Red Gooseberry and Orange Crumble

I wouldn't normally add a post about what is essentially my usual crumble recipe, but I haven't baked anything for over two months now, so need to keep the blog alive! 'Not-baking' started with a need for both of us to lose a little weight before going away to France, so that the inevitable excesses of holiday eating didn't have too great an impact. Unfortunately, we then returned from holiday to face a family health crisis, which hasn't left me with any time to bake.

But, however little time you have, the garden continues to demand attention - this weekend it was the red gooseberries which needed harvesting. There was only 300g of fruit on  the bush, not quite the amount I usually use, so I added a chopped up orange segments to the gooseberries, and the zest of the orange to the crumble mix. It added an interesting dimension to the flavour.

Ingredients
80g plain flour
80g porridge oats
80g light muscovado sugar
80g butter, in small cubes
1 orange
300g prepared gooseberries
50g caster sugar
2 teaspoons ground rice (to thicken the fruit juices)

Method
Put the flour, oats, muscovado sugar and butter into a large bowl, and add the finely grated zest of the orange. Rub in the butter to make the crumble mix.
Cut the peel and pith from the orange, over the dish in which you are going to bake the crumble to save any juice. Cut the orange into small pieces, then mix with the gooseberries, caster sugar and ground rice, in the baking dish.
Scatter over the crumble mix and press down lightly.
Bake at 200C (180C fan), for about 45 minutes, until the crumble is golden brown and the fruit juices are bubbling.

Red Gooseberry Crumble

Our little gooseberry bush which produces red berries has never fared as well as the green gooseberry bush. It was damaged by a falling branch a few years ago, and also grows in a shadier part of the garden, overshadowed by what has become a hazelnut grove in my neighbour's garden. This year I gathered just over 400g of gooseberries from the red bush, compared with 2.6kg of green gooseberries.

net cage to protect ripening green gooseberries

I learned early on in my gooseberry growing experience that the only way to be sure of harvesting fruit is to build a net cage around the bushes as soon as the fruit gets to a reasonable size; the first year I waited until I thought the majority of berries were perfectly ripe and decided to pick the next day. Unfortunately the local blackbirds (I assume, as they are notorious fruit eaters) also recognised the ripeness of the fruit and stripped the bush in the early morning, before I was even out of bed. I didn't lose a lot that year, as both bushes were small, but since then I protect them with netting before the end of June, and expect to harvest any time after the middle of July.

netting removed to show framework of  a cage

I decided to use the red gooseberries first, as there were just enough to make a fruit crumble. The green gooseberries were frozen in handy sized portions, to be used at a future date. Gooseberries are a fruit which keeps in the freezer really well, and despite preferring to eat seasonally, it's nice to be able to have a gooseberry pie or crumble in the middle of winter!

I made my crumble from 100g each of butter, caster sugar, plain flour and rolled oats, and also added 50g of chopped toasted hazelnuts, as I liked the combination of gooseberries and hazelnuts together in this dessert. I mixed the gooseberries with 70g sugar, 2 tablespoons of elderflower cordial and two teaspoons of ground rice to thicken the juices produced.

A recipe for gooseberry crumble isn't something I'd usually bother to write about, but the red berries produced such a glorious colour that I couldn't resist taking a photograph. I think the berries were a little riper than usual this year - they were certainly darker in colour than photos from previous years, and had more natural sweetness while still retaining the characteristic tartness of gooseberries.

Gooseberry and Hazelnut Slices

I've been taking part in the Formula 1 Foods challenge over at Caroline Makes. The idea is to make a dish inspired by the country in which each round of the F1 Grand Prix races take place. This weekend, the race takes place here in Great Britain, so it was relatively easy to find an ingredient which, to me, seemed  to represent the best of seasonal British food.

I chose to bake with gooseberries, rather than go for a typically British recipe, such as Battenburg Cake, or Maids of Honour, for two reasons. The first was that it was impossible to make a choice between all the 'British' recipes I have; the second was that gooseberries seem the most British of all the summer fruits available. They don't feature much in the cookery of any other country, as far as I can find out, even though they can be grown in most of Northern Europe. At the moment they seem out of favour with even British cooks, perhaps because they are difficult to harvest, which makes them expensive to grow commercially, as well as fiddly to prepare once you've got them. I was surprised recently to hear Raymond Blanc say that he had never cooked with them before making a gooseberry cheesecake for the TV series 'Kew on a Plate'.

