Blaeberry Bites

Blaeberries

Once again, the sun has been shining on Scotland. We've also had plenty of rain, as we always do. This combination makes for some wonderfully juicy Blaeberries and an excuse to blog.

Coming from part-Yorkshire stock, I grew up calling these Bilberries, but I now usually use the Scottish term. Around the UK these are called many different things, including Wortleberry and Whinberry. Whatever you call them, they are delicious - and here they are plentiful.

In a previous blog, I made a Blaeberry Pie, which is also worth checking out. This time I decided to make some bite-size Blaeberry snacks, so that I could share them with my colleagues.

This recipe comes from Smitten Kitchen and I haven't changed it, other than using Blaeberries instead of Blueberries.

Blaeberry Bites

Ingredients

• 4 cups Blaeberries
• Zest of 1 lemon
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 4 tsp cornflour
• 3 cups plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 225g cold, unsalted butter
• 1 egg
• 1 and a half cups of sugar

Method

• Preheat oven to 190°C
• Mix together the lemon zest, salt, 1 cup of sugar, flour, butter and egg to make a flaky dough.
• Press half of this mixture into a baking tin or casserole dish
• Mix blaeberries with remaining sugar, lemon juice and cornflour
• Spoon blaeberry mixture over the dough in the tin/dish
• Top with crumbled pieces of the pastry
• Bake for 45 mins or until golden brown on top
• Allow to cool in fridge overnight
• Slice into sections and keep refrigerated until you eat them (not for long, I'd imagine)

Until we meet again (hopefully soon) - Good Foraging! Xx

Baked Blaeberry Crumble - ripe and ready for slicing

Porcini Popcorn and Blaeberry Pie

And so here I am again - at the computer, post-foraging/cooking. The recent rainfall and some frantic facebook-inspired mushroom dances have meant that I have been able to forage lots of blaeberries (aka bilberries or whortleberries, depending on where you are from) and some delicious Boletes (the family of mushrooms of which the porcini is part). So here is the outcome of some experimental popcorn-popping and some purple-handed pie-making - enjoy!

Blaeberries

Blaeberry Pie

Ingredients

Filling:

• 4 cups of Blaeberries
• 3/4 cup of sugar (and extra for sprinkling)
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 3 tbsp cornflour
• 3 tbsp water
• 1 tsp mixed spice

Pastry (from first documented forage):

• 500g plain flour
• 100g icing sugar
• 250g cold butter, cut into cubes
• 1 tsp vanilla paste
• 2 free range eggs - plus extra for egg wash

Method:

1. Make pastry first and let this chill in the fridge - mix flour, sugar and butter to make breadcrumb consistency. Add vanilla and eggs, mix , roll into a ball and flatten.
2. Set oven to 200C.
3. Mix 1 cup of blaeberries with sugar and heat gently until sugar dissolves - stirring as required.
4. Mix cornflour with water and add the heated blaeberries to this, stir and return to heat.
5. Add spice and lemon and heat until sauce thickens (it will look like a purpley-blue version of the sauce on a strawberry tart).
6. Add the rest of the blaeberries and allow to cool.
7. Grease a flan/pie tin.
8. Roll out pastry and use it to line tin - save the offcuts to make a lattice/shaped pattern for the top of the pie.
9. Fill pie base with blaeberry mixture.
10. Top with pastry shapes/lattice and use a pastry brush to egg wash - top with a sprinkling of sugar.
11. Drop oven temperature to 190C and cook pie for 40mins - remove when pastry is golden-brown.
12. Eat and enjoy (don't drop any because it stains!) Now go and look at your tongue in the mirror ;)

Blaeberry Lattice Pie

"Porcini" Popcorn

OK, so I'm slightly cheating at this recipe because I'm using Larch Boletes, Orange Birch Boletes and Bay Boletes, but I haven't found any true porcini yet this season. I will retry this recipe when I find some!

Ingredients:

• 25g dried porcini
• 50g salt
• 25g unsalted butter, melted
• 50g unpopped popcorn
• 2 tbsp oil

Method:

1. Grind porcini in coffee grinder/spice mill - add salt and grind again until powdery.
2. Heat oil in saucepan and add popcorn and get the lid on quick!
3. Heat gently and shoogle the pan every now and again
4. Remove from heat when popping slows
5. Add butter and porcini powder
6. Enjoy?

Porcini Popcorn and Porcini Powder

This recipe turned out quite salty - probably because I didn't use true porcini. I will try it again though!

Until the next forage - happy eating!