Raspberries in Chardonnay Jelly

This is jelly grown-up style and it was also a big hit with our guests on Saturday night!  I prefer to choose desserts that are light especially after an evening full of food and drink.  I first made this jelly whilst in Singapore a few years ago and is from Nigella Lawson, one of my favorite English chefs.  Nigella has written 6 cookbooks but Forever Summer was and still is one that I enjoy the most.

Serves 6
recipe adapted from Forever Summer
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750ml bottle Chardonnay, choose a good fruity variety
300g raspberries
1 vanilla pod, split lengthways
5 sheets leaf gelatine 
250g caster sugar

Place the wine and berries in a bowl and allow to steep for half an hour.  Strain the wine into a saucepan and keep the raspberries to one side. Heat the wine with vanilla pod until nearly boiling and leave to steep on one side for 15 minutes.  Soak the gelatine leaves – which you can find in the supermarket these days – in cold water for about 5 minutes.  Remove the vanilla pod and reheat the wine stirring the sugar in until it dissolves; allow to boil if you want to lose the alcohol.

Add a third of the hot wine to the wrung-out gelatine leaves in a measuring jug and stir to dissolve, then add this mixture back into the rest of the wine and stir well. Strain into a large jug. Place the raspberries, equally, into 6 flattish, clear glass serving bowls, and pour the strained wine over the top.
Allow to set in the fridge for at least 3 hours, though a day would be fine if you want to make this well ahead, and take out of the fridge 15 minutes before serving.

The Culinary Chase’s Note:  Yum!   I love how the raspberries are suspended in a cloud of crimson.

By the Glass Wine Tasting Note: Frivolity seems appropriate here.  There are a number of fun little sparkling wine styles to chose from such as Moscato D’Asti. The adventurous should look to Brachetto D’Aqui, an appellation in Piedmont, Italy that is responsible for fun raspberry hued sparklers that boast berry fruit flavours and normally have more than enough residual sweetness to make them great dessert sparklers.