Staying up late with Jamie Oliver!

Bittersweet chocolate on one side, and a picture of the Bombe on the other.  This dessert was a success and will be made again (and again, and again, and again, . . . .).

So the hubby gave me a great gift for my birthday, Jamie Oliver's cookbook, Great Britain.  It's a pretty fun read and the recipes look good.   My mom always said that, "A way to a man's heart is through his stomach,"  so this cookbook is right up my alley. Not only am I learning about dishes that my sweet-heart has always talked about, but now I get to try my hand at cooking them!  Eager to get started I dug straight in!

For New Year's Eve dinner I decided nothing would be better than the full monty, entree and dessert (both British style).  For a first timer, the Toad-In-The-Hole turned out better than I thought, I would post a link to his recipe, but the one on his website isn't the same as the one I did from his cookbook (I guess you'll just have to buy it, wink wink).  Here was our yummy meal, and we devoured it!

This recipe does the sausage separate from the Yorkshire pudding, it was nice because we could all dig in family style.

This blog post, however, was mostly inspired by his Winter Pudding Bombe.  It was one of the first things I saw as I was flipping through the book and I new I had to make it.  I threw everything together the night before and melted the chocolate onto the frozen pudding just before serving.  If you are one with a sweet tooth (as I am), you will find making this is easy and fun.  The colors were so pretty and as I prepared the ingredients I admired their beauty and munched on the bits.  

For the inside of my Bombe, I used frozen cherries, mandarine orange slices, pistachios, caramelized ginger and malt balls.

I couldn't find exactly what we he was asking for in the recipe, so as usual, I substituted with my own ingredients.  It would be nice to try out his exact flavors one day, regardless though, you can't go wrong when it involves fruit, ice cream, nuts and cake.

I also had to make my own Panettone since I couldn't find any here on Orcas.  I found an easy recipe in my bread machine cookbook which did all the work for me.  All I did was let it rise and throw it in the oven.  Voila!

After putting it all together, the final product was a cross between an ice cream Sunday and a giant bon-bon.  CRIKEY BLIMEY IT WAS GOOD!