A Sunday forage and competitive bake off

Chris (my husband) and I spent the weekend with friends, and their four kids, at their place in the country. It was a perfect weekend, collecting fallen fruits from the damson, Victoria plum, and apple trees in the backyard.


We then headed out on country amble and an afternoon forage. We collected blackberries, sloes, elderberries and hawthorn berries from the hedgerows. Being before the first frost, it’s strictly a little early to pick sloes. However given my enthusiasm for making sloe gin, and the potential to use a freezer to act as the all important frost, we picked them anyway.

 
Dragging our haul of foraged goods back to Randolph and Lalu’s house, we quickly agreed to a “crumble off,” with Randolph and I as the two competitors and everyone else as judges. Randolph pleased the crowds with his mother’s crumble recipe, complete with rich and buttery crumble, and blackberries and apples infused with cinnamon. I managed to surprise the judges with my flippant inclusion of elderberries, together with the blackberries, apples, and plums.

The judges awarded first prize to Randolph, which was fair, because the crumble was superior, but sad for me, as it was my first experience of competitive baking!  

Brilliant blackberry and chilli syrup

It’s hard to walk past a hedgerow at this time of year without noticing leaves tinged with jewel-hued spheres of green, red and purple. Its blackberry season! Readily available in fruit stores and supermarkets everywhere, it can be much more satisfying, and if you take some enthusiastic friends, a whole lot more fun, to collect your own

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A versatile fruit, excellent eaten raw with pancakes, or in a crumble like we also enjoyed (below), there are no shortage of options.

As well as the crumble, which was devoured by myself and a bunch of friends, I wanted to experiment with a slightly longer-lasting blackberry recipe. After an online read around, I decided to experiment with a blackberry and chilli syrup, like the one made by Heidi Swan.

This simple and quick syrup, is rich in flavour, with a slow and firey burn that creeps in at the end of each mouthful.  Heidi suggests swirling into yogurt, oatmeal, and crème fraîche, or on toast, over goats cheese, or pancakes. All delicious options!

At our place it’s been eaten as a late night snack on crackers, added to champagne for a brilliantly sparkly aperitif, and spread on toast topped with blue cheese. The omnivore in our family has also suggested the syrup would be excellent with game – he’s mentioned venison and pheasant. 

Here’s the recipe, slightly adapted from Heidi’s version:

Recipe
(Makes around 500mL)
    3 tea spoons dried crushed chillies
    1 cup dark Muscovado sugar
    1 cup organic brown sugar
    1 1/2 cups water
    Juice of one large lemon
    1 cup blackberries

 Add the dried chillies, sugars, water, and lemon juice to a medium saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat. Boil, stirring regularly, until the mixture has reduced to 2 cups. This should take around 25 minutes. 

While that’s boiling, puree the blackberries with a hand blender. Strain the berries through a fine-mesh strainer, and set puree aside.

Head back to the stovetop, once the chilli mixture has reduced, remove from heat. Add to the berry mixture and blend until smooth. Strain through a sieve into a heat-proof bowl.

Pour into a bottle and refrigerate. Enjoy!!

Spare pears

A friend of mine mentioned recently she had loads of pears rotting her garden, as they dropped from the tree. Super keen foragers, Chris and I, traipsed up to Jen’s with our big African basket. We arrived to find it wasn’t actually Jen’s tree, but a neighbours.

After collecting all the dropped pears with cooking potential, we picked a few more from the reachable braches and headed home with our loot. We’ve enjoyed sliced pear and cheese, and pear and blue cheese salad over the last few days. The Italian proverb “al contadino non far sapere quanto è buono il formaggio con le pere” (don't let the peasant know how good cheese is with pears) springs to mind.

Lastly, we also enjoyed pear and almond crumble (pictured below). Here’s the recipe:

Recipe

5 large pears, peeled and sliced

A handful of ground almond

A handful of sliced almonds

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup plain flour

50 grams butter

Mascarpone and honey (to serve)

Simmer the sliced pears for 5 minutes. In the meantime, mix the flour, ground almond, sugar and butter together. Use your finger tips to work the mixture until you get the consistency of bread crumbs. Once you’ve achieved this drop in the sliced almonds. Once the pears are cooked, drain and arrange in a baking dish. Place the crumble mixture over the top, spreading evenly and covering completely. Cook at 180 degrees for around 20mins, or until the crumble is browned.

Serve hot, with mascarpone mixed with honey.       

Thanks to Asheline Appleton for the excellent photo, berries and dinner!