Wild Gooseberry Crumble

I'm staying up in Falkland for a couple of nights and I found a wild gooseberry patch on my wanders.

It's quite late in the season for gooseberries but that didn't stop me foraging enough to make a crumble.

I'm staying in unfamiliar surroundings, so this recipe was made without scales - crumble is pretty forgiving though.

Wild Gooseberry Crumble

Ingredients:

2 handfuls wild gooseberries
2 handfuls of plain flour
1 handful of caster sugar
1 handful of demerara sugar
1 (estimated) handful of butter
Pinch of salt

Method:

Preheat oven to 180°C

Wash, top & tail gooseberries.

Place gooseberries in an ovenproof dish and sprinkle with the caster sugar.

Rub butter, salt and flour together until it resembles breadcrumbs. Mix in demerara sugar.

Top gooseberries with crumble mix.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown on top and bubbling from beneath.

Until next time, Good Foraging!

Kirkcaldy Cake (Black Forest Gâteau)

We are finally in full-blown fruit season in Scotland and I'm taking advantage of that. I currently have my eye on raspberries, redcurrants, pears and early brambles but today's recipe uses cherries (including homemade cherry jam and homemade cherry liqueur).

I made the cherry liqueur using the fruit and the stones of cherries. This adds a delicious almondy flavour and is the reason I call it 'Bakewell Tart' Liqueur.

I picked the cherries in Kirkcaldy, Fife, and decided to pair them with dark chocolate Toblerone to complement the almondy flavour of the liqueur.

Kirkcaldy Cake

(Nothing like Dundee Cake)

Ingredients:

225g cherries (weighed with stones removed)

500ml double cream

200ml creme fraiche

4 tablespoons Kirsch (cherry liqueur)

2 tablespoons cold water

100ml boiling water

100g cherry jam

25g cocoa

300g plain flour

2 eggs

200g dark Toblerone

375g caster sugar

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Pinch of salt

Method:

Heat oven to 180°C

Grease and line two sandwich tins.

Heat butter & 75g Toblerone over a low heat, stirring until the chocolate is melted. Remove from heat.

Mix together the flour, sugar, cocoa, bicarbonate of soda and salt.

Whisk together eggs and creme fraiche.

Add chocolate and egg mixtures to the flour mixture and add the boiling water. Mix until smooth.

Divide mixture between 2 sandwich tins and bake for 25-50mins (my oven is wonky but just check with a skewer - pierce the cake and if the skewer comes out clean then they're ready).

Mix the water and liqueur together.

Pierce the top of each cake a few times and drizzle the liqueur mixture evenly over each cake.

Allow to cool.

Heat 200ml of double cream until almost simmering. 

Pour hot cream over remaining Toblerone and mix until chocolate is all melted.

Mix together the jam and cherries.

Gently whisk the remaining cream with the icing sugar.

Layer: cake, cream, jam, cake and then cover in the chocolate cream.

Eat in small portions - it's wicked!

Until next time, Good Foraging xx

The world has gone nuts (Hazelnut and Dark Chocolate cookies)

Hazelnuts - foraged in Methil, Fife

 This weekend has been another tragic time for humanity. Innocent people gunned down by people fuelled with hate and misguided justice. The world has truly gone nuts.

Today, I've been making cookies - as per a request on facebook. The recipe was posted on Nigella's community forum, by SeaSkyCakeKids, and I've only made some minor changes.

Hazelnut and Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Ingredients:

• 200g hazelnuts
• 150g salted butter
• 75g caster sugar
• 75g dark brown muscovado sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla paste
• 150g plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 150g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Method:

• Toast the hazelnuts in a dry frying pan on a medium heat. Let them cool.
• Blitz half of the toasted hazelnuts in a food processor (I used a coffee grinder).
• Remove the skins from the remaining hazelnuts by rubbing a handful at a time between your hands or a dry towel.
• Roughly chop the skinned hazelnuts.
• Cream the butter and sugars together until soft and coffee-coloured.
• Beat in the egg and vanilla essence.
• Sift in the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and ground hazelnuts and combine to form a soft dough.
• Mix in the chopped hazelnuts and chocolate chunks.
• Tip the dough onto a wide, long sheet of clingfilm and form it into a log shape, wrapping as you go. Once the log is completely wrapped, pop it in the freezer for 2 hours+.
• When ready to serve, preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan). Take the log out of the freezer and set it on a chopping board for 5 minutes – just enough time to make it possible for a knife to be pushed through it but not so long that the whole log defrosts unless you are making the full batch at once.
• Carefully, because the dough will be very stiff, and with a thick, sharp knife, cut 1cm slices from the log and lay them on a non-stick or lined baking sheet. Leave plenty of space between the cookies as they will spread in the oven.
  

Cookies ready to be baked

• Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. The cookies are done when the edges are just – and no more – starting to darken and the centre still looks soft. Leave the cookies on the hot tray for another 5 minutes and then slide a palette knife under them and move them onto a cooling rack.
  
  

  

  Hazelnut and Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I hope they taste as good as they look/smell.

Next time, I'll be making a chestnut-based recipe. Until then, good foraging!