Having decided on gooseberries, I looked around for a new recipe to try. Because they aren't a commonly used fruit, there aren't many recipe variations around - pies, crumbles and streusel topped cakes seem the most popular use, but all the recipes are very similar. I was very pleased to find this recipe for Gooseberry and Hazelnut Slices on the BBC Good Food website, as pairing gooseberries and hazelnuts is new to me, and it got over a major problem with cake baking with fresh fruit in hot weather, namely that nothing keeps for more than a couple of days, without refrigeration, before going mouldy. This recipe cooks the gooseberries with a lot of sugar, to make a purée with an almost jam-like texture. I hoped this would hold the mould at bay for long enough for us to finish the cake, as I really dislike the texture of cakes that have been refrigerated.

There were three stages to the recipe, which made it quite a trial on one of the hottest days of the year (so far)! I decided to make my own shortcrust pastry, which increased the work load, then the fruit had to be cooked and a sponge cake topping made to go on top of the pastry and fruit.

I followed the recipe exactly, but rather than ice the cake to finish it off, I sprinkled 25g of chopped toasted hazelnuts over the cake batter before baking, then brushed the cooked cake with 3 tablespoons of elderflower syrup to glaze it, while it was still hot.

This recipe was not without it's problems. The first was that the cake batter took far longer to cook than stated. After 25 minutes it was dark brown on top but still very liquid underneath, so I covered it, reduced the temperature by 20C and cooked it for longer, testing every 7 minutes or so. It took another 20 minutes before I was satisfied that the cake was cooked through - that's a big discrepancy!

The second problem was evident when cutting the cake - the layer of gooseberry purée hadn't been thickened enough, so that it oozed out from under the cake layer, which in turn made the cake slide about on the base. This made the squares of cake difficult to serve and they had to be eaten with a fork rather than just fingers. I guess the amount of juice in gooseberries varies with factors such as variety and ripeness, so if I make this again, I will thicken the fruit by eye, rather than just using the amount of cornflour specified in the recipe.


It's certainly a recipe worth making again. The pairing of gooseberries and hazelnuts was delicious, and the gooseberries were still tangy and fresh tasting. The recipe is reminiscent of a Bakewell Tart, but using fresh fruit, rather than jam, elevates things to the next level.

Gooseberry and Elderflower Cheesecake

While checking around the garden recently, I noticed how quickly the gooseberries were growing. That reminded me that there were still some of last year's gooseberries in the freezer, which ought to be used before this year's excess fruit went in. So when I needed a dessert to take to lunch with friends, something that could be made with frozen gooseberries seemed the best idea.

The biggest problem with taking desserts to other people is carrying them with no damage. It's also a good idea to take something ready to serve, so you're not doing last minute cooking in someone else's kitchen, or taking up oven space at an inconvenient time. A cold dessert, which was not likely to spill while travelling, seemed ideal and I eventually decided on cheesecake. After looking at several very different recipes, I chose a Mary Berry recipe (from her book 'Ultimate Cake Book') for a set gooseberry and elderflower cheesecake using gelatine. A gelatine based cheesecake could be transported still in the springform tin in which it was made, and the sides removed when ready to serve.

I never like to make an untried recipe for other people, so I had a trial run with the cheesecake the weekend before it was needed.

I adapted the recipe slightly so that I could use leaf gelatine, which I find much easier to use than powdered. I also made a few other changes, such as leaving the sugar out of the biscuit base, using the whole 250g tub of cream cheese, rather than having 25g left over, and leaving off the whipped cream decoration, as extra cream didn't seem necessary for the trial run. All I needed to do, to use leaf gelatine, was to soften nine leaves in cold water, then add them to the sieved gooseberries while the purée was still warm.

As with the rhubarb meringue pie I made recently, the addition of cream to the fruit seemed to mute the flavour. It was good, but decidedly 'delicate', and not as sharp as when using gooseberries in a pie or crumble. The crumb base was thin but this was good, as thick bases can be too hard to cut and eat easily. The set cheesecake mixture had bonded with the base well, so there wasn't any danger of things falling apart. The texture was very light and aerated - very mousse-like - so it didn't really seem like eating a cheesecake at all.

