Chocolate Profiteroles - So Easy a Child Could Make Them...?

My children surprised me the other day by announcing they were going to make profiteroles.  I've never made them before and have always regarded choux pastry as 'too tricky'.  Plus, I was busying myself with other things, so I agreed, but told them that I wouldn't be able to help.

Surprisingly rapidly, they had summoned up these with the help of the River Cottage Family Cookbook:

They weren't prepared for how much they expand during cooking and the little lumps of pastry mostly merged into one big choux bun.  The pasty doesn't have that much sugar in and when we tasted it, a bit warm from the oven, we all agreed it tasted (and looked) like Yorkshire Pudding - obviously, as the recipe is very similar.  The four profiteroles around the edges of the tin were perfect.

The children still weren't convinced.  

"We've just made Yorkshire Pudding and it's rubbish," they sighed, ready to chuck them away.

After dinner,  I convinced them to make a chocolate sauce regardless and that we could fill the profiteroles and the big blobby one with vanilla ice cream instead of whipped cream.  The results were delicious.  Yorkshire Pud with chocolate sauce and ice cream perhaps, but delicious nevertheless.

Our Vegetable Patch and Cheeky Chickens

The veg patch is looking pretty amazing at the moment, all thanks to N's hard work and a bit of help from Mother Nature - more lettuce than we can possibly eat; courgettes getting nice and plump; potatoes flowering and beetroots bursting forth:

And did I mention lettuce?

It's a beautiful sight.  The full bloom of summer time.

The homemade scarecrow occasionally gives me a real shock while I'm picking peas. I think that my son has crept up behind me to 'boo' on me.  Ironically, it doesn't scare away the crows, pigeons or seagulls.

And next door to the veg plot, we have the cheeky neighbours: Con Carne, Rascal and Peppermint:

This one (Con Carne) is the boss and gets right under our feet.  She is forgiven though, as she provides us with wonderful large speckled brown eggs with bright yellow yolks.

Dutch Truffle Brie - The World's Most Delicious Cheese - go oranje!

A quick caveat:  I usually blog about all things situated in the South West of the UK, but this one is a triple import / cheese amalgam and has nothing to do with Devon let alone England.  This is a French cheese that has travelled to the Netherlands to a simply amazing cheese shop called L'Amuse just outside of Haarlem in Santpoort-Noord and then blended with Italian ingredients.   So while the rest of my family are watching Holland in their World Cup semi-final, I thought I would post about a Dutch cheese to show my support for their great football team (without having to watch any football = result!).


There are two branches of L'Amuse - the one in Santpoort-Noord, that I have been lucky enough to visit, and one in Amsterdam. They are a family-run, friendly business with an incredible selection of the best 400 cheeses from around the world, but this is the one that everyone goes there for, Truffle Brie:

Our wonderful, beautiful, kind, fun friends (yes, you can come again, A, D and A!) visited us from the Netherlands and generously brought us a wickedly ,melting slice of L'Amuse's truffle brie.

The cheesemongers take an entire round brie, slice it in half, spread it with a thick layer of rich, white mascarpone and thin shavings of black truffle, then replace the two halves and shave some more slivers of truffle on the top and leave to mature.

It is one of my favourite foods in the entire world.  It tastes like brie, only more so.  Pungent, earthy, creamy and melting.  You have to wrap it in several layers if it gets to your fridge as the aroma can pervade all your food.

I apologise to the unnamed pale orange whole cheese (with fern) that is fading into insignificance in the background in a very modest and unassuming way.  This was also really tasty - all I can remember is that it's from Corsica - but it cannot beat its upfront rival - Dutch Truffle Brie.  I enjoyed this cheese platter at the end of a lovely summery dinner at home, with four great friends.

1-0 to Holland so far at 20:05 - Go Oranje!

Oh no 1-1 at 20:10......Come on Holland!

A Cake Idea for Gooseberries

I picked some wonderful gooseberries at Netherton Pick Your Own Fruit Farm, near Newton Abbot.

