!

Next decant the liquid into a suitable bottle and keep in the fridge until thoroughly chilled.

Ready to drink

Technically speaking it is not a juice because of the addition of water but a drink. A very tasty drink, sweet, sour and a little bitter. Truly enjoyable but because of the sugar not really suitable for diabetics.