Currants with that sir?

Posted by Rosie

A quick trip the fruit garden shows that the currant bushes have immature fruits forming.
A quick trip the to freezer reveals I still have A LOT of currants in the freezer.
We are currently (hee hee) cooking and eating A LOT of currants!  Currants for breakfast, lunch and dinner is not unknown!

I grow 3 types of currants - black, white and red.  So what do I do with them all (especially when like last year I had a bumper crop)?  Well as I type I have a large pan of blackcurrant jam bubbling away, some of which will end up as jars in the welcome box for gite guests.  

Adding sugar to the cooked blackcurrants

Hubble, bubble - the magic that is jam making

I bottle loads which means I have both instant fruit when I need a quick pudding or fruit on my breakfast cereal and it frees up valuable freezer space.  They make the perfect topping for pavlovas too which is one of the puddings I offer gite guests who want a night off from cooking.  

Pavlova with mixed fruit topping

 
I also make smoothies, crumbles and my current (and again hee hee) favourite, currant cake.  Simply add as many currants (red, white or black) to a Victoria sponge mix and bake until done.  I find this work best in a rectangular tin and makes a great snack for when the boys are late back from school.  Dusting the fruit in flour helps to stop them sinking too much and you can even add them frozen, although this does make the mixture quite stiff and a bit difficult to handle.  A word of warning though.  Last year whilst the currant crop was huge (as were the fruits) the sloe harvest was poor and they were small .... about the same size as the blackcurrants ... and I'm not very good at labelling my bags of frozen fruit.  You can see where this is heading can't you?  Whilst the sloe cake tasted fine all those small stones in the mixture would surely have cracked some-one's tooth and swallowing them would not have done us any good.  Boris however DID enjoy my sloe cake!

Slight blogging interlude and I am back having just potted up 13 jars of jam and cleaned the cooker where it bubbled over when I wasn't looking!

Blackcurrant Jam at Eco-Gites of Lenault

Do you have any favourite currant recipes?  Please do let us know.  Oh and did you know that a dried currant isn't a currant at all but a type of dried grape?!  You do now!