Mulled berries with Champagne syllabub

Serves 6-8 Desserts and puddings

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Method

Place the red wine, sugar and mulled spice bags into a saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Simmer for about 20 minutes until the syrup is reduced to about 125ml. Place the frozen berries in a bowl and pour over the hot syrup. Leave to go cold.

Divide the mixture between serving glasses.

To make the syllabub, place the Champagne, lemon juice and sugar in a bowl and stir to dissolve the sugar. Whisk the cream in a food mixer until just starting to firm and then gradually whisk in the Champagne mixture until soft peaks form.

Spoon the mixture into the glasses and chill for 1 hour.

To make the gold stars and snow, cover a work bench with baking paper. Place the sugar and water in a small saucepan and stir over a medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. Boil for about 5 minutes until golden caramel. Remove from the heat and let sit for a minute allowing the mixture to cool and thicken slightly.

Dip a spoon into the caramel and, working as quickly as you can, twirl backwards and forwards to form pretty star shapes all over the baking paper. Leave to set.

Break off some really pretty pieces of the caramel ‘stars’ and then crush the rest with the end of a rolling pin to make gold ‘snow’. Arrange the stars and snow over the syllabub, and serve immediately.