Valentine’s Day Surprise

Got some apples and want to do something extra ordinary for your loved one this Valentine’s Day in 4 days’ time. Here’s a dessert: creative and delicious. I dare say that your loved one wouldn’t resist this dessert that you have pour out from your heart.

I, myself couldn’t resist it and decided to do it after I saw Gary Muller, food blogger in Facebook recipe and Ainsley, the Caribbean Cooking make me drool. Both did poached pears. Garry did with Prosecco and mascarpone cream. Ainsley did coffee and rum with crunchy coconut crumb. I have recreated and combined both the recipe and the TV cooking program.

The poached apples are delicious, flavoursome spiced and has perfect balance of peppery sweet to my taste bud. Thank you, Gary Mueller and Ainsley, for your encouraging me to create this creative and delicious dessert. Let’s cook this dessert.

Ingredients

300 ml strong brewed coffee, your choice
35 ml bourbon
25 g raw sugar
2 apples, peeled and the but end removed
1 cinnamon stick
4 cloves
1 star anise
6-8 black pepper corns, whole
1 Tbs honey (OPT)
1 small mint, decoration (OPT)

Black pepper cream

65 g cream cheese spread
75 g yoghurt
1/2 Tbs honey
1/2 Tbs lime juice
1/4 Tsp vanilla extract
Sprinkles black pepper (OPT)

Method

Brew coffee. Then pour into pot with lid. Add bourbon, sugar, star anise, cinnamon, black peppercorns and apples cover with lid and cook for about 15-20 minutes or until apples are tender.

Shaking the pot occasionally. By this time poaching liquids should be nice and syrupy. Taste it if you like a bit sweet and sticky a bit add honey. Meantime, mix all the ingredients for black pepper cream with a hand beater.

Beat till its fluffy and to your liking creamy soft fluffy. Then chill until needed. Remove apples from heat and allow to cool slightly in the spiced coffee mixture.

Time to plate, place 1 whole apple in the centre, a half facing upward and the remaining half slice thinly. Then spoon cream and place it on the left end next to the whole apple. Sprinkle some black pepper on cream and onto the apples.

Next place cinnamon stick between the whole and half apples at the back. Followed by the black peppercorns around the half and slices apples and the whole. Then place star anise with cloves in the centre of the half and one cloves on slices apple. Now spoon the syrup over the apples. Lastly, I like some colour, so I place a mint in between the apples. Serve this with the strong brewed coffee and steal a kiss with a heart chocolate if you buy the chocolate.

Note: You can use pear. You can omit black peppercorns. You can make the crunchy coconut crumbs as Ainsley did. Search his recipe on google.

https://helenscchin.com/2020/02/10/apple-poached-in-coffee-and-bourbon-with-black-pepper-cream/

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