Bramble Gin Fizz

My little foraging adventure gathered more blackberries & some elderberries, so what better way to enjoy them than in a drink ?

First up make bramble cordial. Put blackberries & elderberries in a bowl and add a reasonable amount of sugar, then either microwave or heat over a simmering pan. Either way you should end up with a thick sweet deep purple cordial. You can use this in either alcoholic concoctions or temperance ones.

           Bramble Gin Fizz

10ml of bramble cordial
30ml of gin
5ml of St Germain or elderflower liqueur

stir down, add a couple of ice cubes and stir again.

Top up with soda water.

A nice long drink for the few warm evenings left.

Blackberry Jelly

The blackberry glut is almost worked out, fortunately another glut is hard on its heels. Anyway blackberry jelly

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On the left are macerating blackberries, plucked from various sources around work & home. On the right is a bunny jelly mould, something a number of commentators have told me I have to have to make "proper" jelly. I figured blackberry would be quite easy, since blackberries & raspberries are essentially the same. Set the blackberries & some sugar in a heat proof bowl over simmering water. After 45mins or so, you'll be left with a lot of juice and some shrivelled berries. Pour the juice through a sieve and make up to 500ml with water/sugar syrup (You'll have to do this bit by taste as there are way too many variables).

Use your 500ml to make up a jelly in the usual way (50ml of liquid is used to soften 5 leaves of gelatine, then melt the gelatine over a double boiler, add the remaining liquid, stir strain etc) and pass it through a fine sieve into your mould. Put it in the fridge for a few hours (overnight is best, it removes the temptation to poke about & see if everything is ready) and once set turn out.

Serve, ice-cream & small children are entirely optional.

Blackberry Flip

This is a straight forward variation on Jamie Boudreau's Raspberry flip

Blackberry flip

6 blackberries
1 egg
3 parts Bourbon
1 part creme de murre
dash bitters

I've always been told when using egg or egg parts to put them in the mixing glass & give it a quick whisk with the bar spoon. So crack an egg into there and beat it to break up the yolk & roughly mix it into the white. Drop in the blackberries (whole) and the ice. Add bourbon & creme de murre. The original calls for peach bitters, I didn't have them so opted to leave the bitters out this time.

Shake HARD strain & serve

You end up with basically a blackberry smoothie, quite dangerously the alcohol bite is hidden away.

Don't be afraid of whole egg, most UK eggs are salmonella free (at least the lion mark ones are). The resulting drink is really worth it. Drink it now before Michelmas when Satan ruins all your blackberries

Tarte Tatin

Windfall apples, what to do ? A quick glimpse at Family Food suggested Tarte tatin, after all what could be nicer than a caramel apple pie ?

For some reason I'd never realized that tarte tatin is cooked upside down, the recipe also called for frozen puff pastry. I skipped that as I was making my own shortcrust for some other bits.

First off came lining the bottom of the dish with 100gr of butter. Then I sprinkled 80gr of sugar over that (Depends a bit on how sweet the apples are). Then I cut some wedges from my apples. This is great for windfalls as you can chuck the less good bits of the apple.

Once it's all set up put it on the hob at a medium heat & watch the butter melt & the sugar begin to caramelize. At this point the recipe suggested putting a plat over the apples to make sure they got nicely covered.

I looked at several pictures on the web and the apples are really deeply caramelized, to a very dark brown. I didn't go that far, taking it off the hob when everything was golden. Now came the tricky sounding part. Next time I make this (and its not going to be too long before I do) I'll roll the pastry & measure it first, it can rest at the right size.

I dropped it over the apples & tucked it in as best I could. You can see bits of buttery caramel escaping up the sides. So it wasn't going to be the worlds best looking tarte tatin (I think that goes to those with the regular spiral of thin apple slices), but hopefully it was going to taste OK. With that it went into the oven on Gas mark 4 for 30-40mins (depends on the oven, whether you've pre-heated it and all those other factors).

