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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My endless quest for lunch-box sweet things has led me often in the direction of Date Squares in several incarnations because they taste delicious, can cope in varying temperatures and transport well.  Not only that – they keep for a few days in an airtight box and, if that’s not long enough, freeze beautifully.

I make them year-round but they do ‘feel’ autumnal.

Storecupboard good things, including that last tired apple in the fruit bowl.

I start with the date-y mix as that needs to cool.  First the dates, chopped smallish.

The zest of one orange.

It irritates me when a recipe asks for the zest and leaves me with the juice.  A warm orange will give more juice than a cold one.  Cut the orange in half on a slight diagonal to make it easier to squeeze.

I add water to the juice.

An old fashioned box grater is the perfect tool for this.  Peel and core an apple and coarsely grate.

Into a saucepan.

Cook, uncovered, on a low-medium heat.

Ten minutes later, the liquid has evaporated and it looks like this.  Set it aside to cool.

I really like to add nuts to my topping.  Half a packet seems about right.  Hazelnuts here, but I might have used walnuts just as easily. Cobnuts are fun, when they’re in season.  I buy mine with skins on.  Toast for about 10 minutes.  You’ll need to keep an eye on them as burnt nuts taste bitter.

Rub them in a clean tea towel and the skins come off.  Mostly.  I really don’t worry about what is left.

Then chop.

Plain flour, bicarbonate of soda, light brown sugar/light muscovado and rolled porridge oats.

Rub in the butter until it forms clumps.

It’s not a breadcrumb texture.

Put half into the prepared 20cm/8″ square tin.

Flatten out.

Spread out the date mixture.

Add the nuts to the remaining ‘half’ and place that on top of the date mixture.

40 minutes later it looks like this.  Allow it to cool in the tin.

Then cut into squares.

Eat.

 

Date, Apple, Orange and Hazelnut Squares – Makes 12

• 150g/5oz dates, stoned weight, chopped
• 1 orange, zest and juice
• 1 apple – peeled, cored and grated
• Water – to make orange juice up to 200ml/8fl oz
• 175g/6oz plain flour
• ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 175g/6oz light muscovado sugar
• 150g/5oz porridge oats
• good pinch of salt
• 175g/6oz unsalted butter
• 50g/2oz hazelnuts

If using a conventional oven, pre-heat the oven to 180ºC/Gas Mark 4/350ºF.  Butter and line a 20cm/8″ x 20cm/8″ tin.

Place the dates, orange zest, orange juice, water and grated apple in a saucepan.  Over a low-medium heat, bring up to a simmer.  Cook, uncovered, for about ten minutes until you have a thick, soft mixture.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

Toast the hazelnuts in the oven for about ten minutes, then rub the skins off in a clean tea towel.  Chop.

Sift the flour and bicarbonate into a bowl.  Add the porridge oats, light muscovado sugar, salt – and mix well.  Add the butter and rub it in until it forms clumps.

Press half the mixture into the buttered tin.  Spread the date and apple mixture over.  Finally, add the chopped nuts to the remaining oat mixture and sprinkle over the top.

Bake for approximately 40 minutes.

Allow to cool completely in the tin, then cut into squares.

Eat.

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