Brandy snaps

Made the weekend before last between 2 and 3am on Saturday morning. Somehow I fitted in 13 parties in 5 days - lucky there are 25 hours in a chef's day.

These accompanied passionfuit panna cotta and the caramelised oranges, requested by the contact who had passed on my details for what turned out to be my first ever dinner party booking, almost 3 years ago. The two events I cooked for that week were following his father's passing, so he was choosing things that might appeal to his slightly older guests - a couple of days before I had done the smoked trout trio, with coq au vin, then crème caramel and a large pear and almond tart. The two desserts (above) on this day accompanied the grilled asparagus and rack of lamb dish made with saddle of lamb rather that racks.

I was going to pipe one of the left over brandy snaps with cream and accompany it with berries and coulis a bit like this, a real retro classic, but the left over ones mysteriously dissappeared......

Very easy to make in fact - like biscuits. You can make the dough and roll it into balls and bake them. As they bake they spread out flat, then you just leave them to cool for a couple of minutes before rolling them on a wooden spoon as shown here, or making baskets the same way as I make the tuile or filo baskets - ideal for ice cream or fresh summer berries spread over an overturned ramekin. If you keep the flat you could also make this simple dessert.

The recipe I used here came from Merilees Parker - but without the lime juice and zest. Jan may not have approved of her venison sauce recipe when she met her, but this worked for me - the BBC test everything of course before they publish it.

It has been bookmarked for anyone else who wants to try it on the virtual recipe drawer that is Bookmarked Recipes - where anyone from anywhere can blog about a recipe they had bookmarked from a cook book, food magazine, food blog, food website, from TV etc, make it and submit it to a weekly roundup. this week hosted by Divya at Dil Se….