Concept borrowed from British guru Nigela Lawson, works very well in the summer with fresh fruit and on less fruitful seasons with other partners like lemon curd, vanilla sauce plum compote etc..
Serves 4 (about 175 ml per serving)
- 150ml plus 50ml water
- 150g sugar
- Zest and juice of 1 lemon
- 200ml tonic water (not slimline!)
- 125 ml gin
- 15g gelatin
- raspberries or other fruit to serve with, optional
- fresh cream (optional)
- 1 teaspoon icing sugar if using raspberries
- 3/4-litre jelly mould, (if traditional glass-metal, may need to be lightly greased with almond or vegetable oil)
- Put the water and sugar into a wide, thick-bottomed saucepan and bring to the boil.
- Let boil for 5 minutes, take off the heat, add the lemon zest and leave to steep for 15 minutes.
- Strain into a measuring jug, then add the lemon juice, the tonic water and the gin; you should have reached the 600ml mark; if not, add more tonic water, gin or lemon juice to taste.
- Dilute gelatin
- Whisk it in.
- Pour some of the gin and lemon syrup mixture into the saucepan and then pour everything back into the jug.
- Pour into the mould and, when cold, put in the fridge to set. This should take about 6 hours.
- When you are ready to unmould, half-fill a sink with warm water and stand the jelly mould in it for 30 seconds or so. Clamp a big flat plate over the jelly and invert to unmould, shaking it as you do so. If it doesn’t work, stand it in the warm water for another half-minute or so and try again.
You could garnish (decorate) with white currants or raspberries, some cream to support them but we usually find the combination of two-three different jellos (even panna cota) work deliciously well..