When I was 12 or 13, my friend and I made dinner for our parents. The whole meal – cordials, a main course, dessert. Our parents gave us complete freedom in the kitchen, and bravely agreed to eat whatever we set in front of them. I think I had just stopped eating meat at the time, but apparently I wasn’t averse to cooking it for others, because we boiled a whole chicken with copious amounts of dried thyme. (The smell of dried thyme still makes me think of that day!) We boiled a whole chicken! I can’t claim to know how to cook chicken, to be honest, but that just doesn’t sound right! We made little cordials with (our parents’) brandy and crushed blackberries. I’d drink that in real life! And for dessert we combined whipped cream, lemon juice and sugar, and then we froze it. That’s right, we made lemon ice cream. I made a meyer lemon mousse, yesterday, and the whole process reminded me of that day.

I like anything that combines lemon and cream. It’s such an unlikely combination – surely the cream should curdle! But no, it’s like magic! It all stays together, and the tartness of the lemon is such a nice contrast to the, um, the creaminess of the cream. As you may recall, I was very excited the other day to have discovered a method of making non-chocolate mousse without gelatin. The secret was pastry cream, my new best friend – so satisfying to make, so fail-proof, so thick and creamy when it’s done. Is this really the same substance that I found kinda gross in cream donuts all these years? Could it be? I infused the pastry cream with a couple of rosemary branches…I think I may have been inspired by a recipe for rosemary apple ice cream that Liz kindly left in the comments! And I added black pepper, for a little kick. I’ve made bread with rosemary, lemon and black pepper, and I like the fact that all three ingredients comfortably straddle the sweet/savory divide. They’ve taken a little leap over to the sweet side, in this dish! The rosemary is quite subtle, because I didn’t leave any actual bits of rosemary in. Maybe next time! And now we’re wondering, here at the test kitchens of The Ordinary, when a mousse is actually a mousse. This was thick, it was creamy, it was light, and it was delicious. It wasn’t exactly frothy or airy, though. Need it be, to be a mousse? Is it a pudding? A custard? Questions to be set before the creamy dessert division of The Ordinary.

The cookies are thin, crispy ginger shortbread rounds, coated in bittersweet chocolate. I made a ginger shortbread crust for a tart the other day, and I’ve been determined to try it in cookie form ever since. Very nice dipped in coffee, very nice dipped in meyer lemon mousse!

Here’s Gene Krupa with Lemon Drop
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