Then comes the nailbiting section, turning it out. Place a plate over your flan dish & quickly invert, perform what ever voodoo you regard as acceptable & tap the flan dish, if everything is going you way you'll hear a flopping sound & then the big reveal.

Eat with cream, or ice cream (I like ice cream when the tart is warm & cream when its cold). The next day I was idly poking around the internet and several websites suggested that Tatin was a difficult thing and reading some of the recipes I'm not surprised. This was pretty straight forward, and if you aren't good at pastry, Jus-roll and similar work fine. If you've an abundance of apples this is worth a go, and the anxiety of turning out hot caramel is always a spice to an afternoon in the Kitchen.

Blackberry "Bellini"

The Bellini is a simple concoction of Prosecco  and white peach. It does lend itself to variations & riffs. I had a bottle of Prosecco and having finished my run in the woods access to a whole bunch of blackberries.

I was feeling a bit lazy so I macerated the blackberries with the microwave. This is dead simple, put sugar on blackberries (slightly more than you think you need) and heat indirectly. The juice flows out and forms a strong syrup. (takes about 5 mins in the microwave 1min full power, 2 mins stand 1 min full power). For what I wanted a little too strong, so I diluted it with grappa (about 2 syrup to 1 grappa) and shared it between flutes. Top off with prosecco, garnish with a small berry and enjoy the autumn.

The hound of the Baskerville's remix

Last Blackberry season I made this we settled on calling it "the hound of the Baskerville's". Leaving work recently I've noticed a lot of blackberries, so I went to pick some. Unfortunately some were out of my reach, so I didn't grab that many.

Having arrived at the bar I decided I'd introduce the guys to this one.

Hound of the Baskerville's

1pt creme de murre
1pt sweet vermouth
2pts dry vermouth
6pts dry gin
handful of blackberries

Muddle the blackberries down, add a large handful of ice and the rest of the ingredients, stir hard till very cold, strain & serve. The Borage flower on the top is a nice touch, I'd normally serve with a small reserved berry.

As you can see it is a variation on the "Bloodhound" and a bit more refined than my original attempts. It was pretty well received. So if you are keen on classic type cocktails and a fan of seasonal fruits take the time over the next couple of weeks to grab a handful of nice blackberries from an overlooked briar patch and mix up a couple of these.

Double Plum Jelly

There are going to be quite a few plum posts, as I seem to have gained an embarrassing excess.

This is a simple "technique" jelly, in which sliced plums are held in a plum jelly. The recipe calls for the plums to be simmered in Riesling, but I switched it to half water half wine, mainly because that was the amount of wine that was spare. Halve & stone you plums, add sugar to taste cover with wine/water and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Push the mixture through a fine sieve into a jar & make up to 500ml with water. Do the usual jelly routine of softening & melting the gelatine. Line your mould with halved plums and then pour in enough jelly mixture to just cover them. Fresh fruit floats in jelly, so if you want it at the top of your decanted jelly you have to let the first pour thicken. If you stand you mould(s) in a bowl of ice water the process goes that bit quicker.
After an hour or so the plum layer should be gelled enough to add the rest. Due to the slightly magical nature of gelatine, the top should set faster then you'd expect. Chill for a couple of hours & then serve. I didn't unmould this one, serving it instead in glasses, but it looked good & tasted great (quite a grownup taste due to the sourness that comes with plums)

Free Food

   In my youth summer and autumn usually meant free food on offer. It started at the end of June early July with Pick Your Own (PYO) whilst somebody had to pay for the full baskets, the rule as a child was generally 1 for me, 1 for the basket. This haul would then be turned into fresh strawberry cake & pots of jam.

  Next up came blackberries, this frequently meant a bike ride down the canal or out into Cheshire or some other spot where particularly overgrown bramble tangles were known to be. On arrival there would be a small picnic before the devastation commenced (I used to wonder how these patches survived). Again it was a case of 1 for me, 1 for the bag. Meeting other blackberryers was fairly common, and had its own etiquette. What usually followed was apple & blackberry pie and Bramble jam.

