Recipes

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• Half and remove the stones of your Plums/Cherry Plums, pop them on a backing tray and into your oven (190 Degrees) for 15 more minutes.
• Once cool pop them into your food processor/smoothie maker and blitz.
• Add honey to taste and spread out on nonstick paper. 
• Pop them into your dehydrator on 135 degrees until it peals away from the sides of your nonstick.
• If you don’t have a dehydrator then you can use your oven on the lowest setting. 
• Cut the fruit leathers to size and remove them from the nonstick paper. 
• This is where you can add the Nettle seeds and roll your fruit leathers. 
• Store in an air tight container. 

Ingredients:

1 kg of winter Chanterelles 

2 onions 

4 cloves of garlic 

25 g of raisins.

One cooking apple, diced

1 teaspoon of whole spice

1 stick of cinnamon

X 2 Tumb sized pieces of fresh ginger, grated 

Salt & pepper to taste 

125 mo of cider vinegar 

400g of light muscovado Sugar 

Method:

Cook of your onions lightly for 8-10 minutes and then pop your mushrooms into a jam pan or a heavy based saucepan tocook them off until they have released all their water and reabsorbed their moisture.

As mushrooms start to reabsorb the moisture, I find it’s best to start adding flavours.

Add the garlic, ginger and the rest of the spices followed by the cider vinegar and sugar.

Cook the mixture on a medium heat and stir continuously until you can pop a spoon through the mixture without any liquid filling the line you made with your spoon.

You can also do the jam test with a plate in your fridge.

I like to let my mixture completely cool, blitz, reheat delicately, and then jar them, but you could leave the mushrooms whole and completely skip that step.

Ingredients:

• 800g Potatoes
• 100g Wild Garlic 
• 2 Egg yolks
• 225g Plain flour

Method:

Blanch the Wild Garlic for a minute and then cool under cold water.

Once cooled, squeeze out any excess liquid and chop your Wild garlic.

Boil the potatoes, allow to cool off so the potatoes are warm but not boiling hot.

Once ready mix with the Wild garlic, 

add the eggs and the flower, keep adding flower until you have the consistency of dough.

Shape you gnocchi and then boil it in salted water for roughly 3 mins or until the gnocchi starts to float. 

I love to serve mine with a wild garlic pesto, slow roasted vine tomatoes, rocket and some Parmesan.

• 190g unsalted butter
• 190g best dark chocolate
• 85g plain flour
• 50g cocoa powder
• 3 large eggs
• 275g golden caster sugar
• 50g of finely chopped mugwort leaf 

Cut 190g unsalted butter into small cubes and tip into a bowl. Break 190g dark chocolate into small pieces and drop into the bowl.

Fill a small saucepan about a quarter full with hot water then sit the bowl on top so it rests on the rim of the pan, not touching the water. Put over a low heat until the butter and chocolate have melted, stirring occasionally to mix them.
Remove the bowl from the pan. Alternatively, cover the bowl loosely with cling film and put in the microwave for 2 minutes on High. Leave the melted mixture to cool to room temperature.

While you wait for the chocolate to cool, position a shelf in the middle of your oven and turn the oven on to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.

Using a shallow 20cm square tin, cut out a square of non-stick parchment to line the base. Tip 85g plain flour and 50g cocoa powder into a sieve held over a medium bowl. Tap and shake the sieve so they run through together and you get rid of any lumps.

Cut your mugwort finally, I use a pair of scissors. Add the mugwort to the chocolate and butter mix once it has cooled.

Break 3 large eggs into a large bowl and tip in 275g golden caster sugar. On maximum speed, whisk the eggs and sugar. They will look thick and creamy, like a milk shake. This can take 3-8 minutes, depending on how powerful your mixer is. You’ll know it’s ready when the mixture becomes really pale and about double its original volume.

Pour the cooled chocolate mixture over the eggy mousse, then gently fold together with a rubber spatula. Hold the sieve over the bowl of eggy chocolate mixture and resift the cocoa and flour mixture, shaking the sieve from side to side, to cover the top evenly.

Gently fold in this powder using the same figure of eight action as before. The mixture will look dry and dusty at first, and a bit unpromising, but if you keep going very gently and patiently, it will end up looking gungy and fudgy. Stop just before you feel you should, as you don’t want to overdo this mixing.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, scraping every bit out of the bowl with the spatula. Gently ease the mixture into the corners of the tin and paddle the spatula from side to side across the top to level it.

