As always, feel free to skip to the recipe or to the very end for some food photography! This week’s recipe involves a lot of alcoholic fruit! The recipe is half my own creation (the mango) and half is from the fantastic BBC Good Food site (the strawberries).
I don’t know about you but there is nothing I hate more than food waste, it really bothers me. So, I was more than annoyed when I looked in my fridge and saw the punnet of strawberries I’d forgotten all about. They were starting to look a bit off, slightly mushy but still edible. I didn’t want to throw them away but eating them as they were didn’t seem too appealing either. The answer? Alcoholic fruit. As always, I frantically went scouring the internet for recipes. Predictably, I landed across a BBC Good Food recipe that did the job! (Love all of their recipes because they’re easy to follow and always work). In essence, it’s just strawberries, orange or lemon zest, Cointreau and icing sugar. I will pop the link just here for the recipe as credit is due
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/zesty-strawberries-cointreau
I still had one problem left, however: mango that needed eating too. Using the same template as the BBC Good Food recipe for strawberries, I got a bit creative and made up a variation for the mango using lime zest and limoncello liqueur and, I have to say, I impressed myself. I must admit, I’ve always been one of those people who secretly feels disappointed when told the dessert is fruit. Alcoholic fruit though? I’m there. Serve with creme fraiche or, my favourite, ice cream, and you’ve got yourself an easy, light and delicious dessert.
Cointreau Soaked Strawberries and Mango with Lime and Limoncello
Ingredients
For the mango
- Leftover mango
- A good glug of Limoncello (the amount will vary based on how much fruit you have, add slowly and keep tasting)
- Icing sugar (proportional to the amount per tbsp of limoncello / ratio is 1:1)
- Zest of 1 lime
For the strawberries
- Leftover strawberries, sliced or chopped depending on size
- A good glug of Cointreau
- Icing sugar
- Zest of 1 lemon, orange or lime
Instructions
- For the mango: Chop the mango if needed into small-medium sized pieces. Place the fruit in a bowl and add your icing sugar and limoncello – I did approximately 4tbsp of liqueur and an equal amount of icing sugar so the ratio is 1:1. Zest the lime and give everything a good mix – you want the fruit to have a slightly syrupy consistency. Cover with clingfilm and place in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
- For the strawberries: Same as the mango, chop or slice the strawberries depending on size and place into a bowl with your liqueur, icing sugar and zest. Taste the syrup to see if you need more booze or sugar. Place in the fridge for a mininum of 1 hour and serve with the mango over vanilla ice cream.
There you have it then, a nice and simple dessert that won’t leave you feeling too stuffed after a big meal, but takes off the edge of that after dinner sweet craving. We enjoyed ours after a generous (and by that I mean massive) portion of my Next Level Lazy Lasagna and I think it was just what we needed after such a big meal. The strawberries were a classic choice, but I think for me the mango is my favourite.
So that is it for today’s post – I hope it left you hungry for more. If it did then I’d love for you to stick around and check out my other recipes. If you enjoyed this then give it a ‘like’ or you can sign up for email subscriptions (no spam, just a single email when there’s a new post). Still not convinced? That’s no problem, I have an Instagram too that I’d love for you to check out @annacooksthings
For now, I hope you all have a fantastic week and until next time
Anna x