  About the same time it was apples, these we didn't have to forage far for, as we had a couple of trees & the old lady nextdoor had a small orchard (about 10 trees).

  Then it was time for sweet chestnuts, getting these was a real joy, you had to wear gloves, due to the spines, and it always involved launching bits of stick up into the tree to dislodge more.

  On Sunday evening, the weather was glorious, so I blew off my chores and went to the forest. There was a group of people by the entrance having a good go at a large sweet chestnut. About 50m from the carpark we were all alone as usual. Having come out on pretty much a whim, we had 1 bag and no gloves. Still it was fun.

Its not the greatest haul, but for 15 minutes work, wasn't too bad, especially as I have a large plate more ripening on the window sill. Since I now have an open fire

It was time to roast, Normally I do chestnuts in the oven, gas 5-6 for half an hour, job done. I'd forgotten to make allowance for the rather ferocious heat of the fire, so was a little shocked when the first one popped after about 5 minutes. Jolly tasty they were too. I suspect that Saturday might include a more organized raid on the sweet chestnuts of Sherwood forest

Inspiration is odd like that

I had an altercation with a bramble bush on sunday morning, I decided to take revenge by grabbing all the blackberries.

The water bottle was the only container I had with me but the blackberries (from a random sampling you understand) were very sweet & needed to be claimed. Fairness demanded it. So what was I going to do with them, there weren't enough for pie or crumble. Then it dawned on me, time to make a spin on the classic Bloodhound (if you don't fancy the link its a perfect martini with strawberries). Get the black berries into your mixer with "some" gin.

The depth of colour is due to the rough ride that the blcakberries had on the way home. Muddle (I'll go into detail about muddling later) add the 2 vermouths and the ice, shake hard. You are going to need both the hawthorne strainer and a fine strainer to get this in to the glass (as a lot of the blackberry pulp is very fine you'll probablay have to "encourage" it with a bar spoon).

Its a bit drier than a Bloodhound (natrually) but its a great taste & a stunning looking drink (a shame the photo doesn't do it justice, but I wanted to get on and drink it rather than document). Unfortunately Blackberry season is coming to an end. You could always swap in a blackberry liquer or if the DIY mood is on you make blackberry gin.

A little gardening

I have a garden, it is quite small. If I had my way, it'd be quite large, part of it would be for the growing of roses, part would be for sitting out (BBQing & the like), and part would be for fruit & veg.

I don't have that though, so I have to creatively squeeze things into the space I do have, this means herbs in pots, strawberries & tomatoes in hanging baskets and a couple of multi-purpose plants around the roses(*).

The multi-purpose plants are currently nasturtiums and lavender. Nasturtiums are quite cool, they grow like blazes, the flowers are both cheerful & edible, and the leaves make a spicy addition to a salad (think rocket/cilantro). The lavender is a shade odder. Of course you can harvest the flowers to use in bath salts, herb sachets, pillows and other asstd smelly/aromatherapy uses, but you can cook with them too.

The first trial was a lavender syrup (simple syrup, 2 sugar, 1 water plus a couple of tsp lavender flowers). This added to a standard gin martini, makes a really relaxing summer drink. An attempt at lavender shortcake followed, andwhilst it was ok wasn't quite right.

The internet provided a recipe for lavender loaf cake, a bit of reading around & jiggling quantities & ingredients, making a lavendar infused honey drizzle (2 tsp honey, 4 tsp water, 3 dashes lavender syrup. Heat till free flowing drizzle of loaf as soon as it comes out of the oven). Its a winner, the cake is moist enough to withstand the loaf form and the flavour of lavender is not overpowering.

Now what to do with the abundance of Sage ?

(*)The roses are non-negotiable.