ramtops

Personally, I wouldn’t call greengages remotely exotic, but clearly Morrisons’ mileage varies. I picked these up at the weekend, and made an almond sponge topping for them.

I halved the greengages and poached them in a little water for about 10 minutes, turning about half way through. I didn’t bother with any sort of sweetening, but you might want to add a bit of honey – we don’t have a particularly sweet tooth. If I’m poaching plums, I often add star anise, or some cloves and cinnamon.

On to the topping: this is great if you’re trying to keep your carbs down, as ground almonds are far less carby than flour.

Whizz 5oz ground almonds, 5oz margarine and 4oz sugar (anything will do – last night I used a mix of granulated and demerara, as that’s what came to hand), and two eggs, in the food processor.

Ladle it on top of the fruit, smooth it out a bit, bung in the oven for 50 minutes at gas 4 / 180˚. If you have some, sprinkle the top with slivered almonds, as they give it a lovely texture.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

A friend of mine regularly sells produce from her garden to support the LibDems, and this week she was offering gooseberries. I bought 10lbs (for a fiver!) – 6lbs have gone to make wine, 2 bags full in the freezer, and the rest I put into a pudding last night.

The goosegogs went into a bowl, and I put in a good sloosh of elderflower cordial (gooseberries and elderflower are a match made in heaven) and a little honey. I didn’t even bother to top and tail them!

I beat 5oz of marg and 5oz of sugar until it was light and creamy, then added 2 eggs and 5 oz of ground almonds bit by bit (egg, then half the almonds then egg then rest of the almonds) and a couple of teaspoons of vanilla essence.

Lobbed the mix on top of the fruit and scattered with quite a lot of slivered almonds, as I’d opened a new bag last week, and some of them didn’t fit into their airtight jar and I wanted to use them up.

Baked at 180˚ for 50 minutes. Gorgeous.