Raspberries

I have two raspberry canes in a large tub in the garden.  I did have three, but one just withered away, despite my best efforts.  They are an autumn fruiting variety called Joan J and the remaining two are very reliable.  I chose autumn fruiting because they are easier to prune -  just cut down all the canes to the ground in February and they fruit on the new canes grown each year.  I have watered and fed them and watched the flowers being pollinated by the bees and the fruits forming.  However, as I only have two canes, sadly I don't get enough fruit to make jam.  So, I have eaten them straight off the canes when they are sun warmed, but as the days are getting cooler, I was wondering what else I could do with the small handfuls.  I have made pavlovas in the past, but they are strictly for a treat.  I think I may have found the perfect solution.

 We use the Easi-Yo yogurt system, where you add a sachet of mix to water and then put it in the yogurt maker (filled with just boiled water) overnight.  We like the low fat Greek style mix as it is versatile to use in cooking as well as eaten as a yogurt, usually with honey added in.  In a flash of inspiration, I decided to make a raspberry sauce for the yogurt.  I put the raspberries into a saucepan with some cold water and five (ish) teaspoons of icing sugar (depending how sweet a tooth you have) and then boiled it up, stirring it well.  I boiled it for about five minutes or so and let it cool slightly, before putting it through a sieve to remove the seeds.

As you can see, it has a beautiful colour and I can vouch for the fact that it tasted delicious!  It makes a really nice change from honey and it is a good way of using up the raspberries too.  Perfect!

"By George, I think she's got it!"

My third meringue - ever!  Fresh eggs, whisking until the egg whites are able to withstand being upside down over your head, baking parchment, really low heat (Gas mark half), baking for an hour and then turning off the oven and leaving it in overnight.  Following these guidelines, I managed to create a second successful pavlova as a 'welcome to the team' celebration for a colleague at work.

The meringue was crispy on the outside and chewy in the middle and again, I added a spoon of natural yogurt to the double cream (which made the cream so much healthier - well, I think it did!).  The raspberries were from a supermarket as mine hadn't produced enough, although the four I picked that morning were added to the top (slightly bigger and a bit darker in colour, if you'd like to play the fascinating game of 'hunt the home-grown raspberries').  The pavlova was very well received , so yes, in the words of Professor Higgins, "by George, I think she's got it!"

Addition:

Here's the recipe I used:
Serves 6
Ingredients:
3 large fresh egg whites
6 oz/175g caster sugar
Topping:
Small pot whipping or double cream (the recipe says 10 fl oz/275ml), whipped
Fruits of your choice
a little icing sugar to dust the top

Pre-heat the oven to Gas 2/300 degrees F, 150 degrees C.
Lightly oil a baking sheet and line with baking parchment (silicone paper)
1. Place the egg whites in a large clean bowl and have the sugar measured out ready.  Whisk the egg whites until they form peaks and you can turn the bowl upside down without them sliding out. (This is the secret to success I think!) However, it is important not to over whisk the egg whites as they may start to collapse.
2.  Whisk in the sugar, a tablespoon at a time.  The meringue should look shiny at this stage.  Spoon the meringue using a metal tablespoon onto the baking sheet, forming an 8 inch/20 cm diameter circle.  (This is where I added some piping around the edge, just to raise the edge up). You can spoon extra blobs around the edge or make the centre slightly lower than the edge.  Turn down the oven to Gas 1/275 degrees F/140 degrees C and leave to cook for one hour.  (I had to turn my oven down to gas mark a half - my oven is old and has no fan assisting or anything! I also needed to put the meringue on the bottom shelf.)
3.  Turn the heat right off but leave the pavlova inside the oven until completely cold.  It can be left in the turned off oven overnight so that it dries out completely.
4.  To serve, lift the meringue from the baking sheet and place it on a serving dish.  Just before serving, spread the cream on the top and arrange the fruit on top of the cream.  Sprinkle some icing sugar on the top if required.  Enjoy!

If it doesn't work quite as you hope the first time, I can recommend Eton Mess (crumbled up meringue, cream and fruit).  That's what I did with my first attempt!

