Summer Dream

Yaz Rüyası (Meyveli Kup)

I have a very special reason for making this fresh dessert. Guess what? One of my close friends got engaged! Their engagement celebration was last weekend, but as it was held in a different city far away from here, I couldn’t join it. I thought that I could  invite her and congratulate her with this “Summer Dream”. I would also invite her fiance, but he doesn’t live here, so my only guest was my friend.

I know she adores dairy desserts, especially Turkish pudding with rice. But this time I made something different because I wanted to use some summer fruits in my dessert. I bought the freshest fruits from this week’s open market: peach and kiwi. I used them raw so that we could feel their real taste and not to kill their freshness.

The original name of this dessert is coupe with fruit, but my friend wanted to call it “summer dream”. I loved this name more, so I used it as the title of this post. I’m sure she was influenced by the fruits I used, but I believe that she was more inspired by her dreams about next two months. Their wedding is going to be in August, so she is very busy with planning the ceremony and thinking about her future life.

As I said I couldn’t join her engagement celebration, but she shared her happiness with me by bringing a few chocolate. During an engagement celebration in Turkish culture, chocolate or Turkish delight is served to guests. Future bride and groom keep some of them for their friends who can not join the celebration. They give these to their friends when they first meet them. They can even carry these in their bags to share with friends as soon as possible. There is another thing the future brides carry in their bags: a piece of red ribbon, again to share with friends. You may wonder what this red ribbon is. In engagement celebrations, the rings are tied to each other with a red ribbon. Generally a respected person put these rings on the bride’s and groom’s fingers and then cut the ribbon from the middle so that equal pieces of ribbon fall to their share. The bride to be keeps her part for a very good purpose. She cuts this part of red ribbon into small pieces and share them with her friends, the girl ones who are single. It is believed that they will find their soulmate with the help of this small piece of red ribbon. It is also believed that if the piece is short, they will meet him in a short time, if it’s long, it will take a long time for her to meet him. My friend was also carying pieces of red ribbon to give her friends, of course not for me as I’m already married.

So we celebrated her happiness together with this dessert followed by Turkish coffee. She told a lot of things about the celebration; how they danced, how people enjoyed themselves, and how she felt happy being together with  both her beloved and her parent. I wish her a happy life with her future husband.

Ingredients (servings: 5)
-    1lt milk
-    1 cup sugar
-    1 cup of water
-    6tbsp wheat starch
-    6tbsp rice flour
-    1tbsp vanilla
-    1 kiwi
-    1 peach

Chop the fruits as you wish.

Pour the milk inot a pot and mix it with sugar. Put the pot on medium heat. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, dissolve starch and rice flour in a cup of water. Add this little by little into the heating milk. While pouring it with one hand, stir it the milk continually with the other hand. Keep stirring it until it reaches the consistency of pudding. Add vanilla just before taking the pot from the heat.

Pour it evenly into small cups until half. Do not fill the cups completely. Put little chopped kiwi or peach on it. Then pour the rest. You will have fruits between two layers in this way. And you can decorate your dessert with the rest of the chopped fruits. Let them cool in the fridge at leat 3 hours.

Some time ago, Vanessa at http://mommygourmet.blogspot.com/ declared that she would hold a contest. The rule of the contest is to have a meal with a friend and write about this alongside the recipe. I’d like to send this post to her as we really enjoyed the evening with my friend.

Smart Peach

The beautiful peach decided to take a shower before someone ate her. The uncle farmer applied insecticide to her since it was a bloom. She washed and cleaned her body very well to get rid of all pesticides on her body. She knew that people would make compotes, jams of it or use it in various desserts or cocktails, and she didn’t want to be used without being perfectly cleaned. (drawing by mom)

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