Every year in the middle of July there’s a spike of traffic on my red currant posts – these red currant crumb bars are particularly popular. And I get so excited, because it means that there are other people out there who like these beautiful berries as much as I do! We get a bumper crop of red currants every year around the second week of July: they are easily the most productive, easiest crop in our little garden. We transplanted one small bush 3 years ago when we moved in, and this year we picked almost four pounds of currants from it.

Four pounds of currants is quite a few. Thankfully, they freeze very well. But I also try to come up with at least one new red currant recipe every year. Judging by the search traffic on my other red currant recipes and your comments on this post, I can tell that lots of you are still wondering what to do with these sour little berries. And it’s a good question! There aren’t a ton of recipes out there, as these berries are still relatively uncommon in the US.

This year I made an easy Red Currant Coffee Cake to use up some of our bounty. Coffee cake is such a great American recipe. Of course, like most American things, it originated somewhere else – Germany in this case. But 150 years on, I think it’s fair to say that there’s a distinct American tradition of coffee cake that has evolved from its German roots. There’s something so satisfying about a crumbly-topped, cinnamon-scented slice of cake eaten with a mug of tea or coffee. It isn’t dainty like British tea-time snacks, it’s unapologetically just… cake for breakfast. And when packed with red currants, it has a great sour, juicy tang to counter some of that over-the-top sweetness.

I managed to cram two cups of berries into one cake (making cake for breakfast feel almost virtuous) but we still have loads of currants to use up. If you’re in the same boat and looking for more inspiration, why not try out some of my other red currant recipes, below!

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More Red Currant Recipes…

Red Currant Crème Brûlée

Red Currant Coffee Cake

A simple Red Currant Coffee Cake – moist cake, sweet crumb topping, crammed full of sour red currant berries.

Cake recipe adapted from Cranberry Vanilla Coffee Cake, originally sourced from Gourmet.

• Author: katieatthekitchendoor
• Prep Time: 30
• Cook Time: 50
• Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
• Yield: 8-10

Ingredients

For the cake:

• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• Pinch salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 stick softened butter
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups (12 oz.) fresh red currants, tossed with 2 tsp flour

For the streusel:

• 3 TBS butter, room temperature
• 3 TBS brown sugar
• 3 TBS white sugar
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Instructions

1. Make the cake: Preheat the oven to 375F. Butter and lightly flour a 9 inch cake pan or springform pan. Tap any excess flour out over the sink. Set prepared pan aside.
2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
3. Add the softened butter and the sugar to the bowl of a mixer and beat on medium until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, beating just until they are incorporated, then stopping the mixer. Add half of the flour mixture to the butter-sugar-egg batter and beat just until incorporated. Now add the milk and beat on low just until incorporated. Add the remaining half of the flour mixture and beat until incorporated. Remove the bowl from the mixer – you’ll do the rest by hand.
4. Stir in the vanilla extract until it is evenly mixed into the batter. Add the flour-coated currants (the light flour coating helps prevent them from sinking when mixed into the cake) and gently stir until they are evenly distributed throughout the batter. Use a spatula to scrape the batter into the prepared cake pan. Smooth out gently so the batter is level.
5. Make the streusel: In a small bowl, use your fingers to mix together the butter, brown sugar, sugar, flour, and cinnamon until it forms a crumbly mixture with pieces the size of peas. Sprinkle over the top of the cake batter.
6. Bake the cake: Transfer the cake to the pre-heated oven and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the top of the cake is golden brown, about 50-60 minutes. Remove from oven. Let cool for 15 minutes, then remove from the pan, slice, and serve warm.

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In our office in Russia, there’s a little dining room with a table for four right beside the cafeteria. There’s a white tablecloth, big classical-style windows, and two heavy wooden doors – one to the cafeteria and one to the kitchen. As soon as you sit down, an older woman in a blue-and-white checked apron comes through the second door, hands you the day’s menu, and comes back 30 seconds later to take your order. It’s all very cozy and efficient and Russian. I loved the food in that little cafeteria – the meat-potatoes-cabbage-sour cream approach to cuisine definitely appeals to me, and I think traditional Russian cooking is very tasty, despite the bad rap it gets. And every day I ordered kompot, a sort of chilled, sweetened fruit juice. I discovered it on my very first trip to Russia, three years ago, and never looked back. (Three years! Have I really been traveling on this crazy schedule for three entire years?)

I think kompot might be tied with lemonade for the ultimate summer drink. It’s sweet, tangy, cold, and fruity – the perfect thirst-quencher when you’re parched but water won’t quite do the trick. It’s very simple to make. While in Russia I had it made with pretty much every possible combination of summer fruit, so you don’t have to worry too much about the ingredients – you can make it with whatever fruit you have on hand. But my favorite version is made with red currants, a fruit that I will always associate with Russian summers, so that’s what I’ve made here.

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Red Currant Kompot

Makes 10 half-cup servings.

• ½ c. fresh raspberries
• ½ c. fresh blueberries
• 1 c. fresh red currants, removed from stems
• 5 c. water
• ½ c. sugar (or more to taste)

1. Add the berries, currants, and water to a large saucepan. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat and simmer for about 5-7 minutes, until the water is deeply colored and the berries have just started to break down but have not lost their shape. Remove from the heat and stir in the sugar until it is dissolved. Taste and add more sugar if desired. Let the mixture cool to room temperature, then pour the juice and approximately half of the fruit into a pitcher and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. (Reserve the remaining fruit for another use, such as topping ice cream or yogurt). Serve cold.

