Growing up, roast lamb and mint sauce was such an established pairing ‘mint sauce’ even became the nick-name of a wool coat I once owned.  Long story which probably wouldn’t be funny in the re-telling ..

Mint Sauce is also a ‘by request’ recipe, if recipe you can call it.  It’s unbelievably simple to make – which makes it so strange how much those jars cost in the supermarket.

Sunday lunch today was slow-roast lamb.  The kind cooked long and slow so it falls away from the bone.  Roast potatoes, of course.  Mint Sauce, naturally, and I’m under orders to post it here.

It begins with mint.  Spearmint is my choice.  Chop it finely.  My mum used to have a gadget for this.  A kind of mouli with super sharp spikes.  I have absolutely no idea what’s happened to that ..!

Incidentally, if you are ending up with green smears across your chopping board it’s because your knife is too blunt.  For my family I make Mint Sauce in industrial quantities.  You may need to scale down.  Here, I’ve put 6 tablespoons of chopped mint in a bowl.

Mint is a bitter herb which is why it’s such a brilliant partner to sweet, fatty lamb, but in sauce form it needs a little sweetening.  You can use honey, but my mum always used granulated sugar.  It’s a ‘to taste’ thing.  I’ve added 2 tablespoons.

This is the point at which I deviate from my training.  My mum used to dissolve the sugar in a dash of boiling water before adding malt vinegar to give a sauce of the consistency she wanted.  My brother loved it so much he’d drink it from the jug if she wasn’t watching.

I like my Mint Sauce to taste a little more of the mint and less of vinegar.  It’s a choice.  I add a couple of tablespoons of white wine vinegar.

For me, adding boiling water is a visual thing.  Today, as a once in a life-time event, I measured it.  4 tablespoons.  Ish.  Taste it.  Adjust with a little more water or a little more vinegar, depending on your preference.

Stir until the sugar has dissolved, then set it aside to get acquainted.  Give it at least an hour.

This jug is important.  Throughout my entire childhood Mint Sauce was always, absolutely, never-not served in a jug like this.  The story goes …

As a little girl my mum used to visit her maternal grandma once a week.  They caught the bus back into Fulham (an area of London they’d left when their house was bombed) and went to tea.  ‘Nanny Carey’ owned the Mint Jug and my mum admired it so often her grandma said, ‘you’d better take it, girl’.

Fast forward a few decades …

My brother and I both wanted future custody of the Mint Jug.  Graham argued it was his by rights because he was the one who ate Mint Sauce to excess and I reckoned it should come to me because I actually knew how to make it.

One day, she discovered a duplicate at an antiques fair.  In monetary terms it’s not valuable.  Just carnival glass, I gather.  So, she bought a duplicate.  Almost.  One has a slightly raised centre on the bottom.  She set them side by side and asked Graham and I which was the original.

Sadly, he won.  On the up side – mine has a smooth bottom!

It’s one of the things I’d save in a fire, but who is going to inherit it ..???

With or without a mint jug, Mint Sauce is delicious.  Eat.

Mint Sauce

Serves 4

• 3 tablespoons of finely chopped mint, spearmint for preference
• 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar
• 4 tablespoons of boiling water, straight from a kettle

Remove the mint leaves from the stalks.  Discard the stalks and finely chop the leaves.  Place 3 tablespoons in a bowl.

Add 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar and 2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar.  Pour over 4 tablespoons of boiling water.  Stir until the sugar crystals have dissolved.  Taste and adjust to taste with either a little more vinegar or a little more water.  Set aside to allows the flavours to harmonise.

Eat.

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Kentish Cherry Batter Pudding is a close relative of Clafoutis.  So close I wouldn’t be remotely surprised to learn it made it’s way to England via some invading Normans.

Clafoutis comes from the Limousin region of France and is made with griottes, or sour morello cherries.  Traditionally, it’s a stone-in dessert.  The cherry stone contains amygdalin which is an active chemical in almond extract and keeping them in adds a little something.  Annoying, though.  I haven’t got the hang of spitting out cherry stones elegantly … and I’ve reached an age and stage where I’m worried about my teeth.

(Incidentally, if you make it with a different fruit you should called it flaugnarde.)  I have absolutely no idea why I retain that kind of information so effortlessly when working out how to use pdf on this blog is so entirely beyond me.

