Nougat Semifreddo: Italian desserts

If you got a lot of Italian Christmas hampers over the holiday season,you’ve probably got an awful lot of panettone, pandoro or torrone to get through  Torrone is the Italian word for nougat and today we’ll look at a recipe for using it as a semifreddo dessert, in conclusion to other the Italian christmas recipes.

While homemade gelato can be difficult to do without an icecream machine, semifreddo is easy as you can make it just with cream and then freeze it later. If you find a good semifreddo recipe, you can make all sorts of flavours, too.

 For this nougat semifreddo you’ll need: 

• 200 g of nougat (possibly dark chocolate flavour but anything will work), 
• two eggs, four tablespoons of sugar, 
• 200 ml of whipped cream,
•  half a glass of brandy, 
• chocolate flakes and fresh red currents.
•  For a finishing sauce use 100 g of dark chocolate and 50 ml of fresh cream.

Beat the egg yolks with the sugar, put the nougat through a food mixer and then mix with the eggs, adding the brandy. Mix until you get a smooth consistency. 
Add the cream, then whip the egg whites and add a little at a time. Pour into a small, rectangular cake or loaf dish and put in the freezer for 5-6 hours. 
Take it out of the freezer about half an hour before serving and serve with the melted chocolate and cream, along with some chocolate flakes and the currents.
I bet your mouth is watery after reading all this. :)