Mulberry Muffins

Spring is here, and the Koel cuckoos are making enough noise to drive us crazy. Other animals are less noisy and more fun to watch. Flying foxes are feasting on bottlebrush blossom and loquats in my local streets each night. In my parents’ backyard they’re feasting on mulberries. So are we.

We eat mulberries on our cereal, Alloronan makes mulberry smoothies, and my mum serves them with berry liqueurs (like creme de cassis) and icecream for dessert. Recently I made mulberry muffins.

These mulberry muffins are very moist and super-crumbly – you’ll need a plate. The LSA and almond meal give them a pleasant nutty flavour. Of course the big moist mulberries hidden inside are the highlight. I can see why the flying foxes are so enthusiastic about them.

Ingredients
250g brown sugar
80ml oil
1 egg
vanilla
250 g mulberries (stems cut off)
100g almond meal
100g quinoa flour and 100g rice flour (or 200g gluten free flour blend)
50g LSA (linseed, sunflower and almond meal)
2 tsp baking powder
1tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius.

Combine the wet ingredients in a bowl.

Sift in the dry ingredients and combine.

Gently stir in the mulberries.

Divide the mixture between 12 muffin cases.

Bake for approximately 20-25 minutes, or until risen and springy on top.

Easy Rhubarb in the Oven

Quality time often sounds like a piece of jargon, and an excuse for not spending large quantities of time with people you care about. On the other hand time spent doing fun things together is more enjoyable than time spent moping at home. Preparing food for your loved ones is important, but wouldn’t you like to have your cake and go for a walk too?

Recipes with long cooking times let you have home cooked food, with a side serve of leisure. This rhubarb recipe is a favourite of mine at the moment because it’s timed perfectly to give you an hour’s walk. It’s also great for spring when rhubarb is available in big bunches at farmers’ markets. Each bunch weighs around 500 g, and this recipe is scaled for times when you fall for the two for one deal.

A good rhubarb compote can be served with yoghurt or cream as a dessert. I’ve made muffins with it too, where the soft fruit adds moisture and flavour, but leaves very few chunks in the cake. The easiest way to eat it is spooned onto your morning porridge or cereal. An easy gluten free breakfast can be made from leftover brown rice served with milk, yoghurt and rhubarb. Quality time and slow cooked rhubarb is a great combination too.

Ingredients
1 kg rhubarb
300 g brown sugar
zest of an orange, or 2 tsp of cinnamon (or both)

Method
Cut the rhubarb into pieces around 2 cm long.

Place it in a large baking dish and mix in the sugar and rind/spices with your hands. Then cover with foil, or the lid of the dish.

Bake at 175 degrees Celcius for 45 min to 1 hour.

Quince and Almond Cake

Spring is coming and going. We’ve had heatwaves and cold snaps. Stone fruits are only just flowering, and I saw grape vines on the weekend that hadn’t even grown leaves yet. Of course there are some new fruits after winter. Berries are here, and there’s rhubarb and citrus. I’m still eating a lot of winter fruit though, and pulling my stewed quinces out of the freezer was a real pleasure.

The quinces had stayed in the freezer for ages, because it seemed like they deserved a better fate than topping a bowl of cereal. Finally I pulled them out and forced myself to find an inspiring way to use them. I’ve been enjoying reading Nigella Lawson’s book Feast, and her moist apple and almond cake looked like a promising gluten free option. At last I’d found the recipe to adapt for my quinces.

The cake is quite moist, and the eggs allow it to rise without any raising agent. Made with quinces it is the faintest bit pink, which is lovely. The quinces are stewed with spices, so the cake is richly fragrant, and heavy and moist with almond meal.

This cake is for my dad. Happy Birthday!

Ingredients for the Cake
285g cooked quince
8 eggs
325g ground almonds
275g caster sugar
a handful of flaked almonds

Method for the Cake
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius. Line a 22cm springform tin with baking paper.

Mash the stewed quinces with a fork until they form a puree.

Combine the pureed quince with the eggs, ground almonds, and caster sugar. Beat well.

Spread in the tin and sprinkle with flaked almonds.

Bake for about 45 min or until the cake springs back at the centre.

Ingredients for the Quinces
4 quinces
whole cloves, ground cinnamon
lemon rind

Method for the Quinces
Core the quinces and dice them up. It is ok to leave the skin on.

Put them in a saucepan with a few strips of lemon rind, about four cloves and a teaspoon or two of cinnamon. Just cover them with water.

Bring them to the boil, then simmer for at least an hour. If you want a really good pink colour they need to cook for ages. Just top up the water and boil them until you are satisfied.

This method will make more stewed quince than you need for the cake. You can use the rest on your porridge, or make some quince muffins.

Hummingbird Slice

“Summer is a State of Mind” read the slogan on an icecream advertisement in Edinburgh. It still makes us laugh, because the few days of “summer” we experienced in Edinburgh were a lot like Sydney in winter. The sentiment is understandeable though. As we wind down to the solstice, and our longest, darkest night, I find myself longing for a taste of summer. Eating an icecream at the beach, even when the wind is icy, can let you pretend for a moment that the seasons have changed. Even summer in a can is better than no summer at all, so a recipe calling for crushed pineapple simply calls out to be baked.

