A slightly crazy but entertaining dessert

On September 22, 2014 by battenburgbelle

On and off, over the years, I’ve found myself thinking fondly about a dessert I had on trips to visit my pen friend in France as a teenager, but I had no idea what it was called. I had tried our good friend Google but to no avail. And then, there I was with Catherine and Pierre browsing round their local branch of Picard, supplier of everything you can think of that can be frozen. To my inordinate delight, there they were, nestled in with the ice creams. I tried to contain my excitement, but this was a major highlight of the trip to France. So here I present my orange givreé. Or a “frosted orange”. Or as my French dictionary now tells me, orange sorbet…

Orange givreé

Orange givreé, taking my right back to my teens

I found quite a variety of recipes for the filling. My recollection was of something a bit moussy, but frankly I can’t be absolutely sure what I ate last week, never mind remembering the finer details of a dish I had when I was about 16. In the end, and after much prevarication, I went for an ice cream style filling. I didn’t find a recipe in English, so I wafted around the kitchen pretending to be an actual French person, as I conducted the whole project in French. Getting all the flesh out without the recommended grapefruit knife was tricky (note for Christmas list…) and I’m sure my shells weren’t as perfect as they should have been, but the guests seemed to forgive me for that.  Having weighed up the options, I went for an ice cream filling, using the juice of several oranges and one lemon, caster sugar and creme fraiche. It was still very runny after 45 minutes in the ice cream machine, so I used the old-fashioned method of freezing, stirring, freezing, stirring etc and in the end (after around four hours) it was ready to put in the little frozen oranges. Back in the freezer until dessert time – so not a sorbet and not a mousse, but gorgeous and a great accompaniment to a fairly rich dinner of slow roasted lamb shanks with red onions and balsamic vinegar, buttered savoy cabbage and dauphinoise potatoes.

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