December 15

A couple of days ago, I wrote about marrons glacés but had no recipe to offer up.  This morning, while watching the France 2 morning television show Télématin on the satellite "what to my wondering eyes did appear?"

No, not a tiny sleigh and reindeer -- a recipe for Spoom aux marrons glacés!

This is a dessert recipe by Sophie Dudemaine, which uses 2 marrons glacés per serving -- a dozen for the recipe to serve 6.  So with a little will power, there might be enough of them left to try out the recipe!

For anglophones, here's a brief translation:

Serves 6.

1 litre of vanilla ice cream
12 marrons glacés
6 tsp crème vanillée de châtaignes/marrons -- vanilla flavoured chestnut paste (if you can find the marrons glacées, you'll be in the right place to find a tin of this too)
12 tbsp of Bailey's® Irish Cream liqueur

Place the chestnut paste in the bottom of 6 glasses, add 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream to each glass and top with crumbled marrons glacés pieces.  Pour the Bailey's over the top and serve immediately, with madeleines, tuiles or financiers (you could substitute wafers if you don't have any of these pastries handy -- the original recipe on the Télématin web site includes instructions for making madeleines).

Oh, and as for what "spoom" means?  Sophie explained on the show that it refers to anything with liqueur over ice cream.