Being a
chocolatier, I feel like I ought to write about Mothers Day or about Easter,
but this week I am inspired to write about Rhubarb.... yes – Rhubarb!
I just love
it. How did I not know this sooner?! I used to enjoy the odd rhubarb crumble
but never really thought beyond that. Then a couple of summers ago I discovered
pink lemonade – yum yum! Did you know pink lemonade is made with rhubarb?
Anyway, a
lovely customer of ours mentioned rhubarb and brought some to us at the last
Liverpool Food and Drink Festival (Thanks Johanna!). The idea was to candy it, but unfortunately my
candying skills didn’t really work so we left it on the back burner (not
literally).
I forgot
about it for a while and then saw a tweet from Claremont Farm saying fresh
Rhubarb in stock. So when I went in to deliver some chocs last week I picked up
some Rhubarb.
It looks
quite innocent, but I think the leaves are poisonous?
I candied it
successfully this time – Hurrah!! - then
proceeded to use it in our chocolate.
If you would
like to have a go at candying Rhubarb (and I really would urge you to – it’s so
brilliant) – here’s how:
Ingredients:
6 stalks of
Rhubarb
225g Caster
Sugar (Plus 25g extra for later)
3
tablespoons of water
Method:
1. Preheat oven to about 120 degrees C /
Gas mark 1
2. Chop the rhubarb into thin strips of
about 6 inches or so (I got bored with doing them the same size and played
around a bit, but it is better to have them all about the same size – they will
then dry out evenly)
3. Place the sugar and water in a pan and
heat .
4. Gently stir until all of the sugar
has dissolved
5. Take the pan off the heat and throw
in the rhubarb – give it a mix so that all of the rhubarb is coated in the
sugar syrup.
6. Leave for half hour. (In this time
you could be preparing your parchment paper on the baking trays ... or having a
cup of tea)
7. Take the rhubarb out and place onto
baking trays lined with parchment paper. Make sure none of the pieces are
touching each other.
8. You will be left with liquid that is
a mixture of sugar syrup and rhubarb. It tastes delicious. Not sure what to do
with the rhubarb syrup yet – seems a shame to bin it – so let me know if you
come up with an idea!
9. Place trays in oven for an hour and
then check – if the rhubarb isn’t as dry as you want it leave for another 10
mins – remove rhubarb and place in the caster sugar that you had saved
10. Once cooled, place in an airtight
container.
Hope this
works for you – let me know how you get on!
PS – we have
got easter eggs and mothers day treats for sale at our pop up shop in 12
Princes Parade on Friday 28th March as well as our online shop!
