I love quick and easy desserts. Especially Berry Desserts that make a great use of all the berries I pick and freeze during the summer months! At this time of year when the winds and snow are blowing, berries and other summer fruits can be a beautiful taste of summer to brighten up your days! So much the better when you are able to incorporate them into desserts which don't require a lot of effort or time.
These quick and easy Blackberry & Lemon Desserts fit the bill on all counts. Not only do they make a great use of frozen (or fresh) berries, but they require very few ingredients. They also go together in a flash!
All you need for these are a few simple things. Berries, water, sugar, Greek Yogurt, cream, lemon curd and some crisp meringues. Easy peasy. Not a lot of sugar either. Only 2 TBS, which is quite reasonable.
For the lemon curd you will want to use a good quality curd. Or you can make your own. I have a fabulous recipe to make your own which you can find here.
I have a complete tutorial on it. Some people are quite intimidated by making their own fruit curds, but they are really quite easy to do. Seriously. I am always making my own Lemon Curd.
Homemade lemon curd is so much cheaper than any ready made version and let me tell you, it is a whole lot cheaper to make your own. Especially at this time year when Citrus fruits are plentiful and in season.
I have always longed to have my own lemon tree. It isn't possible in such a cold climate as ours, but my friend Lura has a whole citrus orchard in California where they grow all kinds of citrus as well as avocados. Lucky girl!
The berries need to be cooked with a small quantity of sugar and water to make a berry sauce. This is also very easy to do. I like to use blackberries. If you are not fond of the seeds, you can press the sauce through a seive to remove them.
If you don't like blackberries, feel free to use any berry you do enjoy, or even a mix of berries. You can make this berry sauce early in the day so it is cold when you need to use it, or even make it the night before. Easy peasy.
Another element of this dessert is a lush yogurt cream. Its also very simple to make. As simple as whipping some cream and thick Greek yogurt together to make a mousse.
This has an additional TBS of sugar in it. And that is the sum total of the sugar used in this recipe. So as you can see not a lot at all.
I love, Love, LOVE the extravagance and richness of Greek Yogurt. It is my favorite kind of yogurt to eat. I have some of that just about every morning, with fruit and granola. Its so yummy!
The final element in these are crisp meringues. You can make your own of course and I do have a splendid tutorial here.
They are not hard to make but you do need plenty of egg whites and ideal conditions to make them. You can't make really good meringues on a damp day and you do need to use egg whites from older eggs. New egg whites don't whip well.
Having said that for an easy dessert like this is is really practical to just use ready made meringue nests from the shops. Having to make your own from scratch anything kind of defeats the purpose of this being a simple, quick and easy dessert.
I suppose you could even use a ready made fruit sauce if you really wanted to. This sauce is so simple to make however and is really tasty. Nice and tart without being overy sweet.
The meringues are plenty sweet enough. But they do go well with the tartness of the fruit sauce and the lemon curd.
If you don't want to use meringues you can use broken cookies in their place. I can tell you from experience that broken shortbread cookies are very nice in this. Yum! (Don't judge me!! I am a glutton, I know!)
I think any kind of plain vanilla cookie, digestives or even graham crackers would work well in these if you can't get or don't want meringues. What you want is something which is going to be nice and crisp and not get soggy too easily.
I think plain oatmeal cookies would also be great! But then I am a huge fan of oatmeal cookies.
Just layer it all up in your fanciest glasses and take a bow! Your family will think you have slaved all day to make these. They need not know just how very simple they were to make. Ignorance is bliss!
There is really no end to the combinations you can come up with here. Fun, easy, quick and incredibly delicious. You can't ask for more than that!
Easy Blackberry & Lemon Dessert Pots
Yield: 4Author: Marie RaynerNothing could be easier, quicker or more delicious than these simple fruit and lemon desserts. I like to make and serve them in pretty glasses! These simple desserts are a great way to use up some of the blackberries you froze in the autumn.Ingredients
For the Blackberry Sauce:- 1 cup (150g) fresh or frozen blackberries
- 1 TBS water
- 1 TBS sugar
- 1 cup (280g) full fat Greek Yogurt
- 1 cup (240ml) whipping cream
- 1 TBS sugar
- 1/2 cup (160g) good quality lemon curd
- 2 meringue nests, crumbled
- Icing sugar to dust
Instructions
- First prepare the blackberry sauce so that it can cool enough to use. (I actually like to prepare it the night before.) Place the berries along with the water and 1 TBS of the sugar into a saucepan. Cook over medium heat for 10 to 15 minutes until reduced. It should be somewhat syrupy. Transfer to a bowl and allow to cool completely. (If making the night before, cover and place in the refrigerator.)
- Place the yogurt, cream and remaining sugar into a bowl. Whip with an electric whisk until soft peaks form.
- Layer the cream mixture into dessert glasses along with the lemon curd and the blackberry mixture, making a bottom and top cream addition, with the lemon curd and blackberries in the middle.
- Crumble the meringues over top, dust with icing sugar and serve immediately. Fabulously tasty!
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