Because I was a little worried about the lack of flavour, I decided to make a tangy gooseberry sauce to eat with the cheesecake when I made it the second time, for those who liked the sharpness of gooseberries. I made this by simmering 550g of gooseberries with 80g of sugar until softened. I strained the juices back into the pan and reduced them by about half, until syrupy, while I sieved the cooked gooseberries to remove the pips. The concentrated juices were stirred back into the purée - more sugar could be added at this stage, to taste, but I decided to leave the sauce quite sharp.

By the time I made the second cheesecake, the elderflowers were almost out, so I decorated the cheesecake with small sprigs of flower buds and gooseberry leaves, rather than whipped cream, and served it with creme fraiche. Unfortunately, as I had to leave it in the springform tin for transportation, I couldn't get a good photo of the second cheesecake.

As the mousse-like texture of this cheesecake relies on beaten egg whites, I'm entering this into Belleau Kitchen's Simply Eggcellent bloggers link-up for June, which is for recipes where free-range eggs feature heavily. Dom hasn't set a theme for this month - anything goes - but a light cheesecake with seasonal fruit is perfect for this time of year.

Gooseberry Crumble

 I'm a great believer in seasonal eating, but it's getting ever more difficult to stick to  eating just what is traditionally in season. Growing crops in poly tunnels means that even British fruit such as raspberries are available for 9 months of the year, and that's before you even consider imports from abroad. Another factor is the use of the freezer to preserve fruit and vegetables. Rather than throw away excess from a glut, or eat it for weeks ad nauseam, it can often be frozen for out of season use.

This is what happens to my gooseberries and green beans, most years; I know our forbearers bottled fruit and salted beans, but some of the original freshness was missing when these were used. If you choose your fruit well, there is no loss of quality on thawing and cooking - blackberries, gooseberries and plums in particular freeze well, but rhubarb is less successful in my opinion, so that is still a truly seasonal fruit for me. Consequently, however much I might like to stick to seasonal fruit in Autumn and Winter desserts, there are always these fruits calling to me from the freezer .

You don't really want a recipe for fruit crumble - I'm sure you all have your favourite recipes - but I thought it was worth noting that I made a successful gluten- and dairy-free crumble using a proprietary brand of gluten-free flour and pure oats (labelled as wheat, dairy and gluten free), and coconut oil instead of butter.

I used my usual recipe of 100g each of flour, oats, fat and sugar (caster in this case) to make 4-6 portions. I rub the fat into all the other ingredients, which seems to give a better texture after baking. When I'm using coconut oil, I chill the crumble mixture for 30 minutes before putting it on the fruit and baking; I do this because I was worried about the coconut oil becoming too liquid while being rubbed in (even though I handled it a little as possible to get it more or less rubbed in), and wanted to keep the effect of using a solid fat.

If I'm using a fruit which I expect to make a lot of juice when it cooks, such as gooseberries or rhubarb, as well as sweetening it, I add just a level teaspoon of ground rice for every 300g fruit. This seems to thicken the juices perfectly, without adding any unwanted flavour, and with not much change in texture. Beware of using too much though - ground rice absorbs much more liquid than other thickeners such as flour or ground almonds.

I was really pleased that the texture and flavour of the gluten- and dairy-free crumble were comparable to my usual recipe, and I was really pleased with the 'free-from' oats, from Sainsbury's, which were a lot sturdier than the usual 'value' rolled oats I use. They gave a slightly crisper finish to the baked crumble, but of course, I did pay a price premium for them!

Rhubarb or Gooseberries? A Difficult Choice!

As I mentioned a few posts ago, our rhubarb is enjoying a late spurt of growth. I believe there is an old wives' tale that rhubarb shouldn't be harvested after the end of June, but I've never taken any notice of that; I just make sure there are enough stems left on each crown to put some goodness back in for next season's growth. Then I can harvest until the stems either get too thick or start to wilt and die back.


