This article was written for Annabel & Grace, which is now part of Rest Less.
This picture is of the Eastern Mess that my niece prepared this last weekend and it was totally delicious, more interesting than Eton Mess, and she put it together in no time. An impressive pud that everyone will love.
EASTERN MESS
Ingredients serves 6
600ml double cream
3 tbsp icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste of seeds scraped from 1 vanilla pod
2 tbsp rosewater
6 ready-made meringues (my niece had made these earlier but you can get very good shop ones)
450g raspberries
handful of Greek Basil leaves
75g pistachio nut slivers or chopped pistachios.
For the Raspberry sauce
225g raspberries
1 tbsp icing sugar (you made need more if using raspberries out of season)
1 tbsp rosewater
squeeze lemon juice
How to prepare
Using an electric hand whisk, whip the double cream, icing sugar, vanilla paste and rosewater together in a mixing bowl until soft peaks form. You don’t want the cream to be too loose or too stiff, so keep and eye on the consistency. With the whisk set on a high speed it should take about 3 minutes or so.
To make the sauce, mash the raspberries to a purée with the icing sugar, rose water and lemon juice in a bowl until the mixture is completely smooth. Pass the mixture through a sieve to remove the raspberry seeds.
Choose either a large platter or individual serving dishes. Now layer the cream, meringues and raspberries in the serving dish(es), drizzling on the sauce and scattering over the basil leaves and pistachios as you go. Decorate the top layer with a little drizzle of sauce and a final scattering of basil leaves and pistachios. Serve immediately.