Blackberry picking - a Recession-Busting Sentimental Journey

The weather has been lovely for the past few weeks, and we are all grateful for this Indian Summer after three wet and dreary months of supposed summer . One of the bounties of this late good spell has been a fantastic crop of blackberries in those hedgerows that have escaped the ravages of the industrial hedge-cutters that have transformed our highways and byways into regimented straight-edged bordered roadways.

I guess it is good and safer to have some control over our wild roadside borders, but the downside of all the traffic and road improvements is that it is a bit of a gamble with your life to go for a stroll down any road where there are no footpaths (pavements), and also the dearth of any wild fruit like blackberries in the ditches. (I use that term advisedly - it means a hedge to me, though Dutch hubby assures me a ditch is a water-filled drain or moat in Holland! We agree to differ on the semantics, I always called hedges ditches so I will hardly change now!)

Anyway, blackberry picking and foraging in the hedgerows for the lucious black fruit that ruins your hands and dyes clothes a deep purple generally beyond redemption has fallen foul of two things since my childhood halcyon days - traffic and pollution on the roads and also the hedge-cutting machines. I spent hours blackberry-picking as a child out the roads along with all the other kids in the town, and we fought for the best bushes, as we could sell our fruit to a local shopkeeper who presumably made jam or sold them on - I remember getting 6d (old pence from pre-decimalisation 1972 days) a pound so there was a great incentive to get bucketloads. My mother didn't get much of a look-in for her jam unless I was feeling very generous.

Imagine my delight then this year when I was in a remote part of my work area one day and coming out of a house I saw the brambles heavy with ripe blackberries on a narrow country lane where there were few houses, no agriculture and fields with undisturbed hedges where a cutter could hardly get by. There were a few cows and horses in the nearby fields, and I made sure that I came to work armed with some plastic containers the next day.

I spent a few lunchbreaks this week picking pounds of fruit, and the pickings were so rich I managed to fill two containers with about 1-2 pounds of berries each in the space of about a half-hour, leaving me enough time to have a sandwich overlooking the beautiful sea views you see in the top photo.

I made jam over the course of this week about 4 times, and a few tarts with apples and blackberries, while I gave away a couple of pots of jam and still have over a half-dozen.

The recipe for the Blackberry Jam is here and it is simplicity itself - and delicious!

BLACKBERRY JAM

• 2 pounds or a Kilo of Blackberries - wash in a colander and pick over for any blemishes and little bugs that can get on them.
• 300ml water.
• One Pound sugar for every pound of fruit.

Method

• Boil the blackberries and water in a covered pot until fruit is soft.
• Add sugar and mix wel.
• Boil and skim off any foam that rises to surface.
• Turn down heat to a steady simmer.
• Simmer/boil gently till setting point reached (wrinkles when dripped onto a clean plate)
• Warm jars in oven and pot jam when it stops bubbling
• Cover jars immediately with metal caps or jampot cellophane covers and rubber bands.
• When you hear lid pop closed it has sealed and jam will stay fresh for a year or more until opened.

It is delicious on oven-fresh baked bread and with rice pudding or yoghurt, ice cream or with a number of desserts - you can use it with other fruit in summer puddings for added flavour as it is so intensely flavoured.

The tart you see in the photos is similar to my earlier post on Apple Tart but with the addition of about a cupful of blackberries along with the sliced apples and sugar. No need to add cloves or cinnamon as the flavours blend wonderfully and should stand alone. Delicious with whipped cream or ice cream!

At any rate, enjoy yourself! It is a real labour of love and a great sense of achievement to have such wonderful food from free stuff - a real recession-buster in the "current economic climate"!

Rhubarb Tart and Trivia - with a Twist

This is rhubarb season and ours is growing like a weed with all the rain. I made a few lovely rhubarb tarts over the past week and I must say there's great satisfaction to be had in making something that's picked fresh from the garden - from veg plot to fork in about an hour! We have these rhubarb stools in their present bed near the house, beside a high stone wall, for the two years. As this is their third year in this plot, according to the anorak's guide to rhubarb, we should consider dividing and replanting next year.

I discovered this strange lotus-like bud growing in the middle of one of the plants last week, and on asking hubby and Google, it seems it is a flower bud. This will have to be nipped in the bud, literally and metaphorically, as it will leach all the energy that should go into the stalks. It doesn't seem to mark the end of its life, but is a feature of mature plants so probably needs replanting next year.

It is a fascinating plant as it thrives on repeated frost exposure - no problem there so - and it can be forced to grow out of season either in the ground using a forcer pot, or as I used, an upturned bucket. This gives small leaves and pale whitish stalks, which are less acidic. They don't look very attractive, but these anaemic stalks are sweeter and more tender, thus more desirable and probably give their grower bragging rights. The redder the stalks, the more acidic and bitter the flavour. That's easily countered with plenty of sugar in the finished dish.