2.5kg of gooseberries, ready for topping and tailing

Last weekend I took off the netting cage which was protecting the ripening gooseberries from the hungry birds. I lost my whole crop the first year I grew gooseberries, so have devised some form of protection since then, which goes on as soon as the fruit starts to ripen. Once it is removed all of the gooseberries have to be picked at once, as it's too difficult to put the netting back round the bushes. I was only just in time with the large bush of green fruit - over-ripe fruit had already fallen off the bush. The red-fruited bush, however, could have been left a little longer; although the fruit that caught the sun at the front of the bush was ripe, there was a lot of unripe fruit at the back.


Red gooseberry crumble

It's hard to resist any fruit straight from the garden, so I made a small gooseberry crumble with most of the red fruit, although hubs complained that I hadn't added my usual oats to the crumble mixture. I added some crushed amaretti biscuits to the flour and butter mixture instead of sugar, which added enough sweetness and some crunch, but the lack of oats made the crumble a bit dry and powdery.





Freeform rhubarb pie

Earlier in the week, I'd made a small freeform rhubarb pie with some shortcrust pastry left over after making a sausage pie. This meant we had two high-carbohydrate desserts in the space of a week, which is almost unheard of these days, but it helped me to decide what to do with the bulk of the gooseberry crop. I'm quite happy eating cooked rhubarb with yogurt, as a healthier dessert, but gooseberries really need to be cooked into a pie, crumble or cake. So, somewhat reluctantly, the gooseberries went into the freezer, saved for future baking sessions, and we'll go on enjoying the rhubarb, picked as required, for a little longer.

Of course, blackberries will soon be ready to harvest, and it looks as if it will be a bumper crop this year!

Gooseberry Frangipane Tarts

The gooseberry bushes haven't performed well this year - the cold Spring meant the blossom was late, and the following dry period has produced much smaller fruits than usual. However, the time for harvesting one bush arrived this weekend - the red gooseberry bush was showing signs of over-ripe dropping fruit. This bush is very small - it never really recovered from some damage when we had a tree felled a few years ago, and it is overshadowed by a huge hazelnut thicket in my neighbour's garden, so doesn't get a lot of light. However, there was 450g of small berries this year.

I decided to pair the gooseberries with almonds to make Frangipane Tarts which could be entered into this month's AlphaBakes Challenge, which uses the letter F. I made basic shortcrust pastry with 200g flour, 100g butter and a little cold water. This was more than enough to line 6 tartlet tins which were about 9cm in diameter. I made the frangipane mixture by beating together 100g of softened butter, 100g ground almonds, 100g caster sugar, 25g plain flour, 2 large eggs and a few drops of almond extract. I half filled each pastry case with this almond mixture, then scattered a handful of gooseberries on top. These tarts were baked at 180C for about 25-30 minutes, until the frangipane was golden and set. After 5 minutes cooling the tarts were removed from the tart mould, to prevent any overflow of fruit juices setting and making the tarts stick.

 

Making the tarts only used about 2/3 of the frangipane and I still had some pastry leftover, so I decided to make a deeper tart too. For this I lined an individual pie dish with pastry and put a deep layer of gooseberries mixed with a teaspoon of flour and two tablespoons of caster sugar into the base. I spread the remaining frangipane on top and sprinkled a few flaked almonds on top. this deeper pie was baked at 180C for 20 minutes, then the temperature was reduced to 160C and the pie was baked until the topping was golden and set - about another 25 minutes, I think.

The shallow tarts were undoubtedly prettier, but the advantage of the deeper tart was that more gooseberries could be used. I think the deep version had a much better flavour because of this - the gooseberries were the star, not the frangipane mixture. With the small tarts the gooseberries didn't seem much more than decoration.

AlphaBakes is a baking challenge hosted jointly by Caroline from Caroline Makes and Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker. Each month a letter of the alphabet is randomly chosen and participants must feature that letter as part of the name of what they make, or as one of the main ingredients. Eg, this month the letter F is for Frangipane (name) or I could have chosen an ingredient such as Figs. The full rules are here, if my explanation is a little confused. Caroline is hosting this month and will post a round up of F-baking at the end of the month!

Gooseberry, Almond and Elderflower Cake - A Tea Time Treat

This month's Tea Time Treat Challenge is baking with summer fruit. There are several varieties of soft fruit traditionally associated with a British Summer - raspberries, strawberries, cherries and so on - but thanks to improved growing methods and imports, many of these are now available all year round.

