Harvest festival

I think autumn is my most favourite season: misty mornings, warm days, cosy evenings and delicious harvests. 

I was reminded the other day of the harvest festivals of my childhood. A table placed at the front of the church laden with produce: baskets of apples and pears, a bowl of plums, jars of homemade jam with their handwritten labels, tins of soup, beans, jugs of flowers in glowing autumn colours and in pride of place a golden plaited loaf of bread.
There were the familiar hymns All things bright and beautiful and We plough the fields and scatter and afterwards the village hall set up with wooden trestle tables for people to enjoy a home cooked meal.
Such traditions mark the passing of the seasons. In this age of  supermarket plenty, the idea of a community celebrating a harvest is slipping away ....and that, I think, is a shame.

So here is my own little homage to some of the beautiful autumn produce around at the moment.
The other day, I bought a few delicious English pears and decided to make a

  pear and ginger upside down cake, a revamp of an old favourite using tinned pineapple which I used to often make when our daughters were small.

I liked my updated version. 

Here is the recipe should you want to have a go.

And, here is another pudding, lemon posset, made with a hedgerow autumnal harvest- wild blackberries.
Recently, mr digandweed and I spent a lovely few days with family in the Forest of Dean.
I had a delicious lemon posset in a restaurant, and so I had to have a go at making one on our return.

It turns out that lemon posset is very easy to make. It's basically double cream, sugar and lemon juice, which does that magic thing of thickening the cream.
It's very rich, so a little goes a long way.
The following recipe would make enough for 4 small desserts.

300ml double cream
75g caster sugar
juice and zest of 1 lemon
a handful of blackberries to serve

Heat the cream and sugar gently in a pan to dissolve the sugar, then bring to the boil and boil for 2 minutes.
Remove from the heat and allow to cool then add the lemon juice and zest.
Whisk well and pour the thickened cream into serving dishes.
Chill.
Meanwhile, gently heat the blackberries with sugar to taste. When the fruit is soft, push it through a sieve to make a puree.
Decorate the lemon posset with the puree and a few extra blackberries.

Hope the coming week is a good one for you.
Speak soon

Annie

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