Kentish Cherry Batter Pudding is made with dessert cherries – which are much easier for me to get hold of.  It’s ‘Kentish’ not so much because batter puddings are a Kent thing but because it’s the county where the cherries are grown.  That’s Henry VIII’s fault.  A gluttonous monarch, he instructed cherry trees to be planted in Tenyham, Kent, in 1533.  Before the second world war there was something like 40 000 acres of beautiful cherry orchards in Kent, but the 12 metre-plus high cherry trees became uncommercial to harvest and 90% of the orchards vanished.

There were twenty tough years for the British cherry but now things are looking brighter, if not quite as photogenic.  Cherries are grown on dwarf shrubs and the short season has been extended by using polytunnels.  You can now buy British cherries from June to September – which is a source of great delight to my nephew, Josiah.

With the exception of the cherries themselves, a Kentish Cherry Batter Pudding requires store cupboard ingredients.

And a cherry stoner.  Unlike it’s continental cousin, it’s stone out.  I love my Westmark Cherry Stoner.  It works.

One the advantages of removing the cherry stones is that the cherry is now receptive to receiving a spike of something.  I steep my cherries in home-made cherry brandy.  Kirsch would be good.  Vanilla extract, I guess, would also be lovely.

Put the flour in a bowl, add the sugar and a pinch of salt.

Whisk the dry ingredients together.  Add a splash of milk and one of the egg yolks.

When that’s lump free, add the second egg yolk and another splash of the milk.  Whisk until there are no visible lumps.

Into the smooth mixture, add the remaining milk and melted butter.  Drain the cherries and add any leftover brandy.

Batter done.

I use a 26cm pie dish (1.5 litres) to cook my batter pudding.  Into the greased pie dish I place half the steeped cherries and give them 5 minutes in a hot oven.

Whisk the reserved egg whites to stiff peaks.

It’s easiest if you whisk in one third of the billowy egg whites before gently folding in the remainder.

Remove the pie dish from the oven and pour the soufflé-like batter on top.

Then, plop in the remaining cherries.  Back into the oven.

Want a peak?

Exact cooking times will depend on your oven and you may have to fiddle a bit.  In my conventional oven I bake for 20 minutes at 200ºC, then I lower the temperature to 190ºC/375ºF/gas mark 5 and cook for a further 20 minutes.  (My oven is truly hopeless and I have to use an oven thermometer.)

In my Aga I cook for 10 minutes on the rack on the floor of the Roasting Oven and then place on the rack on the floor of the Baking Oven for 20 minutes.  The depth of your dish will make a difference.  You are looking for your batter pudding to be puffed up and golden with the custard just-set but still having a seductive wobble.

Dust with icing sugar.

Serve warm or room temperature.  I like it warm best.  With a vanilla custard or with cold pouring cream.

Eat.

Kentish Cherry Batter Pudding

Serves 6

• 500g/1lb ripe dessert cherries
• 1 tablespoon cherry brandy (or kirsch/almond extract)
• 50g/1½oz plain flour
• pinch of salt
• 50g/1½oz caster sugar
• 25g/1oz unsalted butter, melted
• 300ml/½pint full-fat milk or single cream
• 2 eggs, separated

Stone the cherries.  Spoon over 1 tablespoon of cherry brandy and give the cherries a stir.  Set aside to allow the cherries time to absorb the alcohol.  (This can even be done the night before.)

Place the flour, salt and caster sugar in a bowl and whisk together with a balloon whisk.

Make a well in the centre and add one of the egg yolks, together with a splash of the milk/cream.  Using the balloon whisk, start to incorporate the flour and whisk until there are no lumps.  Add the second egg yolk and another splash of milk and continue whisking until you have a smooth thick batter.

Add the remaining milk, the melted butter and whisk together.  (If you wish to get-ahead with the batter, it will sit in the fridge perfectly happily.)

Grease a 1.5 litre pie dish and drop half the soaked cherries in the bottom.  Cook for 5 minutes in a 200ºC/400ºF/Gas Mark 6.  (Aga:  On a rack on the floor of the Roasting Oven.)  Drain the remaining cherries and add the brandy to the batter.

Whisk the egg whites until the stiff peak stage.  Whisk in one third into the batter and then, gently fold in the remaining two-thirds.

Take the hot dish from the oven and pour over the batter.  Drop the second half of cherries over the top.

