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A Christmas Dessert From The Local Cemetery Words & Photography by Alan Spedding
Alan Spedding has been foraging - cooking and snapping for quite a while now. On his latest trip in search of unique ingredients he takes a slightly macabre yet tasty trip to his local errrr... cemetery of course.
I stumbled upon the Elder bush which still had the most amazing bunches of fruit still in perfect condition - so there was my first produce for the bag.
A short stroll through the trees and the first thing that jumped out was a huge bush of wild rosehips and there was quite a few Douglas fir trees around, they`re the ones that smell highly of scented pine when the soft needles are rubbed into the hands.
Three ingredients from my wander around the cemetery, elderberries, rosehips and douglas fir shoots. From them I would make an elderberry puree, garnish and poaching ingredient for some pears that I'd bought.
The rosehips would be used to make a syrup and jelly with. The pineshoots would be used to flavour some milk which in turn would be used to make the Pannacottas.
Everything was washed thoroughly in water, then dried. I decided to poach the pears in a red wine and elderberry stock, sit those on caramelised clementines. Bake some 5 spice shortbread fingers and finish it all off with a Rosehip and Douglas fir pannacotta. The list of components for the dessert would be -
Poached pears Caramelised clementines Reduced cooking liquor from the pears Rosehip syrup / Rosehip jelly Douglas fir ( pine ) pannacotta Elderberry sauce 5 spice shortbread Garnishes of candied Rosehips , elderberries , Pineshoots and candied rosehips.
The pears were all peeled leaving stalks intact. They were placed in a pan and a little Port, damson gin, sugar, Bay leaf, cinnamon, and one star anise were added. Half a bottle of red wine was poured over the pears and topped up with a little water to cover the fruit. A circle of greaseproof was placed on the pears and weighed down with a small plate. The pears were brought to the boil, immediately turned down to simmer and left like that for approximately 45 minutes until a knife could be inserted with no resistance.They were then left overnight in the liquid to cool.The remaining poaching syrup was put through a fine sieve and then reduced slowly down until a nice highly flavoured sticky syrup remained. This was allowed to cool.
The shortbread is pretty straight forward to make, it`s just the traditional butter recipe but I also added some semolina for a better texture.
The dough is rolled out to just under a centimetre thickness. It`s then cut to size, in this recipe I decided to make shortbread fingers.
Just before it goes in the oven it needs a sprinkling of Demerera sugar. The shortbread is then placed on a non stick baking mat and cooked at 190 deg for approx 15-20 mins.
Once removed from the oven the shortbread is dusted with caster sugar and 5-spice powder and then allowed to cool on racks.
The Rosehip syrup reducing down and the flavours concentrating. I took some of the syrup out at this stage and sweetened it with sugar to taste. I then added gelatine and carefully poured it into the small shot glasses which were set at angles in old egg boxes.Once cooled down these jellys were allowed to set in the fridge for a couple of hours to keep their shape when they were straightened up again.
Once the jellies have come out of the fridge they are ready for the pannacotta mixture to be poured in.
The cold Pannacotta mixture is carefully poured into the shot glasses and then replaced into the fridge to set for a few more hours or overnight before being topped with the Elderberry coulis.
Well here`s the finished dessert and I`m really pleased with the taste combinations of all the various components...very festive too.
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