I used a very simple  Tesco recipe to make a gooseberry and yoghurt cake:

Ingredients

• 75 g (3oz) butter (thanks, Choclette!)
• 75 g (3oz) natural yoghurt
• 125 g (4oz) unrefined caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 150 g (5oz) self-raising flour
• 25 g (1oz) butter
• 4 tbsp golden syrup
• 300 g (10oz) gooseberries

Method

1. Heat the oven to Gas 4,180°C, 350°F.
2. Butter a 20cm (8in) loose-bottomed cake tin.
3. Beat together the 75g of butter, yogurt, sugar and eggs until blended. Fold in the flour until smooth. Spoon the mix into the prepared cake tin and bake for 20 minutes.
4. Melt the 25g of butter and golden syrup together. Add the gooseberries and mix well.
5. Carefully pull the shelf out of the oven a little and quickly spoon over the gooseberry mix. Bake for a further 30 minutes, until golden.
6. Remove and run a knife around edge to release the cake. Cool.
7. Using a palette knife, release the cake from the base and transfer to a serving plate. For a picnic, simply leave in the tin.

The generous dollop of Total Greek Yoghurt (I must declare an interest - the yoghurt was a freebie from the people at Total) really adds a lightness and tang to the sponge.   

This was my second cake (first one eaten by my greedy family before I took a photo) and was delivered to a friend for his 40th birthday - I was told that the gooseberries looked like onions - perhaps it's not the most photogenic cake, but it tastes great.  Gooseberry season in Devon is now in full swing.

Wimbledon and South Devon Strawberries

The start of Wimbledon, combined with the fantastic sunny June weather we are currently enjoying, has turned my thoughts to strawberries rather than tennis.  Neither gifted with a racquet nor having the funds or connections to wangle tickets to Centre Court matches, the best way for me to enjoy the quintessential English summer day is to find a Pick Your Own strawberry farm.  During the last week I have picked and sampled the produce at two such farms.

Shute Fruit in Bishopsteigton opened their farm gates for the season on Friday18 June.  They are currently offering Pick Your Own (PYO) strawberries and ready-cut new season broad beans.  I was the second customer through the door (yes, very keen indeed) and was eager to be let loose on the strawberry field.

The farm is run by Lori Reich and David Lamboll and is situated in a magnificent location, an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty on the banks of the Teign Estuary.  They work very hard to produce magnificent crops.  Lori is well known on the farmers' market and food festival circuit for her award-winning jams, chutneys and for her cookery demonstrations.  Last summer I saw her rustle up an impressive cream tea from the raw ingredients in under thirty minutes, on stage at the Abbfest Beer and Food Festival.

She is a mine of information about other local food producers and passionate about her favourite home-style recipes.  The Shute Fruit website provides useful information on how to make microwave strawberry jam.  This is ideal if, like me, you find that once you've started picking strawberries, it's very difficult to stop and you end up with punnet-loads more than you can eat fresh.

The Pegasus variety of strawberries that I picked with my friend were heavenly - Lori encourages you to 'try before you buy', although prefers people to just sample one or two of each variety.  I was impressed by the sweetness and perfume of the strawberries - incredibly sweet and juicy, only a real sweet-tooth would need to put any sugar on these beauties.  There were masses of plump, large fruit to be collected, shining out like hidden jewels amongst the golden straw and green foliage.  We collected six large punnets in under an hour.

You can check  the website to see what crops are available on the day you want to visit - this is updated daily.  There are some benches for you to enjoy the sunshine, the passing trains, the wildlife and your fruit feast (after paying at the caravan with makeshift shop counter), perhaps with a punnet of ice cream or clotted cream?

On the opposite side of the River Teign, Netherton  PYO will be a prolific soft fruit producer for the next two months or so.  I visited last weekend with a 19 month old strawberry fan. She couldn't believe her luck!  She gorged herself on the sweet red Elsanta strawberries.  Her father was kind and honest enough to pay an extra contribution for the extra unweighed fruit that his daughter had consumed before making it back to the scales!

The Elsanta strawberries are a useful early variety (often found in supermarkets) but they don't have the depth of flavour of the more traditional perfumed varieties such as Pegasus and Pandora.

A trip to Netherton can be a great family afternoon out - most kids, parents and grandparents love the thrill of seeking out the largest, weirdest or sweetest fruit - there can certainly be a competitive element.  It's also great to remind children where their food comes from and how lucky we are in Devon to have such bounty on our doorsteps.  Netherton also provides a tea shack and picnic benches offering homemade cakes, clotted cream, ice creams, teas and coffees and (rather cleverly) jam sugar to take home for your preserves.

