I finally did it. I made
cranachan. While it is a simple Scottish dessert of cream, oats, raspberries, honey and whisky, I have not been sure that so much cream would be my thing. After all I was the kid in the family of seven children that couldn't stand cream on my dessert. But it was my birthday, raspberries are in season, I had some extra yoghurt and a bit of time.
On my birthday I had leftover haggis from our
Burns Supper so we ate
haggis nachos followed by cranachan. I'd noticed
Jacqueline suggesting that Greek yoghurt might be substituted for cream. I sat on the fence and used half cream and half yoghurt. The cream and yoghurt were both thick so I didn't bother to whip the cream.
I served it in some glasses with a Rennie Mackintosh design that I bought in Scotland years ago but don't use often. We ate it in front of a movie called
Peterson. I am not sure I would recommend it with a few disturbing scenes but it was an interesting insight into 1970s Melbourne.
The cranachan was lovely. Rich, yes! But also full of flavour and fruit. The oats weren't quite as crispy as I would have liked. (Surely the quick photos I took for the blog didn't make them go soggy in the cream mixture.) Mixing the cream and yoghurt was good. The yoghurt cut through a little of the richness. And the raspberries were superb.
I am sending this dessert to Caroline of
Cake, Crumbs and Cooking for this month's Simple and in Season event, founded by Ren of
Fabulicious Food.
Previously on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
One year ago:
Bush birthday banana cake and other self catering ...
Two years ago:
Gang of Four meme
Three years ago:
Pizza for the Working Woman
Four years ago:
Harvest Café - country bounty
Five years ago:
Polenta and Tomato Comforts
Cranachan
Adapted from
Jac and
Nigel
serves 2
125g punnet of raspberries
1 heaped tsp icing sugar
100g cream*
100g greek yoghurt
2 tbsp whisky
1 and 1/2 tbsp honey
1/2 cup rolled oats
- Dry fry oats on a frypan until they smell toasted.
- Mash half raspberries and the icing sugar with fork.
- Mix cream, yoghurt whiskey and honey.
- Gently fold the raspberry mixture, the cream mixture and the oats together so that the berry mixture is distributed by not mixed in too thoroughly.
- Dollop the mixture into two drinking glasses (fancy if you want to impress) and top with the remaining fresh raspberries.
- Eat immediately.
Note: I used the leftover cream and yoghurt to make
Dal Makhani and
Palak Paneer.
On stereo:
Cruel Sister: Rachel Unthank and the Winterset
Wow that looks good, my mind is already thinking about a vegan version :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Veganopoulous - would love to see your version (does it include silken tofu? and please tell me there is no soyatoo involved)
DeleteWhat a fun dessert! The perfect way to celebrate your birthday!
ReplyDeleteThanks Joanne - it was far quicker than baking a cake - made for a relaxed evening
DeleteHigh five for we "weird" anti-cream kids! My mum makes parfaits like this all the time, but we use our thick spoonable custard. I do like your yoghurt twist though!
ReplyDeleteThanks Hannah - high five for parfaits without cream - I much prefer custard to cream
DeleteA belated happy birthday to you, Johanna. This dessert reminds me of Bircher muesli. I believe the Swiss even use cream with the yoghurt in their more decadent batches!
ReplyDeleteThanks Cindy - sounds like the dessert is a little bit scottish a little big swiss - I've never had bircher muesli but I guess I should try it and just think cranachan
DeleteThese are beautifully presented and I can imagine would be a very effective dessert to prepare ahead of time (unless you do lose the crispiness...). If you took out the cream I think I'd like them, but like you, have never really liked cream and think even with yoghurt it might not be for me. My Mum is the same, so I view anti-cream-ness as normal :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Kari - they would be easy to prepare ahead and have all the components ready to mix up - though it took me so little time to make that you just need to have the ingredients to hand. Maybe you need a higher ratio of oats and fruit to cream - some recipes chose very little oats but I wanted ones that had more of them to cut through the cream
DeleteYour cranachan looks delicious. Just like you, I am not a fan of oodles of cream, so I like the idea of half yoghurt.
ReplyDeleteThanks Cakelaw - the yoghurt definitely was much better - I might even try all yoghurt next time
DeleteThis reminds me of a dessert you could order in one café in my hometown when I was a child. It consisted of layered cherries, crunchy oats (granola?), and yoghurt, and was always served in slim, high glasses and topped with grated chocolate. No whisky and cream though. :)
ReplyDeleteI love your idea of combining both cream and yogurt for your cranachan, I too am not generally speaking a big fan of whipped cream on its own - too rich and sweet. I'll have to try your idea! I've always wanted to make cranachan too but don't really like whisky either - although I should just make it without! Thanks for entering this into Simple and In Season.
ReplyDelete