Helena's Kitchen: Hibiscus Strawberries with White Chocolate Semifreddo

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Hibiscus Strawberries with White Chocolate Semifreddo

When I was doing my shopping at Karrinyup shopping centre yesterday, I was very keen to buy an ice-cream maker as it was on sale. However, after putting much thought onto it, I was able to “pull my hand-break” by refusing it at last minute. I remembered seeing an easy alternative to make ice cream without having an ice cream maker in DailyDelicious blog. Thus, I decided to try to make my first ice cream. Semifreddo is a class of semi-frozen dessert that it has the texture of frozen mousse. My first attempt to make this white choc semifreddo turns out very well. It tastes as creamy and smooth as the real ice-cream. Haha... I am very proud of myself for being able to walk away from that shop and save myself 99dollar on the ice cream maker which I may only use once or twice a year.

Strawberries are in season now. So, I decided to make a more interesting desserts by adding strawberries and hibiscus with syrup to the semifreddo. I get this idea from the Australia’s bestselling glossy food magazine, ABC delicious, More Please. Hibiscus flowers and strawberries have a wonderful synergy to turn this simple dessert into something quite exotic. I attached here with a photo of the hibiscus in syrup if you are interested to find out what is it look like. I would never have known this until my sister in law (Lisa) told me on one occassion. She had promised to buy me one anyway I was able to find it before she could do so. I have no patience to wait any longer to see how the hibiscus in syrup looks like. I finally found this little black jar in a gourmet shop in the city when I was looking for other ingredients. Hibiscus flower is always served with champagne or cocktail, and the syrup has a delicious raspberry and rhubarb flavor.

Ingredients:

White chocolate semifreddo

600ml Whipping cream

Finely grated zest from half of lemon

1 Vanilla bean, split. seeds scraped

125g White chocolate, chopped

40g Icing sugar

Hibiscus Strawberries

110g custer sugar

1 vanilla bean, split, seeds scraped

125g jar hibiscus flowers in syrup

1 punnet strawberries, hulled, halved

1) Place 300ml cream in saucepan with lemon zest, vanilla pod, and seeds. Place the pan over medium heat and bring to just below boiling point. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 5-10 minutes until reduced by quarter, then remove from the heat.

2) Stir in the chocolate into the warm cream, and strain through a sieve into a bowl and chill over ice, stirring.

3) When the base is cool, whip the remaining cream and icing sugar until soft peak, fold 1/3 of the whipped cream into the chocolate base. Pour all the chocolate mixture into the whipped cream and fold to combine.

4) Pour the mixture into the mold and freeze until firm.

5) To make the hibiscus strawberries, place sugar, vanilla in a pan with 1/2 cup of water. Stir under low heat until the sugar dissolves. Simmer over low heat for 8 to 10 minutes until slightly reduced.

6) Leave aside until cool and mix in syrup and flower. Add the strawberries and leave to infuse for 30 minutes before serving in glasses and top with semifreddo.

Reference:
http://dailydelicious.blogspot.com/2011/02/white-chocolate-semifreddo-with.html

ABC, delicious. More Please, pg62