Wild Garlic / Baerlauch

It is coming to that time of year that in Europe and Certain areas of the East Coast of the USA and Canada that when out walking in forest/mountain areas you will suddenly get a lovely whiff of Garlic. Now what you are smelling is Ramsons (Europe) or Ramps (USA/Canada).

Flowered Wild Garlic in Lough Key Boyle County Roscommon Eire

I do not have enough words to explain how much I LOVE this stuff. I first discovered this wonderful wild plant while at a snowboarding festival in the Alps in Austria. Enjoying a lovely meal with my than boyfriend (now husband) and one of my bestest friends Sabrina this was all over the menu. She had to explain to use what it was and we instantly fell in love with the stuff. We even bought some in a market and brought it home in our suitcases to cook with. I made a very tasty Pesto out of it that my mammy throughly enjoyed using to cook pretty much everything with. She put it in soups in curry you name it she had it in there calling it her secret ingredient. It only gave her away when I could smell it wafting around the house before dinner time.

Wild Garlic at the Meehambee Dolmen near Drum County Roscommon Eire

Ramsons is called a million different things depending on where you are from. Simply put it is Wild Garlic. Some will call it wild onion and that makes sense too as it has a slight chive smell while you are chopping it up. Also referred to as Bears Garlic in Austria and Germany that was the first name he learnt for it.

Wild Garlic on the hills by Boyne Castle, Portsoy Scotland

In Europe and the specific one I am talking about it's scientific name is Allium ursinum. It is a long wide leafy plant that flowers white petals at particular times of the season, it generally has a strong smell of garlic in its location and grows in large clusters. It is however a little bit like a weed and once it takes hold of an area it will spread rapidly. Every website around with tell you that it is at its best flavor and this time or that. I don't care it tastes good anytime and I will stick by that.
I have found that wild garlic can be found generally in wooded areas near a stream where it is quiet covered yet damp. If every you find yourself on a wild garlic hunt and you see a plant but you aren't 100% sure if it is the one. break the leaf and have a good sniff. You can always give it a taste too.

Ramp Farm, Richwood, West Virginia USA

There are a million things you can make with Wild Garlic in the Kitchen. I just tonight made "Bears Garlic Dumplings" that Sabrina's mammy made for us while we where visiting with them. They are ridiculously tasty! However, I have to admit that we are now staying the Pacific North West we cannot get wild garlic therefore I cheated and made these with a lot of regular garlic and some chives, it worked perfectly well. As I said before I have also made "Wild Garlic Pesto". this is a great idea as wild garlic is only in season for so long and you cannot get it in the supermarket in Ireland or Scotland there for the pesto will prolong the life of your wild garlic and you can continue to cook with it regardless.
We have also made wild garlic bread and butter. All of which is seriously tasty.

Recipes:

Bears Garlic Dumplings

Ingredients:

- 200g dry bread cubes
- 50g bears garlic (or if you have no way to get this use 25g regular garlic cloves plus 25 grams chives)
- 2 eggs
- 50g cheese of your choice
- 50g butter
- 250g milk
- dash of salt
- dash of pepper
- 1/2 tsp mustard

The Prep

Method

• Chop the bears garlic (or crush the garlic cloves and chop the chives) and mix with the bread cubes in a large bowl.
• Warm up the milk and melt the butter together either in the microwave or over the stove and combine with the breadcrumb mix. 
• Whip your eggs together with the cheese and mix that into the wet mixture combine until all together.
• Add your salt, pepper and mustard and give it a mix.
• Shape the Dumplings into 6 large balls and set aside.
• Bring a large pan of water seasoned with salt to a good simmer, add the dumplings carefully and allow to simmer for 20 minutes. Do not bring to the boil.
• Serve these up to 2/3 people. You can add a little extra butter over the top of the dumplings if you like. 

