Gooseberry and elderflower frozen yogurt - lactose free

On with the frozen yogurt experiments.  I made two litres of the treated milk yogurt, so have enough for four flavours.  Flavour three is based on the last of my home-grown gooseberries from the previous house.  I have elderflower cordial in the fridge, so rather than adding sugar syrup I added the cordial.  I used Genepi Grad Tetra Bigallet liqueur, bought from a lovely shop in Bourg St Maurice when we did our campervan skiing trip earlier this year.  This liqueur is 50% Vol., so only used 1.5tsp for the whole batch.  It still made the mixture soft scoop straight from the freezer, so even less is necessary at these concentrations.

The flavour is light and zingy, and the colour a subtle pale green.  It would be very good served with almond tuille.

Ingredients
400g yogurt - mine is lactase-treated channel island full fat milk
300g english gooseberries, cooked and sieved to remove the seeds
100ml elderflower cordial
1.5tsp Genepi liqueur

After tasting the mixture, and before freezing, I also added 4 tsp of sugar.  Decide for yourself if the mix is sweet enough; it will depend on how sweet your gooseberries are.

Mix gooseberry puree with other ingredients.  Pour into ice-cream maker.  When beginning to firm, transfer to freezer safe container and freeze until wanted.

Piecrust; New gluten free flour mix - tapioca free

I have been trying my first attempt at a tapioca and corn free gluten-free flour.  The one I am using at the moment is one third each of urid lentil, brown rice and buckwheat.  It makes good pancakes, but they are very easy with almost any flour.  Pastry is more of a challenge, and I wasn't expecting much from this mixture - I thought it might not hold together and it might not be crisp, or it might taste so strongly of the buckwheat that it would affect the flavour of the fruit filling.

I made a tiny amount of pastry to test, just using the scrap of butter I had to hand.  It made enough for two small pastries, made in a cupcake tin.  One was double crusted, the other open.  The filling was some frozen gooseberries, defrosted and mixed with sugar,

30g butter
60g flour mix (1/3 each urid, buckwheat, brown rice)

Cut butter and flour together then add chilled water to make quite a damp dough.  I thought I had added too much water to start with but after a little further mixing the dough became well behaved.  I didn't even leave it to rest before rolling.  I took slightly more care lifting the rolled dough than my usual recipe, but in general it was well behaved.  It kept its shape well in baking and when cooling, not shrinking away from the tin or the joins.

The piecrust was delicious, crisp and light and suitably complemented by  the tart sweet filling.

For those of you not used to English gooseberries who are shocked by the sight of prickles on the fruit in the first little pie - don't worry, they go soft and so aren't noticeable when eating.

Gooseberry almond pudding

A quick pudding that doesn't include any tapioca for those who find it causes problems.

1 egg
20g soft margarine
50g soft brown or other sugar
50g ground almonds
35g urid flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
rice or other milk to make a soft but not sloppy batter
225g gooseberries ( I used mine straight from the freezer)
50g sugar

Mix together the egg, margarine, first 50g sugar, flours and baking powder.  Add liquid to make a softish batter - firm enough that the gooseberries can sit on top.

Put gooseberries on the top of the batter, and sprinkle over the other 50g of sugar.

Bake at 170C for about forty minutes.  If your fruit isn't frozen it may be cooked quicker.  Test with a skewer/fine knife to make sure the cake batter is cooked.

Eat warm or cold.  Freezes well.

Gooseberry cobbler - with frozen dough

I made a cobbler with blackberries yesterday, and froze half the dough to see how it would work used straight from the freezer.  I took frozen gooseberries, put them into a small dish with a teaspoon of sugar, and placed the piece of frozen cobbler dough on top.  I cooked this for 30 minutes in a 180C oven.

The cobbler worked well and the fruit was succulent.  This is a very easy way of making an individual pudding or a family sized one, having done all the work whenever it is convenient.

For any international readers. the English call gooseberries a small hard very sour fruit with prickles on the berries.  These prickles become too soft to notice in your mouth when eating, even though you can still see them in the photographs.  One of the clearest memories I have of my sense of dislocation when I came to England was being told we had been given a basket of gooseberries ( I envisaged Cape Gooseberries, Physallis, succulent orange berries in their individual paper case) and it was these hard sour prickly green things.

Gooseberry, elderflower and almond cake

I have two gooseberry bushes, so, having picked the ripe berries I needed a recipe to use the with.  I looked on the web as usual, and found a couple of good looking gooseberry cake recipes.  Using these as a start I amended them to suit my taste.  Both of these have the gooseberries on top of the cake.  I wanted my gooseberries to be little pockets of sour flavour in the sweet cake, so folded them into the batter.  I used elderflower in the batter and with the flaked almonds on top to give an extra dimension to the flavour.

Inspiration recipes deliciousmagazine -moist-gooseberry-orange-and-almond-dimple-cake and waitrose gooseberry and almond cake.



Ingredients:

250g gooseberries
125g butter (soft)
175g sugar
2 eggs
100 flour (40%urid, 40%tapioca, 20% cornmeal)
75g ground almond
1/2 tsp baking powder
5 tbsp elderflower cordial (75ml)

75g flaked almonds
20g butter
2 tbsp elderflower cordial

Set oven to 180C and grease/line a tin.  I used a 9inch square tin.  Total cooking time 40minutes.

Cream butter and sugar thoroughly.
Add egg and beat.
Add flours and baking powder and beat.
Add elderflower cordial.  If you don't mind tasting raw batter check that you can taste the flavour of the cordial in the batter - if you want it stronger add a bit more.
Stir in the gooseberries.
Put mixture in tin and bake for 25 minutes.

While this is cooking, place the flaked almonds and butter and cordial in a small pan and heat until butter is melted and mixture coats almonds.

After 25 minutes lower oven temperature to 160C

Carefully sprinkle the flaked almonds on the cake and return to the oven for fifteen minutes.  Check that the cake is fully cooked by inserting a knife - but you need to find a bit of cake that isn't gooseberry to be sure!


This tastes superb.  It is tangy and sweet and quite delicious. The crispness of the almonds on top is a good contrast to the moist gooseberry cake.

This makes a cake that is more like a pudding - it doesn't hold it's shape very well because of the gooseberries.  If you want a more controlled cake you could bake a bit of the batter without the berries and then put the berried batter on top for the rest of the cooking.  It would also be good set into a pie crust, a bit like a Bakewell Tart.  I recommend you serve it in a bowl with a spoon, perhaps some of Just Rachel's excellent gooseberry and elderflower ice cream to accompany it.

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