Irish Whiskey Flavoured Rhubarb with Honey & Oat Crumble

I love Rhubarb and its clean, tart flavour. And it's great to see it making a return to popularity on restaurant dessert menus in various forms and as an accompaniement to duck, venison and other stronger flavoured types of meat.

We've always had rhubarb growing at home and it is very easy to keep if  (like anything else) you look after it. Keep the soil moist but not water-logged, keep it in the sunshine by cutting any over-hanging branches and give it an odd helping of well-matured organic matter of the horse variety and the rhubarb plant will come back year after year.

mmmmm! Freshly pulled rhubarb!

In late Spring, after the frosts finally decide to go away, the first shoots will show. You can put an up-turned bucket over these and this will help to bring forth what is known as "forced rhubarb". This is a great way to get a double crop. Pull the stalks clean from the base- do not cut them. After this first crop,  leave the plant to its own devices and you will get another growth coming into the start of the summer.

Rhubarb is one of those plants that grows well in a big pot in a town or city garden if you follow those guidelines. But don't put the leaves of rhubarb into your compost heap,as they are said to be poisonous and will have a seriously bad effect on your compost!  Rhubarb plants are available to buy in most good garden centres & you can also buy Rhubarb stalks, ready for your cooking pot, in all good Veg shops.

Here is a very simple but super delicious recipe for an old-fashioned Rhubarb Crumble. I always put a splash of whiskey into it (and a little bit into the whipped cream too if you want!) and my mum always added porridge oats to the crumble topping to make it crunchier. 

My Ingredients:
The Rhubarb...
1kg fresh Rhubarb
200g granulated sugar
1/4 tsp ground cloves
2 tbls honey
1 splash of your favouite Irish Whiskey
50ml water

The Topping...
400g plain flour
200g butter
100g flahavans porridge oats

100g brown sugar


My Method:
Preheat your oven to 180C

Chop the rhubarb chunky

For the rhubarb mix, chop the rhubarb into 1/2 inch pieces and then put it into into a heavy based pot with the sugar, cloves, honey, and whiskey, over a medium heat and bring it up, just to the boil. Then turn down the heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally, for 8-10 minutes until the rhubarb is soft but still chunky.

Don't forget the splash of whiskey!

Meanwhile, rub the butter into the flour as you would when making sweet pastry or bread. Add the oats and sugar and mix well together.

Ahh... Porridge oats mixed through the pastry crumb

Pour the cooked rhubarb into a baking dish, sprinkle the crumble mix on top and pat it gently, with your hand, to tidy up the top. 

Spread the mix over the stewed rhubarb

Pop it in the oven for 15 - 18 minutes, until golden brown on top. 

Serve with cream, custard or ice cream (or all three!) . Simple, tasty and delicious!

Whin Bush (aka Gorse) Pastry Cream for Eclairs

The Whin Bush, otherwise known as Gorse, Furze or Furse is a spiny evergreen shrub that is actually a part of the pea family! The bright yellow flowers have a wonderful & distinctive coconut scent.

This is an important plant for wildlife providing a dense thorny cover which is ideal for protecting nesting birds. Whins bushes almost always have a flower in bloom hence the old English country phrase: "When gorse is out of blossom, kissing's out of fashion".

Darren Bradley's Gorse Ice Cream looked yumm (seen here) (click for a link to Darren's blog)

and give me the idea for this.... it's a simple Pastry Cream using those same lovely coconut fragrant flowers that would be delicious inside homemade eclairs!


My Ingredients:

½ litre milk
200g Whin (gorse) flowers

4 egg yolks

130 g castor sugar
30 g plain flour
10g cornflour
a pinch of salt

My Method:

Bruise the flower petals with a mortar & pestal or a very quick whizz in the food processor to help release more of that delicious coconut flavouring.

Bring the milk, flower petals, sugar & a pinch of salt to a gentle boil in a pot. Strain into a jug.

Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolks and sugar in a big bowl until it's creamy and light. Whisk in the flour and cornflour until it is thoroughly mixed. Gradually pour the boiling milk into this while whisking continuously.

Transfer the whole mixture back into a clean pot and heat it on low to cook out. Stir it constantly with a wooden spoon until it has thickened. Don't let it stick to the pot!!

Once this custard cream has thickened, take it off the heat, pour it into a clean bowl and let it cool down. It will be thicker than a custard, more the consistency of a cold porridge. Once cooled you can cover it and refrigerate it until needed.

To fill your eclairs or flaky pastry slices etc, give the cream a good stir to smooth out before you spoon or pipe it into the cakes.

This is based on the classic French 'Creme Pattissier' so the recipe (without the flower petals) can be used and flavoured with whatever you like!

Making a Piping Bag with Greaseproof Paper

Making and baking and decorating and filling! In common these jobs all use, at some stage, 

a Piping Bag!

These useful catering bags come in all shapes and sizes and are made from a variety of materials. There is a massive selection of nozzels available to buy depending on the type of job you're doing. They are used for cake decorating, making choux eclairs or swans etc, piping potato dishes, making biscuits and hundreds of other uses.

There are times when a small pointed piping bag is required for a simple wee job like writing a name on a birthday cake or such and you are only going to use a little bit of cream or icing.

That is when you need to be able to fold together a quick little Greaseproof-Paper Piping Bag.

Well... here is how you do just that!

Fold a sheet of greaseproof paper corner to corner. It doesn't matter if it's a square or rectangle piece to start with as long as you fold it corner to corner, giving you a long fold in the centre

Keep the fold smooth and straight as you cut it with a sharp knife

The general stating position is to point the right-angled corner to your elbow, letting the smallest corner drop

Catch this bottom corner and fold it around your hand

Do not let go of the inside corner and complete the wrap around to look like this

Moving your two hands, slide the two corners gently up and down to tighten and sharpen the point of the cone  

Don't worry if it doesn't seem to be working, first time, as this part will take a little practice!

When you have a sharp point on the piping bag pinch the two top ends of the paper cone together and hold them tight - nearly there!

Fold the ends of the cone back on themselves, to tie the ends of the bag together and stop it from falling apart

It is now ready for use. It's a good idea to make a few of these in advance - they will sit inside each other for storage and you can keep them ready in a little plastic tub for easy access. Like many things in life....practice makes perfect on this one!

Fill the piping bag with your cream or icing and snip off the point to the desired piping size. Use a new bag if you need to. Don't try to re-fill the first one,  it doesn't work!

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Don't forget to Feed the Fish at the end of this post!
zack