Beautiful Blueberries

 I don't grow all that many edible things in the garden; chives, mint, raspberries (a new introduction this year), beetroot (for the first time this year) and blueberries (one plant, 'Goldtraube', originally and two more added this year, 'Blue Pearl').  I have found that 'Goldtraube has been an excellent plant, producing lots of berries.  Last year it managed enough for five lots of little cakes.  This year, so far, I'm on the second batch of cakes.

 Every day there are more luscious fruits to collect and they seem to be ripening almost in front of my eyes!  I love the grey bloom on the skins.  I don't really enjoy raw blueberries as I am always disappointed that they are not full of juice.

 However, when they are added to a basic sponge mix, they are lovely!

Baking them in a cake does seem to bring out more juice and the slightly tart flavour of the fruit contrasts beautifully with the sweet cake mixture. 
(I posted something very similar about the blueberries in July 2012 which shows things are still a little bit behind where they were last year, despite the baking hot weather we had in July this year.  I consider the blueberries to be one of my small gardening successes and I hope you don't mind me repeating myself a bit.)

Meringue trials and tribulations

My meringue trials and tribulations all began a few months ago when a colleague and I were talking about growing soft fruit.  I am growing raspberries and blueberries in tubs and he is lucky to have a large garden so can grow raspberries in the ground.  He said he would bring in some raspberries and I rashly suggested I could make a meringue (never having made one before, you understand!) and we could have a pavlova at work. 

So, the months rolled on and last week he brought in some raspberries.  I used a Delia recipe and made my first attempt.  It turned out rather browner than I would have liked and was very squidgy in the middle.  So we had to have Eton Mess with the outer, crispier bit, but that was very tasty.

Undeterred, I looked on the internet to see what I may have done wrong and discovered that 1) I hadn't whipped the egg whites for long enough and 2) the oven temperature was too high.

Yesterday, I tried again.  I whipped the egg whites until I could put the bowl upside down over my head without them moving and I lowered the oven temperature and put the meringue on the bottom shelf.



 Here it is when baked - SUCCESS!

 Here is the finished pavlova (a perfect summer dessert) with double cream (and a bit of natural yogurt mixed in), my colleague's raspberries and icing sugar.

We all enjoyed it and I was delighted with the meringue consistency - crispy with a slightly chewy bit in the middle - YUM! (The only thing that worries me is, was that a one off, or will I be able to repeat the success when my blueberries are ripe?!)

Home made jam

It all started when Chris asked why I didn't eat his blackberry jam.  I replied that I wasn't that keen on blackberries, except in a crumble, but if he made some raspberry jam, I would definitely eat that as it is my favourite.  While visiting Mum and Dad on Sunday, we picked some raspberries and apples.  The raspberries and two apples were destined to become jam.
The jam was duly made and had the most lovely colour.  Chris added the apples as we didn't have quite enough raspberries for the recipe.

 The jam had a lovely rich jewel-like colour - I was very excited about tasting it.  It reached setting point very quickly (Chris used jam sugar which has added pectin, and no doubt the apples helped too).

 Last night, I had the very good idea of making scones and getting some cream, which is what I did today.

It is amazing to think that the raspberries and apples were still on the plant/tree just two days ago.  The jam is delicious and has an extremely good set on it too.  Yum!

Fruit Crumble - Delicious!

Well, I said I would be contributing a crumble or two, so here is the first one! It is Bramley apple, plum and raspberry, with custard, of course. It was very tasty and we both enjoyed it. I added some porridge oats to the topping, which do seem to give a nice bit of crunch. It is just the thing to be eating when the weather is turning cooler and the wind is blowing, as it has been doing this afternoon.

Fruit crumbles are one of my favourites!

Autumn Harvest

We were visiting my Mum and Dad yesterday, to support their village fete (of that, more in another post) and were very lucky to be able to gather some lovely fruit and vegetables from their garden - Victoria plums, Bramley apples, raspberries, onions, cucumbers and tomatoes. Chris is planning to have a mammoth jam making and pickling event and I shall contribute some delicious fruit crumbles. Yum! The picture above shows cherry plums and damsons in a fantastic colour combination.