April 8, 2006

An abundance of berry sauce

As you may have noticed in the past few posts, my "berry compote" has been appearing quite regularly in my pictures. Well, the story is....I made a little too much tart filling for my shortcrust pastry and had a heap full left of it in the fridge. Not a bad thing though...I love the thick sour berry mixture, with tiny hints of fresh strawberry lumps in between each scoop. I also added a couple of crushed mint leaves to add a hint of different flavour to the berries. The taste of mint wasn't distinct but it gave a little extra 'zing' to the sweet gooey mixture.
I finally finished my tub full of berry compote today...I teamed it with tiny shaped cinnamon french toasts made early this morning.(I made the shapes with large cookie cutters; and the side cut-outs from the bread were gathered together to make a HUge 'hashbrown' looking french toast!...it looked very cute, i wish I saved a photo of it)
Back to the berry sauce; its very versatile and I personally love berries in my sweet treats and breakfast "pick-me-ups". It goes with many many MANY things....Just to name a few; tarts, french toast, waffles, pancakes, sponge cake toppings or fillings, trifle, cupcake icing, or just even on bread as jam!
Here's my recipe: I wouldn't say its very accurate but you just have to keep tasting as you go along. 2 cups of sugar, 3 handfuls of fresh boysenberries, 3 handfuls of diced strawberries, 2 crushed mint leaves, 1 cup of water. Cook everything in a sauce pan, add sugar or berries to suit your taste; stir in 2 tbsp's of corn flour, cook the mixture for 1-2 minutes until it thickens.

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