Beautiful berries

Just in case you haven’t noticed, it’s strawberry time again! Mġarr celebrates its annual strawberry festival today, but actually, I think they are a little bit late this year, because there is an abundance of strawberries about already. Nevertheless, the Mġarr show is really worth a visit, although I always get carried away and come home with far too many strawberries.

I’ve written about strawberries four times in the past and have given 17 different recipes so far, but I’m not done yet – I now have another four.

First is a strawberry savarin. Savarin is named after Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, a French gastronome who managed to keep his head during the French revolution. It’s basically the same as a large rum baba in that it’s made with a yeast batter and baked in a ring mould.

Like a baba, it’s soaked in syrup, then the centre is filled with either pastry cream or fruit. It’s easy to make, but a bit time-consuming, although most of the time is spent proving, and if you use an electric mixer or whisk, not much effort is involved.

The most difficult part is getting the batter out of the bowl and into the tin as it’s so sticky and elastic! But it does make a spectacular dessert that can be made well in advance and filled just before serving.

Next is a syllabub, which is not so time-consuming. Syllabub is an old English dessert consisting of cream and cider or sherry whisked together until thick. In Tudor times, syllabub was supposedly made by milking a cow directly into a mug of cider.

When I was rummaging around on the internet, I came across a wonderful 19th- century recipe, or ‘receipt’, as they were known in those days, in which one pound of sugar, the juice of four lemons, one quart of port wine (that’s about 1.25 litres), one quart of sherry, one quart of brandy and two grated nutmegs were mixed in a large bowl, which was then put under a cow and milked until the bowl was full.

And what’s that got to do with strawberries? Absolutely nothing at all, except that you won’t need a cow for my ‘receipt’ for strawberry and orange syllabub, which can be whipped up in minutes.

Strawberry trifle is a good old-fashioned Sunday lunch or party pudding that is loved by just about everyone. Although I have given the ingredients for making the Swiss roll, you can of course cut that bit out and buy one from the supermarket.

And last but not least, a simple strawberry tart. Let the pastry case cool, then paint it with a thin layer of melted chocolate to prevent the fruit making it soggy. I use white chocolate because it’s my favourite, but milk chocolate is just as nice.

I’m not sure that I will find any more strawberry recipes next year, but you never know – there might be some more out there somewhere.