Caramelised apricots and caramel frozen yogurt - lactose free

More adventures with my Channel Island yogurt where I pre-treated the milk with lactase.  This time a simple caramel frozen yogurt, made with a couple of tablespoons of soft brown sugar, cooked gently until it just began changing colour, a desert spoonful of Pineau des Charentes, picked up on a visit to some friends in western France, and a teaspoon of vanilla.  Let the caramel cool before adding the alcohol or it will evaporate, leaving a pleasant taste but not retaining its anti-freeze qualities.  Cool, mix with 500g yogurt and freeze in an ice-cream maker.

I bought some reasonable looking apricots but they were not as sumptuous as I wished - apricots really need to be picked ripe off the tree in the sunshine.  Cut each in half, sprinkle more of the brown sugar in wide pan and place the cut apricots on the sugar.  Cook gently on both sides.  The juice from the apricots will give the caramel sauce a lovely zingy flavour.

Serve with a scoop of the frozen yogurt and a little of the caramel drizzled over.

I only have white crockery - terrible for photographing very pale ice-cream!  I should have put this in a glass and photographed against a coloured background, but I ate my desert before I put the photos on the computer.  Tastes much better than it looks.

Sunflower and Pumpkin Seed Brittle.

I had some sugar syrup left over from making Italian meringue.  It had gone completely solid in the pan but I thought it would still be possible to turn it into caramel and embed seeds in it to make an interesting seed brittle.  Anyone feeling wary - this is the only candy my mother made when we were kids, and she really did not like cooking.  It is simple; just be careful of the hot caramel as any of that on your skin will burn badly.  The actual quantities don't matter much - if you have lots of seeds and only just enough caramel to coat they will fall apart better and be better for you - too few seeds and you have more caramel to suck or crunch between the seeds.  Chose whatever type of nut or seed you have handy and like.

I took a couple of handfuls of pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds and toasted them briefly in a hot pan.

toasted seeds

Keep an eye on this - they should only just be tinged with gold and be beginning to fragrance the air.  Put them into a cold bowl when they are done.  If you just turn the heat off and ignore them they will carry on cooking and be likely to burn.

I put the solid clear syrup onto a medium heat and watched as it began to go liquid.  I didn't stir.

melting syrup

It gradually went completely liquid and then began to turn golden on the edge.

beginning to go golden

When it was a light amber colour I turned off the heat, tipped the seeds in and tipped the whole mass onto a pan lined with a sheet of baking parchment. You can just grease the pan but it is a lot more reliable to use baking parchment.

seed brittle

broken into pieces

This very easy to make.  You do have to pay attention and shouldn't try to do other things at the same time. Get your pan ready before you begin making the caramel as you have to handle the caramel and seed mixture swiftly when it is ready.  Store in an airtight container.