Two creamy and fruity desserts!

I hosted a dinner recently for some of my husbands distant relatives, visiting from the Czech Republic. It was eleven years since we'd last seen them and only one of the three adults spoke English (and we speak no Czech), so the atmosphere was a little strained initially, but we soon relaxed, except for Petr who needed to simultaneously translate several conversations between the eight of us around the table.

 There were, however, no words necessary when it came down to showing me how much they enjoyed the desserts I'd made. All the adults tried a little of everything - hot rhubarb crumble, a gooey chocolate mousse cake and Delia Smith's Key Lime Pie, made from this recipe. The only change I made to the basic recipe was to use Hob-Nob biscuits for the base, although I decorated the pie differently. As my limes were small, I needed 5 to get enough juice, but only three fruit gave enough zest. This left me with extra lime peel, which I decided to prepare in the way Mary Berry prepares lemon peel for a cake decoration in this recipe - it's a sort of quick crystallisation, and gave some really crispy little shards of peel to sprinkle around the top of the pie.

The recipe is so simple to make and the result is a crisp pie shell and a soft tangy zesty filling which really makes the taste buds tingle!

As usual, I over-catered, so as well as the three egg whites left over from making the Key Lime Pie, I had an untouched 300ml tub of double cream and a 255ml bottle of 'Fruits of the Forest' coulis with only a tablespoonful taken out.

So when a dessert was needed again, the obvious choice was a mousse. I softened four sheets of gelatine, then dissolved it in a little of the fruit coulis, warmed in a pan. To this I added 2 tablespoons of Kirsch and the rest of the coulis. I beat the double cream to the soft peak stage, then used the electric mixer to whisk in and evenly distribute the fruit sauce. The egg whites were beaten to the stiff peak stage, then gently folded into the cream and fruit mix. The mousse was divided between six dessert glasses, then chilled for at least 4 hours.

The flavour was a little insipid - the fruit coulis was obviously diluted too much by the addition of cream and egg whites, but it brought together three ingredients which needed using up immediately, and avoided any food waste. That's good enough for me!