spiced damson fool

 

when i had my glut of damsons (from an overenthusiastic scrumping session) i made a large amount of spiced damson puree which was frozen in batches, ready to be mixed with whipped cream and turned into a fool.

we finally tried it the other week and dennis cotter’s decision to add a layer of toffee flavours by using muscovado sugar to sweeten the damsons was proven to be entirely correct and utterly delicious! his suggestion of shortbread as an accompaniment also worked really well.

this spiced puree would, i think, also work well turned into an ice cream, using nigel slater’s damson ice cream made with yoghurt as the base recipe.

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sloe and damson drinks

having collected all those damsons, plus a smaller amount of sloes, i had a blitz in the kitchen to make sure it was all put to good use. the ice cream you already know about. i also made a batch of damson and bay jam (based on this plum version).

however, the bulk of the fruit has been smothered with booze and i’m now waiting for it to mature – there is sloe gin, damson and orange gin (pictured) and damson vodka.

at the moment david and i have a daily ritual of shaking the jars to encourage the final amounts of sugar to dissolve and the fruit to give up all its flavour. it’ll be a couple of months before we can start drinking any of it but given the fruit is available now, if you want to make your own batch you’d better get a move on.

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damson ice cream

 

this damson ice cream, courtesy of nigel slater, is just amazing. i made it without an ice cream machine and with its mix of yoghurt and double cream, plus the usual stirring every 45-60 minutes once it’s in the freezer, until almost frozen, have helped create a lovely texture. the flavour is slightly sharp – partly due to the damsons and partly due to the yoghurt, which is just so delicious.

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what to do with 12lb of damsons?

i went scrumping today and came home with 12lbs of beautiful damsons (a type of wild plum). any ideas how i put them to best use? so far i’ve come up with gin, jam, crumble and a fool.

trotsky’s treat

the gorgeous pooch pictured above (and below, if you keep reading) is trotsky who is owned by my friend dom. dom is a great person to know as not only has she got a trotsky, but she is a superb and prolific jam, marmalade and chutney maker.

whenever we visit, david and i always end up peering into her preserves cupboard and then have to make the difficult decision about which jars to request.

i asked dom if she’d let me have details of one of her creations for this blog and the result is below. it’s also in the jar that trotsky is so excited about!

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