General Chat

Think innovation is your middle namr Sharron, certain inventive is a possibility lol

Lizxx

No, these were what we had for dinner. They are not like the cornflakes covered in chocolate.

I think it is called chocolate cracknell and there is a recipe on the schoo; dinners recipes site. I have been known to make it and put sultanas in it , in fact I served it at the village lunch once.

We used to have cornflake cakes at home (ie cornflakes covered in chocolate)
I never got to making them at school - I 'absconded' from all cookery, sewing, PE, Games and tech type lessons from year 2 :-D :-D :-D

Mm, that's a thought.

Do you remember that thing from school with the puffed wheat that you make by cooking cocoa and butter together with golden syrup? I am thinking something like that without the puffed wheat with something else but I don't know what. It needs strong chocolate I think but I have never done the tempering thing with chocolate.

How about Rowan berry cookies?
...or even chocolate Rowan berry cookies? :-D :-D :-D :-D

Lol copied from the net

I have looked it up and I have tasted it.

It looks like the berries are less toxic than indigestible when they are raw, much like sloes. These have been in alcohol for a long time and I expect that has some sort of chemical reaction because these taste perfectly good without the harsh bitterness they have when raw.

Well Ann, I can't promise that I will travel to a new location every time and you don't think I get up the top of the tree do you? That would indicate a degree of keenness to which I have never aspired in anything!

The berries contain the seeds of the Rowan. They want to be seen by any passing creatures, particularly those that can see colour. For these species (which include us) red is possibly the most eye catching, so the Rowan uses the colour red for it’s berries. An animal then eats the berries, travels to a new location and excretes the seeds in a pile of natural fertiliser!

But bright colours in the Natural Kingdom can also be a warning of poison. So are the Rowan berries poisonous? The answer is no. Birds will gobble them down by the beak-full and although raw berries are unpleasant to eat, there are recipes you can find for Home Made Rowan Berry Marmalade!

Just make sure if you do go out collecting that you only take what you need and leave plenty for the birds, they will as many berries as they can find come winter!

Perhaps boil them and make Rowan and Gin flavoured jam ;-) :-D :-D

I used one of the foraging books when I made the jelly but I can't say that I looked again.

Oh well, if they are toxic, I can always find somebody I don't like to give them to. I am not wasting all that gin that is in them now.

Sharron, see this wiki article, particularly towards the end of the 'Uses' section, which gives some details of their toxicity, and how to neutralize it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan

Then do a search for Rowan Berry Recipes. Most seem to be for Jams and jellies.

Merry Christmas :-D

That will be why I am sitting on this cloud then!

No,I don't think they are poisonous.The pips inside yew berries are but not rowan as far as I know.

Last year I made some rowan jelly and when I tasted it I thought how well that flavour would go with gin so, this year, I made some rowan gin in the same way as you would make sloe gin..

Anyway, today, I decanted it into a bottle and strained the rowan berries off. I didn't want to put them on the compost because the birds would all have headaches tomorrow and , while I was deciding what to do with them, I thought I would try one, expecting them to be horrible but,no, they were lovely.

Now they are in a bowl in the fridge but I don't know what to do with them. You wouldn't want to eat them by the spoonful but but I am wondering about something chocolatey.

Any thoughts on the matter?