So for me. nothing says summer has arrived  more than picking my own gooseberries. Not only do they have a very short season, they are so out of favour with the British public that you hardly ever see them in the supermarkets, either in-season British, or imported. I've been growing them for three years now, and although the bush bearing a red variety of gooseberry has suffered damage since it was first planted, and isn't producing much yet, we get enough off the green variety for several crumbles or pies, plus a batch or two into the freezer in a good year.

Fortunately, this year our gooseberries are just about ready at the same time as the elderflowers, which are late blooming this year. I picked just enough fruit for this cake, and left the rest to mature a little longer. I'm not sure why elderflowers and gooseberries are traditionally paired together - this is the first time for many years that I've seen both ready at the same time. Perhaps things were different back in the days when traditions were being formed! Incidently - I went out to pick the elderflowers on the longest day of the year, after a torrential downpour of rain which was more reminiscent of a tropical storm than a British summer shower. Summer is not very summery this year!

So, for the Tea Time Treat challenge, I needed a cake, rather than a dessert. This is one of my favourite cake recipes for using fresh fruit, but for something releasing a lot of juice, as gooseberries do, the fruit must be cooked first. I used 500g fruit with a tablespoon of water and sugar to taste, and 3 large heads of elderflowers which were only just fully open. I cooked them together until the gooseberries had burst and release their juices, then I removed the flowers. I drained the fruit, reserving the juices, which I boiled down to a few tablespoons of syrup, adding a little more sugar to taste - this will be used to glaze the finished cake.

For the cake I used:

150g unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
250g SR flour
50g ground almonds, plus an extra tablespoonful
A few drops almond extract
The cooked fruit, and prepared glaze
A handful of flaked almonds, for topping
A few sprigs of elderflowers for decoration

Pre-heat oven to 180C and grease and line the base of a 20cm(8") springform tin.
Melt the butter in a large bowl in the microwave, then stir in the sugar and beaten egg, followed by the flour, 50g ground almonds and almond extract. Mix until you have a soft dough - the consistency is like a soft cookie dough.
Use just over half the dough to cover the base of the cake tin, spreading it with fingers, and raising a lip around the sides about 1cm(1/2") high.
Sprinkle the extra tablespoon of ground almonds over the base.
Spread the fruit over the base, then cover with the rest of the dough, breaking off small pieces and scattering it over the fruit, and spreading with your fingers. (You need good coverage of dough around the edges, but it doesn't matter if there are small gaps with fruit peeking through in the middle of the cake). Sprinkle over the flaked almonds and press down lightly.
Bake for 50-60 minutes, until golden and firm. Cover with foil if the cake is browning too quickly.
When out of the oven, brush the top with the glaze, which is easier to spread if warmed (my glaze actually set like a jam while the cake was cooking!). Allow to cool.
Decorate with elderflowers just before serving (or just for the photograph in this case!).

This is a really delicious cake - Hubs reckoned that it's one of the best he's tasted for a long while. He's not usually very vocal about my cooking unless he really dislikes something, or finds something better than usual, so it must have been good!  It's a cake that is at home on the tea-table, but which could be served warm with cream, custard or ice cream as a dessert too.

The elderflowers made a huge difference to the flavour of the gooseberries and the glaze on top gave an extra fruity flavour boost. The texture of the cake is moist and dense - somewhere between a cake and a shortcake in texture, and the almonds are detectable but not overwhelming, even after using the almond extract. The centre fruit layer is not as deep as a pie filling but concentrates the flavour of the fruit more than just folding the fruit into the cake batter.

Tea Time Treats is a monthly baking challenge to provide goodies for the tea table, hosted alternately by Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Kate from What Kate Baked. Kate chose this month's theme of summer fruits and will be posting a round-up of entries at the end of the month.

Update - June 28th

I've also entered this cake into the Elderflower Challenge at Lancashire Food, although I don't understand the technical bit about copying the badge code so that it links to the challenge! You'll just have to follow the link above if you want to see what's been entered into the challenge. Thanks to Choclette at Chocolate Log Blog, for bringing this challenge to my attention!

