The perfect holiday blackcurrant booze
Peril in the potager. Well, there isn’t that much peril in my potager. But picking soft fruit while wearing a white t shirt and pale trousers is about as close as you get to the equivalent of running with scissors.
Here is one kilogram of blackcurrants ready for my cassis liqueur. And not a stain on the clothes. Result!
All those years of ordering the perfect aperitif drink white wine and cassis: a kir in French cafes and little did I know that the kir – the blackcurrant liqueur – was so easy to make.
I leave the white wine and champagne making for the experts.
The champagne and cassis – kir royale is definitely for birthdays and times when someone else is going to pick up the hefty bar bill. But anyone can make blackcurrant liqueur. Or call it cassis and pretend it comes from Burgundy, the traditional home of the oily unctuous stuff.
The only time-consuming part of this drink is the time it takes for the fruit and booze and sugar to mingle and get to know each other in a tall jar in a dark spot. If I pick in summer, then I leave it four to five months before decanting and serving; Christmas time makes it a perfect moment to broach your first batch.
The brandy (or cognac, as we are in France) needn’t be expensive. Reach down to the lowest part of the booze shelf in the supermarket to pick up the cheapo bottles. And no need to destalk the blackcurrants. I just bung them into the jar with bits attached. I do wash the fruit however; just to remove the risk of bugs.
Blackcurrant liqueur
900 grams (2lbs) blackcurrants, well washed
600 mls (1 pint) brandy (cognac)
350 grams (12 oz) granulated sugar
14th July 2024 @ 9:14 pm
Do you have a Blackcurrant & Gooseberry Cake Recipe j
21st July 2024 @ 6:16 pm
I use a very basic cake recipe that might work. It’s from an old Australian Country Women’s Association booklet. And it is very adaptable. So you could substitute the 2 apples in the recipe for two cups of mixed berries. You might have to check the sugar content. For gooseberries that are sour, maybe add a cup of sugar and omit the cocoa powder.
I use this with tinned pears for a moist cake. And will shove just about any volume of berry or fruit throughout the year. Cranberries instead of saltanas if I can find them.
And if let me know if it works!
Basic apple cake
2 cups of chopped fruit (apple or pear)
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 cup saltanas
1 tsp cinnamon
1 and a half cups of self raising flower
2 eggs, beaten
60 grams butter, melted and cooled.
Combine together and put into either a cake tin or individual muffin cases. Cook at 180C. Start checking at 30 minutes for muffin cases, or 40 minutes for a loaf tin.