Back into the oven for a initial 20 minutes.  (Aga:  I find 10 minutes is enough for the batter pudding to be golden and puffed up.)  Reduce the temperature to 190ºC/375ºF/Gas Mark 5 for a further 20 minutes.  (Aga:  Baking Oven for a further 20 minutes.)

Dust with icing sugar.

Eat.

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I wasn’t fond of gooseberries as a child and I told everyone the reason for that was because they made me ‘blink’.  I was right.  They can be lip pursing-ly sour and even the sweetest need sugar.  What’s more, they are spiteful to pick, with thorns like spears.

Gooseberry Fool was the only way I was prepared to eat them.  Now, I’ve branched out but it’s still important to treat them with love – which is probably why they’re not so easy to find.  If you don’t grow them yourself you’re more likely to find gooseberries at farm shops and farmers’ markets than at the supermarket.

(Please note the artistic positioning of gooseberries and elderflowers in this photo.)

The parent recipe of this cake features in my mum’s recipe collection as ‘Apple Cake’ and I suspect it will have entered my mum’s life via a ‘parish cookbook’; the kind that’s produced by fantastic home cooks in aid of their Grade I listed 12th bell towers and my mum would always buy when on holiday.  Warm from the oven, it’s lovely with cream or custard and eaten as a pudding.  Cold, it’s perfect picnic and packed lunch food.

Gooseberry and elderflower is an early summer switch away from apple.

It’s a wonderfully simple cake and easy to scale up or down.  It’s the same weight of flour and fruit, in this case gooseberries.  Half the weight of the flour in sugar and the same of butter.  A little baking powder and milk to mix.  That’s it.

No eggs – which is useful if you’re baking for someone who reacts to the protein in eggs.

14oz/380g plain flour, mixed with 2½ tsp baking powder.

7oz/190g butter ‘rubbed in’.  Using just the tips of your fingers you lightly ‘rub in’ small cubes of butter.

If you aren’t as washing up phobic as I am you could blitz the flour, sugar and butter together in a food processor.  Breadcrumbs is the usual way to describe the result you are hoping for but I think sandy rubble is closer to what I aim for in this kind of cake.

Stir through the sugar.

There is no escaping this bit.  Topping and tailing.  Pinch off the top and the tail with your fingers.

You are left with what looks like veiny grapes.  In order to prevent the gooseberries sinking you need to cut them in half or quarters, depending on their size.

Stir the prepared gooseberries through the flour mixture.

Now for the elderflower cordial.  If you haven’t made this, there are commercial versions available.

I melt butter to lightly grease the sides and bottom of my cake tin.  In an ideal world (the kind where days are longer than twenty-four hours and university student children didn’t want their washing done) I would line the sides.  Truthfully, I rarely do for a cake like this and I have pre-cut bake o’ glide to fit my tin collection.

Now, it’s the liquid.  75ml/2½ fl oz of undiluted elderflower cordial.

You’ll need a little milk.  Go careful.

You want a dry mix rather than a more usual cake batter.  The gooseberries will release lots of moisture.

Level out the top.  To get a nice flat top, I use the back of a spoon.  If you dunk it in water first, so much the better.

An 20cm round cake tin cooks in the Aga Baking Oven (rack on the floor) in 1 hour.  Conventionally, it’s 180ºC/Gas Mark 4/350ºF.

If you want you can sprinkle the warm cake with a little caster sugar.

I forgot.  Since we were eating this warm with pouring double cream I don’t know that it mattered.

Eat.

Gooseberry and Elderflower Cake

Makes 1 20cm/8″ round cake or a 20cm x 25cm tray bake.

• 380g/14oz plain flour
• 190g/7oz butter
• 190g/7oz caster sugar
• 2½ tsp baking powder
• 380g/14oz gooseberries, top and tailed, then halved or quartered depending on their size
• 75ml/2½fl oz elderflower cordial
• A drizzle of milk, as needed

Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC/Gas Mark 4/350ºF

Add the baking powder to the flour and whisk to combine.

Rub the cold cubed butter into the flour, then add the sugar and prepared gooseberries.

Drizzle over the elderflower cordial and use a knife to stir through.  Add a drizzle of milk to make a dry mix, remembering the gooseberries will release lots of juice as the cake cooks.

Bake for 1 hour, turning halfway if necessary.  (Aga:  Baking Oven with the rack on the floor – 1 hour.)

Sprinkle with caster sugar, if desired.  Allow to cool in the tin for 5-10 minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack.  Serve warm with cream or custard or cold.

Eat.

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