Ready for Dinner

Here is a link to a Wild Garlic Pesto that I made before:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Bears-Garlic-Pesto/

Always keep in mind. When you decide to go for some Bears Garlic...... You are gonna have some stinky breath afterwards! 

I hope you find a patch to pick yourself as that is part of the fun! 

Enjoy Tara x 

On the Hunt for Wild Garlic with Lisa and Greg in County Meath
We found it in LoughCrew Garden

Red Velvet Mini Cakes

I am well and truly back now! So my Friday was completely and utterly taken up with making some seriously tasty Red Velvet Cake. It's a funny thing, I have eaten ALOT of red velvet, I have however until today never attempted to make it.
I am delighted with the finished results taste. I did want it to be more Red however its still tastes good and its trial and error with your colors I guess.
I decided to turn these into small mini cakes as they are easier to give away meaning less food waste at the end of my baking. For the same reason I also decided to make some Red Velvet Jars! I was so silly excited when I put those together! Other then making some Salads in a jar during the summer these are my first sweet jar treats!
Obviously this was the choice I made. However if you want to make just one big cake that is perfectly fine too. you just need to separate your cake batter into 2/3 tins depending on how many layers you want your cake to be.

So to bring you the recipe, I trolled around on a millions sites for different recipes as I wanted my cake to be super moist and I have heard that can be hard to find so I pretty much made my own recipe from other cakes I have made before combined with many ideas from many different places and It definitely worked as the cakes are Decedent.

Cake Ingredients:

- 2 1/4 cups Self Raising Flour
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder
- 2 tbsp red food coloring (you can use more or less depending on your desired finished color)
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 cups caster (bakers) sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 cup canola oil (you can also use vegetable oil)
- 1 cup low fat butter milk
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp distilled vinegar

Cream cheese Icing Ingredients:

- 1 pound cream cheese
- 4 cups Icing (Confectionary) Sugar
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 2 sticks of butter (I use unsalted)

Method

• Preheat the Oven to 350℉ and then oil and flour your cake tin/s.
• Using a Large Mixing Bowl sift in the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cocoa and set aside
• In a separate large bowl mix together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla extract. You can now add this mix into the dry mix and beat until it is a smooth batter. 
• Pour the batter evening into your cake pan/s, and pop them into the pre heated oven. 
• It will take between 20 - 30 minutes to bake. Once the sides of the cake come away from the tin and a skewer comes out clean then the cake is baked. Do keep an eye on them as you don't want to over cook them or they will be too dry. 
• Once the cake is done take it out of the cake pans and leave to cool on a wire rack. Then move it to the fridge to firm up before you ice them.
• For the Icing beat the butter and the icing sugar together until smooth then add the cream cheese and the vanilla extract. Move this to the fridge and use when cold. 
• Obviously it depends if you are making mini cakes, a full size cake of throwing everything into a jar on how you are going to decorate everything but basically apply about a 1/4 - 1/2 inch of icing in between your layers of cake and and then cover the entire cake in the icing. You can make these nice and smooth do some fancy designs with a piping bag.

New Beginnings

How fast this year is coming in already. I am sitting here its February 19th already.

The weather has been up and down all month. Some days making you think it just looks like Spring and Summer are coming fast and other days looking like Winter is here to stay for some time yet.
So very obviously I have not blogged since just before Christmas and what a busy time December and January where with the holidays and then my sisters wedding back home in Ireland.
It is time now to get back on the horse and start some baking again as other then the husbands Birthday cake last month which was my Chocolate overload cake with plenty of decorating was the last bit of baking I have done.
I have been having a good think about what I want to do next I have come up with a few ideas. I really like the idea of doing some of original recipes in miniature. which works out wonderfully for tea party and having guests.
My small list is a mixture of some heavier deserts for those dark chilly days and then some lighter deserts for your bright sunny spring/summer beginnings.
Black Forest Minis - Red Velvet Minis - Key Lime Pie Minis - Fruit Scones - French Macaroons