Gooseberry Fool

It's funny what nostalgia does to you.  I was in Alton, Hampshire, the other day and got some shopping in Get Fresh & Fruity, an absolutely fantastic greengrocer on the High Street.  When I saw they had gooseberries - a fruit I've not eaten in years - I had to buy some and make gooseberry fool, like my Grandma used to make for my sister and me when we were kids.

I followed Nigel Slater's recipe to the letter, never having made it myself before, and it was tasty but I reckon Grandma used to use a higher fruit:cream ratio - you want to properly taste those tart goosegogs.  I think I may have had sweet eating ones rather than cooking ones - I am speaking from ignorance, not realising there were different varieties, but I remember it being more tart.  There is a childish pleasure in screwing your eyes up when you reach a sour bit.

Forget counting calories, go make this and enjoy!

Banana choc chip muffins

Credit where it's due - I adapted this from the current Waitrose magazine, which I find to be a fantastic source of recipes.  It's a brilliant way of using up fruit that's a bit past its best, really easy to make and really tasty.

I've never done much in the way of baking so I can guarantee that any desserts I blog will be really easy!  All this one takes is some measuring of ingredients and a bit of mixing.

Don't plan to make this - there's no point in buying bananas to make it with, because it needs ones that are a bit past their best.  The time to make this is when you've got a couple of rapidly blackening ones in the bottom of the fruit bowl.

Preheat the oven to 190C.  Prepare a muffin tin with muffin cases (from the home-baking aisle).

You will need two mixing bowls.  If, like me, you're new at baking you might not have much kit so you might find yourself improvising with something like a dessert bowl.

In your smaller bowl, place the following:  two over-ripe bananas, two eggs, 125g milk and 75g melted butter (I melt it by zapping in the microwave on low for two minutes).

Mash it all together with a fork.  It doesn't have to be smooth, but don't leave any big bits of banana.

In the larger bowl, place the following:  250g self-raising flour, 50g oats, 115g dark brown soft sugar, 25g chocolate chips (also from the baking aisle) and a level teaspoonful each of bicarbonate of soda and baking powder.

Mix the dry ingredients up, then add the banana mixture to them.  Stir until it's all combined - it doesn't take too much time or effort.  Chef gets to lick the spoon.

Spoon the mixture equally between the cases.  Try to be neater than me, but a bit of spillage doesn't matter!

Bake in the oven for 25 minutes.

I am in no way a baking expert, and I have absolutely no idea why some of them have risen more than others.

They're perfectly nice to eat just as they are, but I like to cut them in half, butter each half and give them 10 minutes in the oven to melt the butter - delicious!

Once you've mastered it, you'll be trying all sorts of combinations.  I thought this could have used more chocolate, for example.  How about apple and raisin, with a bit of cinnamon?  Or ginger?  The possibilities are endless!

Raisin and apple oaty biscuits

I very rarely make sweets and desserts, but just occasionally the urge strikes me.  I really like the oat biscuit bars that you can buy (like Geobars, and the Jordans ones) but they're quite expensive.  I've got some oats in the cupboard anyway, so I thought I'd have a go at making them myself.

As always, I turned to Google for recipe research and found thousands of combinations, all very similar but different.  I took a couple of ideas from a few different ones to make my own spin on them doubtless I'll revisit this recipe again and make them slightly differently each time!

The technique comes from Mumsnet, because it seemed to be the simplest, but I changed the ingredients around to suit my own tastes.

First of all, start the oven heating up to 170C.

Next, we need to melt together 100g of butter, 50g of brown sugar and 40g of golden syrup.  Personally, I don't think spread has any health benefits over butter (unless you've got an intolerance to dairy, obviously) but feel free to substitute spread or margerine for the butter if you want.  Honey should work fine instead of golden syrup, too.

I melted these together just by sticking them in the microwave on 25% power for about three minutes, checking frequently.  If you haven't got a microwave, mix them all together over a very low heat, making sure not to burn the butter.  I think you'd have to be seriously careless to burn butter in a microwave, so that's probably the safest option.

While the butter/sugar/golden syrup mix is melting in the microwave, weigh out 100g of oats, 100g of self-raising flour and 50g of raisins, and grate an apple.

Now put everything together in a large bowl...

 ...and mix it all up until it's consistent.  Make sure to lick the spoon, the mixture is delicious.

Grease a baking tray and spoon the mixture out into little cakes.  I used a heaped tablespoonful of the mixture for each cake and just dropped them onto the baking tray - home-made biscuits should look a little bit rustic, I think!

Bake for 15 minutes, and resist the temptation to eat one as soon as you take them out of the oven.

Taste verdict

I'm really satisfied with these!  Not too crunchy, just the right texture, and of course you can put anything you like in them.  If you don't fancy my apple and raisin mix, use different dried fruits.  You could add things like ginger or cinnamon, too.  The possibilities are endless!

Granted they contain butter and sugar, but they do also contain fruit - you could see these as a particularly tasty way to get one of your five-a-day in.

Financial verdict

100g butter

50g brown sugar

40g golden syrup

100g oats

100g self-raising flour

50g raisins

An apple

It's quite difficult to cost this, because it's all stuff I had in the house anyway, and it's all stuff that you'd buy big bags of.  I wanted to have a stab though, so here's an idea of what it would cost if you went to Waitrose to buy everything you need in one go.  Prices are from the Waitrose website.

250g pack of Country Life butter £1.50

500g bag of Billington's Fairtrade Demerara sugar £1.39.  That's what I happened to have in the cupboard, but the cheapest one on the Waitrose website is a Tate & Lyle one at 99p for 500g.

454g Lyle's Golden Syrup, in a pourable squeezy bottle, 85p.  The price per kilo is lower in the old-fashioned tins, but I like the convenience of the squeezy bottle.

500g bag of oats.  The cheapest one is the Waitrose Essential at 62p, but for some reason I went for the Sainsbury's Taste the Difference ones when I bought mine.  No idea why - oats are oats, surely!

500g bag of self-raising flour 48p.  The cost per kilo drops quite considerably if you buy a bigger bag.

500g Waitrose Essential Raisins £1.56

An apple.  I normally buy them loose, but the Waitrose website lists bags of six Empires for £1, making them 17p each.

So, if you went out and got everything it would cost £6.57.  You'd need to top up on butter and apples, but otherwise this would make 5 batches of biscuits (I got nine biscuits out of these quantities but they're all different sizes - I'd aim for 10 consistent ones next time) with some ingredients left over.  Geobars cost £2.03 for six bars, so they're 34p each.  Mine are 13p each!

The skinny

Put 100g butter, 50g brown sugar and 40g golden syrup together in a bowl and microwave on low power until melted

Put 100g oats, 100g self-raising flour, 50g raisins and the grated flesh of one apple into a large bowl

Add the melted butter mixture and stir until everything is mixed together

Grease a baking tray and make biscuits by dropping one tablespoonful of mixture per biscuit onto the tray, leaving a bit of space for them to expand

Bake at 170C for 15 minutes