I always handle rhubarb with great respect as the leaves are toxic - they contain oxalic acid which is a cousin of cyanide but you would have to eat about 5kg/11lbs of leaves to get the lethal dose - which I can't imagine anyone having the will or the stamina to do! The cooked stalks are non-toxic, lucky for me or any rhubarb fans out there.



For anyone who's interested I discovered (through the miracle of Google) that contrary to my erroneous belief, you can compost rhubarb leaves. I have been dumping them with the non-compostable garden waste, but no more. They are destined for the green compost bin which has yielded a wonderfully rich dark humus-y compost now enriching our polytunnel strawberries. It is a bit home-made looking with recognisable eggshell bits and teabags throughout, but these don't seem to hinder it and the strawberries are in full flower, with the promise of a rich harvest in a couple of months.

That's enough rhubarb trivia to keep any anorak happy for some time; there is so much out there on the web that it's apparent there are plenty of anoraks abroad, much to my amazement. This link has everything you ever wanted to know about rhubarb but were afraid to ask, and I think it must come from someone who has waayyy too much free time!

Time to turn to the primary purpose of this post, the recipe for one my favourite tarts (besides apple). The twist in the tale is that I have made this one with Self-Raising flour instead of plain flour, and was pleasantly surprised that it worked very well, giving a light shortbread pastry that is subtly different from the plain flour pastry, with a biscuit-y texture. I hope you enjoy it!

RHUBARB TART

Pastry

8ozs/250gm Self-Raising Flour

4ozs/125gm butter or hard margarine (preferably butter)

1oz/25gm icing sugar

1 egg

Filling

Rhubarb stalks - about 4-6, washed and diced into 1cm/half-inch pieces

Sugar to taste

Preheat oven to 200 degrees Centigrade/350degrees Fahrenheit

Method

Using pastry attachment on food processor (I have one on my nice new Kenwood and it is still a treat, and makes great pastry!) mix flour and butter to crumbly texture.

If no processor, rub in butter to flour lightly with fingertips.

Add icing sugar
Add egg to bind and knead lightly
Roll pastry to size of pie dish on floured surface
Line base of dish
Fill with rhubarb pieces

Sprinkle liberally with sugar
Cover with pastry rolled out to size
Moisten edges of pastry and seal
Decorate top if desired - leaf or flower pattern is nice
Bake in oven until golden brown, reduce heat to 150 degrees Centigrade/300 degrees Fahrenheit after 15 mins.

Serve warm with lashings of whipped cream and enjoy with the ubiquitous nice cuppa tea!
Cool on wire rack, sprinkle with icing sugar

Mini-Bakewell and Jam Tarts

This is a lovely variation on the classic Bakewell Tart, which to the best of my knowledge is almond topping a pastry base, with strawberry or raspberry jam in the middle. I sometimes make a full-sized tart, although tart is probably a misnomer as its only relationship to a tart is the pastry base, with the topping made of a cake-like mix. In fact some recipes only use a rich marzipan-(egg-sugar-almond) mix with no flour, and I rarely do this, as I find it a bit overwhelmingly rich and prefer a Victoria Sponge-type filling.

These are delicious bite-sized buns actually, the sweet shortbread pastry base is crisp and light and a perfect foil to the sponge topping, with the pastry strips on top finishing it off nicely and using up the trimmings as well. I have put Lidl marzipan (very yellow this, as it is commercial and not lovingly hand made from scratch as my Christmas Cake Almond Paste was, honest!) in some of them; it tasted just fine and despite the colour it was not full of artificial E-numbers.

(I actually Googled the colouring agent, Lutein, and it is classified as a natural herbal food colour extracted from Marigolds which as many of you will know have numerous properties besides being nice flowers. They are an excellent insect repellent in vegetable gardens, and in Tanzania the Mexican Marigold root was used to make a natural insect repellent on crops in the villages where our NGO had projects, with great effect!) There's a bit of information you didn't expect in a recipe for Bakewell Tarts so back to the main topic and here is the recipe for them.

Mini-Bakewell and Jam Tarts

Ingredients

(for 24 tarts or 2 bun trays full)

8oz/225gm flour (self-raising or plain with 2-3 teaspoons baking powder)
8oz/225gm sugar

8oz/225gm butter

4 eggs

Almond or Vanilla Essence (as preferred)

Sweet Shortcrust Pastry (for base) (*half this quantity is probably enough but I make a batch and freeze the leftover for another day)

1lb/450gm plain flour8oz/225gm chilled butter (preferable to margarine).
2 oz/50gm sugar (or caster sugar or icing sugar).
1 egg.
A few tablespoons of cold water to bind.

Fillings: Strawberry Jam or Marzipan

Method

Pastry

Rub the butter into the flour until crumbly consistency.

Add sugar and egg, mix well with knife blade.

Add water if necessary to bind, careful not to overhandle.

Roll out and cut with cookie cutter to fit baking tray cups - line tray cups with pastry discs and add a dollop - teaspoon - of jam or marzipan.

