Not baking: raspberry blancmange

I had never tasted a blancmange, but I have long been familiar with them at second hand through children's novels. Not the more contemporary ones (which are probably nothing of the sort for today's readers), but the older ones from the first half of the 19th century. These featured food extensively and one of the more esoteric delights (as far as I am concerned) was blancmange. But Annie Bell's Gorgeous Desserts features a few (as well as lots of jellies) and last summer I bought a jelly mould in the sale, so I thought the time had come. 

I made a raspberry blancmange featuring raspberries, double cream, a bit of sugar and gelatine. I figured that it was almost bound to taste nice, even if the set didn't work (my fears are the legacy of trying to convert a recipe for leaf gelatine to powdered gelatine for my dad with no guidance and a resulting very rubbery panna cotta...). 

You whizz raspberries with icing sugar and strain them, soak the gelatine and then heat the cream, stir in drained leaf gelatine, followed by the raspberry purée.   Then you pour it into a greased jelly mould and leave to set in the fridge overnight. Simple! 

Much to my surprise, I managed to in mould the blancmange (with some difficulty), but in more or less one piece! 

I served it with a roasted strawberry sauce from simple bites I'd made previously (very easy and good for solving the problems of too many strawberries about to turn).

It was good! And easy! I recommend it!

Happy non-baking!

PS if you also love children's novels and food, you might enjoy 'Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer' by Jane Brocket

PS Strawberry sauce recipe:

 http://www.simplebites.net/frozen-treats-roasted-strawberry-sundae-recipe/