A Delicious Desert For Warm Days....

A delicious dessert for warm days is made of thick Greek yogurt, fresh cream, a sauce, and all sorts of berries. My friend Sonia Peronaci, founder and owner of the famous Italian food blog site www.giallozafferano.it presented this recipe during August into translatable Italian and I would like to share it with all my English speaking friends around the world. Here goes...

Ingredients:

For the actual sweet:

• 300 ml of fresh cream 35%.
• 500 ml of thick Greek yogurt.
• 30 gr powdered sugar.
• ½ tsp of liquid vanilla extract.
• 10 gr gelatin leaves soaked in ice cold water for no longer than 5 minutes then squeeze the water out as best as you can.
• 15 gr honey.

For the sauce:

• 250 gr of strawberries (even frozen but thawed) or even a mixture of frozen berries (we could not find just strawberries so we bought a mixture that is why the sauce is so dark).
• 20 gr  powdered sugar.

For the garnish:

• 4 strawberries whole.
• 30 gr raspberries whole.
• 20 gr blueberries whole.
• Some nice big leaves of fresh mint. 

Method: 

• Save 50 ml of fresh cream to dissolve in it the gelatin after you squeezed the water out of. This fresh cream must be tepid enough for the gelatin to dissolve.
• Whip the remainder of the fresh cream using the wire attachment of a mixer. 

HINT: The fresh cream should be very cold when ready to whip. Some say that even the mixer bowl should also be cold.

• When you see that the cream is thickening start adding the powdered sugar slowly and continue to beat till the whipped cream is nearly stiff.
• In a separate bowl stir the thick yogurt to make it fluffy, add the honey and the vanilla and mix well with silicon or wooden spoon.
• Fold carefully the cream into the yogurt till you get a homogeneous mixture.
• Line a 700 ml rectangular cake mold 20 cm x 10 cm with water soaked oven proof paper.
• Pour into it the mixture and refrigerate for at least 3 hours before overturning onto the serving plate. This can be made the day before if you wish.   

Taking out of the mold:

• Take mold out of the refrigerator.
• Dip most of the mold (with the mixture in it) into hot water for about 5 seconds.
• Slide a knife around the four sides to detach from the wall of the mold.
• Overturn carefully onto the serving plate.
• Carefully take off the oven proof  paper. 

Mading the Sauce:

• Add the powdered sugar to the berries and let stand for about an hour.
• Process the berries (except 4 strawberries and the mint leaves) in a food processor till completely liquefied.
• Strain the liquid mixture through a strainer and collect as much sauce as possible out of the whole lot leaving the seeds behind. Discard the seeds.
• Use the sauce to decorate and color the top of your sweet.
• You can also serve the sauce at the table.   

The final touch:

• Add your whole berries as best as you can to fill the top of your sweet.
• Scatter the  the strawberries.
• Put a leaf of mint here and there to give a beautiful color effect.

Sorry for the smudge!

Note: It would be recommendable to do this operation before dinner is served. The sweet can be made the day before. It is important for the decorated sweet to be in the fridge at least one hour before dinner is served.

Good Luck on this one because Maria did it. I wanted no part of this. It takes experience.

Enjoy,

Stelio and Maria