Gooseberry Crumble Cake

I'm so excited by my little crop of home-grown gooseberries. They are such a rare fruit these days - I think it's about 4 years since I saw any in the supermarkets, which is what prompted us to plant a couple of bushes to grow our own. This wasn't a particularly good year; it was such a dry spring that the berries were very small. Another problem we had was that the bush producing the red fruit was damaged when we had a tree felled and is taking a long time to recover, so it isn't producing as much fruit as the green-fruited bush yet.  Nevertheless, we got enough fruit for a two portion crumble (heavenly), this crumble cake and a further portion for the freezer for later use.

This cake isn't very pretty - it's not as deep as I would have liked and the top buckled where the gooseberries collapsed - but it was certainly very tasty! It's an amalgamation of a couple of recipes and my own ideas for flavouring the gooseberries and crumble topping. The sponge cake base comes from this Rachel Allen recipe; the only change I made was to use elderflower cordial instead of milk, in the batter mix. I baked it in a 9"(23cm) diameter springform tin, but I think it would have been better in an 8"(20cm) tin.

For the fruit layer, I mixed 340g (roughly 12oz)  fruit with 2 teaspoons cornflour, 1 tablespoon caster sugar and 2 tablespoons eldeflower cordial. This was spread on the uncooked sponge mix base.

The crumble topping is based on an idea from Martha Stewart website, where I first read about melting the butter for a crumble topping and then mixing in the other ingredients. The resulting soft dough is then broken up into small pieces and scattered evenly over the base layers. In this case I used 100g melted butter, 75g SR flour and 75g caster sugar, plus a half teaspoon of cinnamon and a teaspoon cocoa to give some colour contrast to the crumble mix.

The cake took about an hour to bake at 180C - it was difficult to tell if it had cooked properly as the top was fluid from the hot fruit, so didn't feel firm, and a toothpick picked up moisture from the fruit.

The only disappointment was that I couldn't taste the elderflower cordial - I had used some in the gooseberry crumble I'd made the day before, with much better results. I think it was just too dilute in this cake. The cocoa and cinnamon in the crumble added just a hint of extra flavour, and the gooseberries were still wonderfully sharp. The crisp crumble topping was a good contrast to the soft sponge and moist fruit layer. This was delicious eaten warm as a dessert with vanilla yogurt or creme fraiche, or on it's own as a cake when it had cooled fully. I stored it in the fridge, but let it come up to room temperature before eating.

Double Helpings of Desserts

They are not seasonal, it's true, but a lunch party seemed an excellent reason to use some of my frozen gooseberries. These were a gift from my mother - we planted two gooseberry bushes this year but the yield wasn't enough for excess to be frozen.

As the desserts needed to be dairy-free, and fairly light, as the rest of meal was quite substantial, I chose this recipe for Gooseberry and Elderflower Jelly from Delia Smith. Instead of wine I used a sparkling grape juice drink, as I knew several of my guests didn't drink alcohol.

It's a fairly simple recipe to follow; the only problem was that the amount of liquid for soaking the gelatine didn't seem enough - the powdered gelatine absorbed it all and still looked grainy, so I added enough to keep the gelatine loose enough to be stirrable. Most recipes use hot water to soak powdered gelatine, so that might have been a better option.

The jelly took ages to set - long enough to have me worrying that it wasn't going to set at all, but it did eventually. The resulting dessert was vey tasty and light, although there was no evidence that a sparkling drink had been used, probably due to the long setting time.



The second dessert was more seasonal - Blackberry and Apple Mousse - and again, was dairy-free. The recipe was adapted from a recipe for a Summer Fruit Mousse in a 'free from' cookery book I have, and uses coconut cream and soya cream, and some gelatine, instead of dairy cream, plus a couple of beaten egg whites to lighten the mixture a little. This dessert didn't produce the same clean flavour that the gooseberry dessert did; the creaminess seemed to dilute the flavour too much.

For 6 servings you need 500g of cooked fruit, sweetened with 100g sugar (or to taste) . While this is hot, add 2 tablespoons of powdered gelatine soaked in 3 tablespoons very hot water, then sieve or purée, depending on whether there are pips to remove. When cool, and just showing signs of setting, stir in a 160ml tin of coconut cream and a 250ml carton of soya cream. Then beat 2 egg whites until stiff and fold into the mixture. Spoon into individual glasses, or a large bowl. The recipe suggested decorating with frosted fresh fruit - dipped in lightly beaten egg white then caster sugar.