Baking with fruit from the garden.

I’m beginning to discover the joys of cooking with ingredients which I’ve been involved with growing.

Gardening has never been one of my strong points, mowing the lawn is about as far as it normally gets. Beyond that, I tend to think of the garden as somewhere to sit in the sun with a good book and either a coffee or a glass of wine to drink. Which means, given the average UK weather, there are quite a few months of the year when I hardly venture out there at all.

This was until the last few months. Maybe it’s been a rare positive lockdown by-product, but these recent times have seen me and my partner out in the garden on a more regular basis, and it’s beginning to have an impact in the kitchen.

One of my pet peeves on shopping expeditions has always been the price of fresh herbs. An exorbitant amount for a modest size bunch, although still more than you need, the rest slowly going soggy in the fridge before finally being thrown out. It’s beginning to change now though as I can ignore the herb racks in the store knowing most of the ones I need are growing in pots just outside our backdoor. They probably won’t see me through the winter but it’s been fun to go out and pick fresh herbs as and when they’re needed.

Another project has been growing courgettes, or zucchini as you may know them if reading this outside of the UK. Because our garden is virtually all grass we were pretty limited when it came to having a go at growing vegetables but we did find a small patch where we could squeeze these in. There didn’t seem to be much happening for a while but in the last couple of weeks the care and attention lavished on them has paid off. I’m not sure if it’s my imagination but a courgette coming straight from the garden into whatever dish is being produced seems to have so much more flavour than any we’ve previously bought in shops. An added bonus is the brilliant yellow flowers which the plant produces, I’m already looking for recipes to see how we can make use of these.

Last week we reaped home produce benefit when my partner gathered some pears from the tree at the bottom of our garden. Normally it’s not the most productive of tree’s, but this year it’s laden with fruit. When she first got them they were so hard I swear you could have hammered nails in with them, but a couple of days sitting on a sunny window sill soon resolved this and by the weekend they were perfect for baking. I normally make this cake with apples but the recipe works just as well when adapted for pears.

Ingredients

• Zest & juice of one lemon
• 3 small apples diced, skin on. 
• 40g dark chocolate
• 2 eggs
• 160g caster sugar
• 130ml vegetable oil
• 150g paling flour
• 1.5tsp baking powder
• 1tsp ground nutmeg
• 1tsp ground fennel seeds
• pinch of salt

Method

• Heat the oven to gas mark 4, grease and line a 1kg loaf tin.
• Put the lemon juice & zest into a bowl. Dice the pears and toss them in the lemon mix
• Chop the chocolate into slivers
• Whisk the sugar and eggs until pale. Slowly pour in the oil and continue to whisk until combined.
• Mix all of the dry ingredients and then fold them into the egg & sugar mix until combined.
• Fold in the diced pears along with the lemon juice & zest. Then fold in the chocolate.
• Pour into the lined tin and place in the oven.
• Bake for 35 minutes, then turn the tin around and bake for a further 15 minutes. If your oven runs hot it might be advisable to cover the cake with foil for the last part of the bake.
• Leave to cool, in the tin for 15 minutes, then turn onto a rack.

So with the news starting to look as if more lockdowns may not be too far off, I think the garden may be getting even more attention from us.

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