Sour Cherries and Other Delights

Myrtle’s pudding recipe has vanished…or at least is tucked away somewhere I haven’t discovered yet…
so this year’s pudding is a breakaway in a basin. It’s a pale imitation in more ways than one…I used golden raisins which I had on hand for a walnut cake recipe and they gleam brightly instead of melting mysteriously into the mix. It was a huge amount & had to be divided into a larger & smaller basin.
Tying the covers of paper & foil over the tops with string proved the trickiest part of the procedure with both Ian & I struggling to fit them (the baking paper wasn’t quite wide enough)…and both of us wishing I’d put the mixture in a rag as usual & hoping for the rainy weather to stop while it seasoned. Anyway,now they’re done,some other Christmas cooking can be contemplated.

Meantime our summer veggie garden is beginning to bear fruit (garlic & some onions harvested) and we had the first medley of our beautiful Lebanese eggplant & lime green zucchini. Yum!

Luckily we’ve snatched a few delicious fresh apricots down in the bottom corner away from the baby Wattle bird…the mulberries have been a great decoy for the Currawong baby and all the Silvereyes and now for this boofy baby too- mostly keeping them away from the other ripening fruit… and the mulberries are continuing to ripen in a second flush.

Glistening jewels of redcurrants & drooping clusters of ruby red cherries in our best harvest in years led me on the path of distraction (from the more pressing task of Christmas cooking) to deciding what to do amongst this ephemeral glimpse of plenty.

Jane Grigson to the rescue and some more delightful tangents…reminders of an Austrian redcurrant Tart cooked long ago…and internet diversionary searches …till deciding on some redcurrant tarts which could be frozen for later.
So this time a sweet shortcrust (3 heaped teaspoons icing sugar added to my usual) and a filling made with brown sugar,eggs and cream.
400gms redcurrants, 2eggs, 4 Tablespoons brown sugar, 100mls heavy cream.
They look pretty…hope they taste good too.

As for the cherries…made a clafouti and found a bookmarked recipe for a cherry cake in Ursula Ferrigno’s ‘Italian Cakes and Desserts’ still not made….Before the glut of sour cherries I’ve brandied the last of our sweet cherries for the store cupboard.

Well…we’ve shared the first one…no doubt there’ll still be more on the tree for another one…or possibly for a mulberry frangipane tart or mulberry jelly.

Made a shortcrust pastry…and tossed up how to make the filling…In the end I took the simplest route and just put the fresh berries(de-stalked) with added cornflour & sugar gently mixed then placed on the uncooked bottom pastry, & covered with the top piece. Not so pretty..but delicious,especially with ice-cream!

Post mulberry pie, & thinking about a healthy,non-sandwich lunch…Emily helped me make this simple cabbage pancake and voted it yummy! We thought it was good too.

2 cups finely shredded Savoy cabbage,4 chopped shallots,2 eggs,2/3 cup plain flour, 1 Tablespoon Mirin,salt.
Use sunflower oil for frying till golden.Toasted sesame seeds to garnish.Spicy sauce optional.

Summer is almost here…mulberries are dripping from the tree and the cherries are ripening.

There’s no excuse for not making a mulberry pie this weekend…before the Currawongs have called in all their friends!