The sign at Netherton warns people not to 'oversample' their strawberries and to be honest and pay for what they pick - fruit farms have been struggling to survive in recent years.  We certainly wouldn't want to see them shut down.

The season is so short, I'm going to make the most of them over the next few months and try to visit them on a weekly basis.  So, whether it's tennis or football, let's remember to take a break from all the sport on television and get out in the sunshine, pick fresh berries and enjoy the fruits of the local farmers' labours - it's almost as healthy as playing tennis.

Another PYO that I haven't yet visited in the South Devon area is Boyces Nursery and Fruit Farm at Shillingford St George, nr Exeter - comments welcome.

Polpeor Cafe, The Lizard, Doughnut with Clotted Cream

This is my guilitiest pleasure in the whole world.  The Most Southerly Cafe in England is Polpeor Cafe, perched on the clifftop at the point of The Lizard in Cornwall.  They serve all sorts of wicked goodies, including the Cornish Heava Cake (full of fruit and doughy).  My sinful indulgence is the freshly fried doughnuts served hot with strawberry jam and a huge dollop of clotters on the top.  This is the most calorific food imaginable and should really only be consumed by Michael Phelps and marathon runners.  And me.

This is their knickerbocker glory, conjured up by visiting fairies:

The views from this cafe are awesome.  Sitting here is a real spiritual tonic - you feel renewed by the sea air and the expanse of ocean - it's also quite exciting feeling that at any point you might be the MOST southerly person on the English mainland.  The dramatic cliffs slope down to white-flecked turquoize waters (if you're lucky enough to be there on a sunny day).  From the cafe seating area you can sight the rare chough (similar to a crow, with a red beak and feet) that first started renesting within a few hundred yards of the cafe a couple of years ago.  There are currently thought to be eight of them.  Twitchers with binoculars abound.  Seals are frequent visitors to the waters below and we have spotted them several times while tucking into doughnuts and knickerbocker glories.  One day when we got down to the beach after a trip to the cafe, the seal approached us like a friendly dog - he was as curious about us as we were about him - sadly, no pictures!

Devon Contemporary Craft Fair, Bovey Tracey - Review

The Contemporary Craft Fair in Bovey Tracey, Devon kicked off today with crowds of people, lots of glorious sunshine and several tentfuls or art, craft attended by their talented creators.  This was a specially built 'sustainable garden'

I made sure I found time to find and chat to Christine Kaltoft as I had previously admired her line-based and chicken influenced jewellery from photos.  Today I found that I was admiring them even more up close. 

It was lovely to meet Christine - her works is beautiful and I enjoyed my conversation with her.  This was one of her beautiful necklaces in oxidised silver and gold:

Another of my favourite stalls out of the hundreds of fantastic stalls was a local artist, Emma Molony whose stand just looked incredible as it was decorated with her own wallpaper that she designs.  It has a fairytale theme based on Saki's stories from his childhood in North Devon.  Her prints (particularly Winter Trees) and wallpaper were exquisite so I was even more delighted to discover that she is local and works in Exeter.  I had no purse with me today - sensible girl - but I feel I will inevitably make a purchase from this fine selection of goodies.  Thanks to Catherine Cartwright (also an artist but not exhibiting today), her lovely assistant, who filled me in on all the info!

The fair was buzzy and busy - this was the lunchtime scene when I bumped into a couple of local mums (J and A-M) visiting with their kids:

I helped out as a volunteer in the Children's Craft Tent 

100 local school children visited and had a great time - Jackie had organised a feast of crafty treats:  making Egyptian jewellery, creating clay artefacts, decorating brown paper bags (amazingly popular with teenagers), rag-rugging, dipping candles, finger knitting and giant communal mosaic making.

This wool mountain looked good enough to dive into - I think some of the kids probably did.

The food stalls were enticing and beautifully presented - this one bedecked with freshly cut flowers:

An amazing event that must take the organisers a huge amount of time and effort - top notch artists, inspiration for all, fun for kids and a great day out.

Sign outside the craft tent (sensible advice at any time....)