Hummingbird slice is a colourful name for a fruity cake. With crushed pineapple, banana and grated carrot, the version in this month’s Donna Hay magazine sounded beautifully moist. If you want to create a gluten free cake, recipes with lots of moisture are best. Cakes that don’t rely on flour for their texture also turn out well gluten free. Being full of fruit for moisture and texture the hummingbird slice sounded like the perfect candidate for a gluten free cake.

The hummingbird cake is similar to a carrot cake, with pleasant hints of pineapple, and some cinnamon for fragrance. For the gluten free version I used a combination of almond meal and a commercial gluten free flour blend, which worked out quite well. When James said, “How did you get this to taste so un-gf?” I knew I’d be making this one again.

Hummingbird Slice
Adapted from Donna Hay Magazine Issue 45

Ingredients
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
2 eggs
1/2 cup canned crushed pineapple (drained)
1 banana (mashed)
1 cup grated carrot
1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 cup gluten free plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup desiccated coconut

Method
Preheat oven to 160 degrees celcius.
Put sugar, oil and eggs in a bowl and combine
Add pineapple, banana and carrot and mix again.
Then add almond meal, sifted gluten free flour, baking powder, bicarb-soda, cinnamon and coconut and mix well.
Pour the mixture into a lined 20 by 30 cm lamington pan.
Bake for approximately 40 mins, or until it springs back when you touch it.

Fruit Picking at Bilpin

One of the activities I’ve been hoping to do for a while is visit a pick-your-own farm. There are a few places not far from Sydney where you can pick fruit that you pay for by the kilo. Different fruits are available at different times of year. In Autumn, chestnuts and apples are both in season and I couldn’t decide between the two. As a compromise I planned to travel up the Bell’s Line of Road to Mt Irvine to visit a chestnut farm, and pick apples in Bilpin on the way home. In the end we found that my plan was over-ambitious and the apples won the day. By the time we got to Bilpin we’d had enough driving. Besides, the apples were looking too good to drive past. I must admit it wasn’t only the apples I wanted to stop for. I’d also spotted a sign that mentioned real fruit icecream, so driving further up the mountains would only put more distance between me and this treat.

Having decided on apples we turned in to Bilpin Springs Orchard. There were heaps of cars lined up with families hopping out of them, or returning to stash their apples in the boot. We joined the throng waiting to be lead down to the orchard. While we waited we admired the orchard dog, who had beautiful soulful eyes and very expressive eyebrows.

Down in the orchard certain rows of trees were marked with a tick to indicate that the fruit was ready to be picked. The day we visited the choice was between Red Fujis and Braeburns, but the selection varies every couple of weeks. We decided to pick Braeburn apples, mostly because we hadn’t seen them in the shops. We reasoned that if you’re picking your own you might as well get something unusual.

Since this orchard specialises in pick your own fruit I think they grow a greater range of varieties than commercial growers. This would allow the picking season to be broader, as well as offering something special to the visiting pickers. In spite of the different ripening times most of the apple trees were covered in leaves and fruit. I did spot the odd mis-timed blossom on trees that were otherwise fruiting, which made me think how beautiful the orchard would be in bloom.

As we walked down the rows there were a few interesting things to notice. There’s a lot that goes into farming fruit that you don’t see at the greengrocer. For example, I was curious to see that the fruit had been sprayed with food grade chalk for sun protection. Who would have guessed that apples get sunburnt? I also noticed fruit fly traps hanging here and there. Some of the trees were draped in cloth to protect them from hail damage and birds. On the uncovered trees you could see a few apples that the birds had been eating.

We didn’t pick too many apples – only about 2 kg. We reasoned that neither of us were big apple eaters. How silly that reasoning seems now. Less than a week has passed and there is only one apple left in the fruit bowl. Clearly with the right apples we are big apple eaters. These Braeburns were beautifully fresh and crisp. Much better than anything you get at the greengrocer. They’re also a good flavour, not too sweet or tart. I wish we’d picked twice as many!

With our loot of apples safely stowed, we moved on to Tutti Frutti. This was the place with the sign advertising the real fruit ice cream, and I was keen to try some. While we were there we also bought a big bucket of local honey. The real fruit ice cream was the star attraction though. It was made by combining vanilla ice cream with berries of your choice. I went for blueberry and James had blackberry. The girl behind the counter told me that I wasn’t the first person to take a photo starring her hands. Obviously the ice cream machine is worth a photo even for visitors who aren’t bloggers.

Outside Tutti Frutti we had our icecream in the rose garden. The roses smelt divine, and I loved the way they were massed together. Underneath them were strawberry plants. I wonder if these were the source of some of the berries for the real fruit ice cream. There was probably a bigger plot somewhere else though.

I’d recommend fruit picking as a great day out. Next time I’ll be sure to pick a more ambitious quantity of fruit and do some baking. I’m looking forward to trying stone fruit next summer too.