Very easy but impressive dessert required please.

[madmarchhare]

Does such a thing exist?

Its for a relaxed dinner party with friends.

Pavlova

so easy it's untrue

Or what is fondly know as "ginger minge" at Castle Dracula - buy a pack of ginger nuts, a small bottle of brandy and some cream and chocolate.

Whip the cream until stiff, then dip each ginger nut in brandy (briefly) and sandwich together with cream until you have a long log of them. Then cover with cream and sprinkle with chocolate (scrape off the bar into nice looking rolls). Leave in fridge for a few hours. Sounds vile but is truly divine

I've just made a posh bread and butter pudding with a left over panettone thing from xmas - beat up 4 egg yolks and one egg with 2 tbsp sugar and 500 ml milk and 200 ml cream (or all milk or - as I had to do - all milk with a couple of spoonfuls of yoghurt mixed in) and pour over a dish filled with slices of panettone, brioche or bread that you've spread with butter. Sprinkle sugar on top (demera if you have any, otherwise normal) and bake at 180 degrees for 40 mins. You can add raisins, spread the bread with marmalade, add spices like nutmeg or cinnamon or the zest of a lemon or orange if you want. Or chocolate buttons. Not terribly smart, I'm afraid but usually quite popular!

nigel slater's white chocolate and cardamom mousse couldn't be easier, tastes UNBELIEVEABLE and can be done the day before. serve with a few raspberry/blueberries. Yum Yum Yum.

Cheats Ice cream. Whisk double cream to thick but not stiff, add same amount af greek yoghurt, few spoons of honey, then just before eating process it together with a bag of frozen fruit - raspberries, or fruits of the forest are v. nice.

Oi CD, I am easily offended you know!

Don't know if it's very impressive, but Eton Mess is easy and usually goes down well

Hot blackcurrant sauce with quality vanilla ice-cream? (Nigel Slater)

What's Eton Mess?

eton mess yummy but not impressive as everyone assumes the reason they are getting it is because you were GOING to make pavlova but either (a) the meringue stuck to the baking tray or (b) you dropped it and had to scrape it off the floor into the nearest bowl and salvage...

How about Ice Cream for grown ups?

Tuile biscuit baskets
Luxury Vanilla Ice cream
Mango sliced
Toffee sauce - English provender co do a really nice one Creamy toffee and vanilla sauce - you can get it in Tesco

Pile Ice cream in the baskets, drizzle sauce round plate, basket in the middle decorate the plate with mango slices and then warm the sauce and drizzle over ice cream just as you serve - need a fair amount of sauce as it's fairly subtle. Did if for family tea for 9 of us and went down a treat - or what about your own version of trifle?

Maderia cake in inch cubes,
m&s luxury brandy custard
raspberry's
cream
cake at the bottom and splash with tia maria, raspberry's over them and bit more tia maria,
spoon over lashings of custard
cover with pouring cream

Absolutely divine - Mums recipe - really really nice and doesn't feel heavy at all.

Wow just read through other suggestions - I'll be doing the Ginger log CD that sounds gorgeous

Good luck

h x

or (c) it is the remains of a leftover pavlova that you had at a much more impressive dinner party the day before that they Were Not Invited To

oh god, it sounds sexy.....I am on a diet and am literally STARVING...

pph easy is the operative word for me (and I don't particularly like meringue/pavlova)

PPH, I've been slavering over that mousse. Would the same main ingredients work for a home made ice cream (we've got a new machine) do you think?

i don't know.... I've never really made ice cream. It has quite a lot of choc in it, it is super rich, I think yuo might need to down the amound of white choc and up the amount of cream, but it certainly would be worth a try....

I'll be your taste tester if you like!

Pot au Chocolate (3-4 servings)

1 bar plain chocolate
1 250g tub marscapone cheese

Melt together, pour into ramekins and leave to set. Very rich.

What about Baked Alaska?

Creme brulee is incredibly easy to do but always seems to impress people (even when I wheel it out for the 4th time ). If you've got one of those little blowtorches it's even easier. And it can be made in advance, and if you make an extra one you can try it just to make sure it's up to sratch....

If you want something very calorific but truly divine, what about a proper banoffee pie? Forget the processed crap you get in supermarkets.

Take a tin of condensed milk (I usually do several at a time, so I always have one available in the cupboard for a quick pud), boil for about 3 hours - do not pierce the tin; you boil it as is. Make a biscuit base (either digestives or ginger nuts for a more unusual taste), smear the contents of the tin over the base, layer bananas on top and cover with whipped cream. You can decorate as you wish, either with chocolate drops, shaved chocolate or sprinkles.

Banana and mascapone pie- digestive biscuit crumb base ( add butter and syrup)
topping mascapone cheese, extrathick double cream a spoonful of sugar and juice of 1 lemon. fold n 2 sliced bananas and put on top of biscuit base. Garnish with grated chocolate. Fantastic. CAt me if you want exact amounts.

Chocolate bread and butter pudding is great.

make as usual B&B pud except you melt a bar of good quality choc (70% cocoa solids), mix with cream, slosh over the buttered bread, leave in fridge for 24 hours, then cook.

Would look smarter if made in indivdiual ramekins.

Or troughs, depending on your appetite

A very easy dessert is this creamy fruity mix:

Mix together custard with double cream (add a bit of sugar to the double cream first). I'm not sure of proportions but about half and half - taste and see if you want to add more of one or the other.

Add to this some chopped banana and any other chopped fresh soft fruit. I usually add drained tinned peaches and drained fruit cocktail as well.

Very easy and also kind of healthy but re-reading your thread title perhaps not that impressive. Could decorate with halved strawberries and serve in pretty glasses.