Cake topping

Put all ingredients into mixing bowl and whisk together, using electric whisk preferably. Otherwise, using a wooden spoon, cream butter and sugar well, add essence and beaten eggs and flourand baking powder (if used) alternately until a dropping consistency is reached.

Add spoonfuls of the cake mix to the pastry/jam bases and decorate with strips of pastry leftovers as you wish - a cross, basketweave or whatever takes your fancy. This bit is entirely optional!

Bake in a hot preheated oven (200degrees Centigrade/375 degrees Fahrenheit) for 10-15 mins, reduce heat to 150 degrees Centigrade/300 degrees Fahrenheit) and bake to golden brown and pastry should be light golden colour.

Remove and cool, then sieve icing sugar on top to decorate - I like this finish but you can leave plain if you prefer.

Enjoy! Delicious warm with a nice cuppa tea!

Apple Tart - my favourite comfort food.

This is a simple recipe and is delicious! Some people may call it Apple Pie, probably a geographical/cultural/regional preference. I'm not too clear on what the difference (if any) there is between pie and tart though I'm sure there's someone out there who can put me right. All I can say is - it's all good!

Apple tart is ubiquitous in Ireland; the ultimate comfort food either as a dessert or the perfect accompaniment to that national beverage, the cuppa tea. It can be eaten hot or cold, but must be slathered in lashings of whipped cream for total decadence!

There are as many variations as bakers, with everyone having a favourite recipe that tends to be their gold standard, which is often passed down in a family. I know my mother was a whizz at light pastry and I always remember her mantra when I learnt from her as a child - don't overhandle the pastry or it will get heavy. She was right!

I still use her basic pastry recipe, here with a slight variation of egg and a little icing sugar to make it a slightly sweet and richer pastry than her recipe which is a half-pound of flour to a quarter-pound of butter or margarine, and a little cold water to bind.

The apples are from our three cooking apple trees in the garden, which give a wonderful harvest every autumn of big green Bramleys. This is the nicest cooking apple as it bakes and stews to a light fluffy texture.

We have a shedful from September when the first windfalls drop, through harvesting in October before the November storms and wind knock 'em all down, to mid-Spring when they shrivel and dry up and we have to discard those that are past salvaging. I find even then that steeping the dried-up apples in a basin of water will revive them enough to make them perfect for yet another apple tart.

There is something very satisfying and a little virtuous in cooking with fruit from the garden: seeing it through from blossom in May to harvest in Autumn, picked by yourself (or hubby or son!) and safe in the knowledge that no airmiles were harmed in the making of this wonderful treat!

Photo shows finished pastry and some apples - replete with spots and blemishes - wholly organic!

Handy Tips:

• I always bake pastry in a metal pie dish or flan tin rather than in a glass or ceramic dish; something to do with better heat conduction and it certainly makes the pastry base crisp and prevents soggy bottoms - always desirable in pies and children!


• You don't need to bake the pastry base "blind" before adding the apples.


• When assembled, bake immediately or put uncooked pie in the fridge (refrigerator) to ensure perfect pastry.


• Remember - minimal handling and cold ingredients are keys to perfection - that's why purists will use marble rolling pins and pastry slabs - I don't go to such lengths but there's method in such madness!
  

Apple Tart (with Sweet Shortcrust Pastry)

Ingredients:

4-6 large Bramley cooking apples.

1lb/450gm plain flour8oz/225gm chilled butter (preferable to margarine).

2 oz/50gm sugar (or caster sugar or icing sugar).

1 egg.

A few tablespoons of cold water to bind.

Photo: Cooked tart before sprinkling of sugar

Method:

Photo: Crumbly flour/butter with egg to bind

1. Add butter to flour, chop up with knife and rub in with fingers to crumbly texture.

2. Add sugar, egg and water to bind stiffly.

3. Minimally handling, knead lightly on floured worktop/table.

4. Roll out enough pastry to cover large (10 inch/26cm diameter or smaller pie dishes if you prefer -makes 1 large or 2 small tarts).

5. Sprinkle flour on pastry base in pie dish.

6. Fill pastry base with sliced peeled cooking apples - Bramleys are best I think!

7. Add 5-6 whole cloves if you like the flavour.

8. Add enough sugar to sweeten apples - I sprinkle a generous amount to cover the apples like snow - see photo! - if you don't want a tart tart!

9. Roll enough pastry to cover the tart - use water on edges to stick pastry top to base.

10. Make some airholes with a fork or knife to let steam escape during baking.

11. Flute pastry edges with fingers or use fork to decorate edges.

12. Decorate top with pastry leaves if you feel creative!

13. Bake in top half of pre-heated oven (190 degrees Centigrade/375 degrees Fahrenheit) until golden brown, then move to lower half, reduce heat and bake for another 15-20 mins., totally about 35-40 mins.

14. Cool on wire rack, sprinkle with sieved icing sugar or caster sugar to decorate.

Photo: Ready to pop in the oven!

Serve hot or cold with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
Enjoy guilt-freely and don't think about counting calories!!!