Mum and Dad both loved ice cream, so Mum made a lots of varieties. She added cherry ripe bars and nuts, chocolate mint bars and a lot flavours to plain ice cream, but I don’t think she ever made this super chocolate one. Chocolate ice cream, mars bars, milk choc bits, white choc bits and dark chocolate – a chocolate lover’s dream I think.
I usually make Chocolate Mousse in one large bowl and then serve it up with berries, but this recipe makes 10 individual desserts. Great for a large dinner party, especially as it can be made the day before.
I’m usually not a fan of cheesecake style desserts that use gelatine as a setting agent, but in this case I think the chocolate and cherries add good strong flavours and should make it taste really good. I also like the idea of using Gaiety biscuits for the base.
To me there’s a couple of advantages with this recipe, a. it contains chocolate mousse and b. you can make it a week in advance. When you’re catering for a crowd the trick is to do as much pre-preparation as you can so that on the day/night of the party you aren’t stuck in the kitchen all the time. For that reason alone this recipe could be well worth trying out.
This is a yummy slice combining cornflakes, coconut, sugar and chocolate. It comes from the Australian Women’s Weekly and I particularly like the Cook’s Note at the end about how to use a sandwich bag for piping the chocolate on the top. A great tip.
This is a more upmarket version of the old hedgehog recipe which was traditionally made with Marie biscuits. This recipe substitutes sponge fingers for the biscuits, dark chocolate for the cocoa powder and also adds in almonds and cashews. Much fancier altogether and I’m guessing much more delicious.
This homemade take on a Cherry Ripe comes from Mum’s friend Thel, who was a great cook and gave Mum some terrific recipes.
RIPE CHERRY SLICE
Melt chopped chocolate and copha in double saucepan. Line 2 – 25x8cm bar tins with foil, pour half chocolate mixture over base of each tin (reserve the other half for top). Refrigerate until set. In bowl combine coconut, ground almonds and sifted icing sugar. Add unbeaten egg whites and rum, mix well. Chop cherries roughly, add to coconut mixture and mix well. Spread over chocolate in tins, pour remaining chocolate over. Refrigerate until set. Allow to stand at room temperature 30 minutes before cutting. Remove from tins, remove foil before cutting.
Here’s another of Mum’s pinned together recipes. If I’d realised that there was a cellotape shortage in her kitchen I would have donated a couple of rolls to her bottom drawer. I guess at least the pins kept the recipes together and saved pieces getting lost. If that had happened we’d never have had this Chocolate Cheese Brownie recipe to enjoy.
I was surprised to find this recipe in Mum’s collection. I’ve made Florentine biscuits many times, but this is the first time I’ve seen a recipe for it as a slice.
Beb's Recipe Drawer 