Put in the oven and set your timer for 25 mins. When the buzzer goes, open the oven, pull the shelf out a bit and gently shake the tin. If the brownie wobbles in the middle, it’s not quite done, so slide it back in and bake for another 5 minutes until the top has a shiny, papery crust and the sides are just beginning to come away from the tin. Take out of the oven.

Leave the whole thing in the tin until completely cold, then, if you’re using the brownie tin, lift up the protruding rim slightly and slide the uncut brownie out on its base. If you’re using a normal tin, lift out the brownie with the foil. Cut into quarters, then cut each quarter into four squares and finally into triangles.

They’ll keep in an airtight container for a good two weeks and in the freezer for up to a month.

Ingredients for the cake:

200g butter at room temperature

150g granulated sugar

3 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

zest and juice of 1 - 2 lemons (depending on personal taste 

250g all-purpose (plain) flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

FOR THE ELDERFLOWER SYRUP:

2 cups of elderflower heads 

1.5 cups of water 

1.5 cups of sugar 

For the elderflower buttercream:

150g butter at room temperature

2 ½ cups 300g powdered icing sugar

 2 tbs of elderflower syrup 

Instructions For Syrup:

Place all your ingredients in a saucepan and slowly heat until all the sugar is dissolved. 

Turn up the heat and reduce by half. Strain through muslin cloth.

Instructions for cake: 

Preheat oven to gas mark 6 200 degrees C.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then beat in the vanilla, zest and lemon juice.
Sift in the flour, baking powder

Spoon the mixture into cupcake cases and bake for 12-15 minutes.

Once cool, brush the cakes with the elderflower syrup.

For the icing:

In a large bowl, cream the butter until fluffy. Add in the icing sugar and beat. Add the elderflower syrup and some lemon juice juice (to taste) to make it a buttercream consistency and beat again.

Pipe the cakes with your buttercream, decorate with edible with flowers and enjoy 

The elderberries are cooked for slightly longer to ensure all the toxins are cooked out.

INGREDIENTS:

600g or either blackberries, elderberries

 or a combination or both.

250ml of organic cider vinegar 

150g of light brown sugar 

METHOD:

For the blackberries, add all your ingredients to a pan and gently heat until the sugar has dissolved. Simmer gently for 5 minutes and then remove your fruits with a slotted spoon.

Turn the heat up and boil the vinegar until it thickens. Add your vinegar to your fruit in a sterilised jar.

For the elderberries, add all your ingredients to a pan and heat gently until your sugar has dissolved. Then turn up the heat and boil gently for 20 minutes. Add your elderberries and the liquid to a sterilised jar.

For a mixture of both purple fruits follow the same method as above for the elderberries and add your blackberries 5 minutes towards the end of the cooking time.

Equipment

Sanitizer 

Demijohn 

Airlock 

Bung

Siphon 

Swing top bottles 

Funnel 

Large saucepan 

Big spoon 

Ingredients 

400g of blackberries 

4.5 litres of filtered or bottled water

1lb of honey 

5g of champagne yeast 

Sterilise all your equipment then heat your water gently whilst stirring in the honey.

Once your honey had dissolved let your honey water cool down to room temperature.

Place you blackberries into your demijohn and add your honey water, keep at little back to mix in the yeast.

Mix you spare honey water in a cup with your yeast before adding it to your demijohn.

Put your bung on and with your finger over the hole, shake your mead for a couple of minutes.

Your mead should be bubbling away in no time. After 6 weeks or when your mead has completely stopped bubbling you can add stabiliser and then bottle it to be aged.

I thought I’d share the recipe in case anybody gets a sore throat this winter and wants to try… they’re soo cooling, full of all the benefits of the elderberry syrup and they taste like Christmas too 🎄 🎄 

Ingredients for the syrup:

120g of elderberries 

360ml of water

120g of honey

Optional Extras:

1 cinnamon stick

1 whole star anise

¼ tsp whole cloves

Directions:

Place the elderberries and water in a medium-sized saucepan (with optional spices) on the heat. Cook on medium heat until thick and reduced by half. Remove and cool completely. Strain the syrup into a bowl using a muslin cloth, pressing the juice out of the berries with a wooden spoon and discarding the whole spices. Whisk in the raw honey and pour into sterilised jars.

For the ice lollies:

Ingredients:

1/4 elderberry syrup

3/4 fresh orange juice or coconut water

Directions:

Whisk the syrup and orange juice together in a bowl. Pour into popsicle molds and set in the freezer 💜💜💜