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I’ve been trying to write this post for four years. I’m not exaggerating. For the past four years, when September rolls around, I put this post on my calendar, waiting for the raspberries at my parents’ house to ripen. And for the past four years, our raspberries, which are gorgeous and achingly sweet and juicy, have been 100% infested with raspberry fruitworms. It’s devastating. The anticipation of opening up a perfectly ripe, deep red, juicy berry, hoping beyond hope that there will be no squirmy white bugs inside, and then to have all your hopes dashed in an instant – heartbreaking. This year, I’d had enough – I was going to buy my raspberries, make this dessert, and satisfy this particular September craving.

When the weather starts to turn cooler, I begin daydreaming of Prague, although the longer I spend away from my one-time home the fainter the daydreams become. Cold, gray days in particular pull back memories tinged with longing: the long winding tram ride from my apartment to school; my daily afternoon snack of mulled wine and candied almonds, eaten with gloved fingers standing on the cobbled corners; wandering the rose gardens on top of Petrin hill, with nowhere else to be for hours; the Christmas markets in all their splendor, filled with warm light and the smell of sausages and potatoes; hiking through falling snow in the far corners of the country, feeling like we were the only people for miles and miles. I could go on and on, but really, I should just go back. I want to take Trevor there and share that city with him, relive some of my old memories and create new ones. Although I’ve traveled many places since Prague, it still holds a special place in my heart – sometimes I wonder if it’s better to have a few places you really love than to travel all over the world in search of you’re not quite sure what.

When my family came to visit me in Prague, being able to order something called “hot love” was one of my 11 year old brother’s greatest pleasures. It’s a dessert that goes by more than one name: Horká láska. Hot love. Horké maniny. Piping hot raspberries smothering a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Although it’s name may be suggestive, the dessert itself is pure, simple and completely sublime. A staple of most Czech menus, horká láska is not just a dish of ice cream with raspberry sauce, it is a dish of juicy, steaming-hot raspberries with just enough ice cream on top so that it has completely melted into the berries by the time you are 3/4 done with the dish.  The trick is all in getting the right ratio and remembering that it’s called “hot raspberries” and not “ice cream with raspberries” for a reason. I did find one traditional recipe (in Czech) that I used for guidance in recreating this classic dessert, but it’s a pretty straightforward concept that doesn’t need to be overthought. The addition of framboise and a pat of butter take the sauce up another level, but you don’t want either to overwhelm the taste of raspberries. It’s a perfect dessert for early fall, with the contrast of hot with cold and fresh with creamy satisfying both summer and fall cravings.

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Horká Láska – Hot Raspberries with Ice Cream

Serves 2.

• 12 oz. (1 1/2 cups) fresh raspberries
• 1/4 c. sugar
• 1 TBS framboise or other raspberry liqueur
• 1/2 TBS salted butter
• 2 scoops vanilla ice cream

1. Add the raspberries and sugar to a small saucepan and heat over medium heat. Cook the raspberries, stirring occasionally, until they are broken down and juicy and the sauce is steaming, about 5-7 minutes. Add the framboise and salted butter, stir to combine, then remove from heat. Spoon a generous amount of raspberry sauce over each scoop of vanilla ice cream and serve immediately.

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Sorry for the radio silence around here! I’ve been missing this space, but between traveling, moving, and ballet camp (yes, ballet camp for adults, it’s awesome and exhausting), I feel like I’m running at 150% capacity, with not much of a reprieve in sight. Right now, October seems like the light at the end of the tunnel, but I’m trying to enjoy the summer for what it is, because while busy can be overwhelming, this time around, busy is ripe for making lasting memories.

Sometimes when your mind is in a hundred different places, you can forget to choose nourishing foods (especially if all your equipment for making nourishing foods happens to be packed away in boxes). But when you’re slammed is when you most need good energy to get through the day, which is why recipes like this Baked Blackberry Oatmeal from Vegetarian Everyday are minor life savers. It’s effortless to throw together, low on fat and sugar, high on fiber and protein, craveably good, and one batch is enough for breakfasts and snacks all week. I would venture to say that this might be the best baked oatmeal you’ll ever have – the huge volume of blackberries oozes up into the oats making it taste like a giant blackberry muffin, and the crunchy, maple-sweetened topping tastes like something that should be really bad for you, but it isn’t at all. And if you live near any sort of bramble patch, now is the time to make this – we have more ripe blackberries in our garden than we can keep up with and I’m sure some of you have the same problem.

I promise I’ll be back soon – I want to update you on our garden, tell you about all the food I got to try in Russia, show you my new house, and share a few more great summer cookbooks with you. Thanks for not forgetting about me in the meantime!

Baked Blackberry Oatmeal

Adapted from Vegetarian Everyday. Serves 6-8.

• butter, for greasing pan
• 2 1/2 c. fresh blackberries
• 1 1/3 cups rolled oats
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger or cinnamon
• pinch of sea salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 c. milk
• 3/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 c. maple syrup, plus more for serving
• 1/2 c. pumpkin seeds
• 1/2 c. pecans or hazelnuts, roughly chopped
• 1/4 c. sunflower seeds

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease a loaf pan with butter. Pour the blackberries onto the bottom of the pan and spread so they are at an even height.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the oats, baking powder, ginger or cinnamon, and salt. Pour over the blackberries. Whisk the eggs, milk, and vanilla extract together in the same large bowl, then pour over the oats, evenly soaking the entire mixture.
3. In a small bowl, use your fingers to mix together the maple syrup, pumpkin seeds, nuts, and sunflower seeds until they are all evenly coated. Sprinkle the seed mixture over the top of the oatmeal. Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, until the oatmeal is set and the seeds are lightly browned and crunchy. Serve at any temperature with a drizzle of maple syrup. Keep leftovers in the fridge.

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I’m going to be honest. I’m really, really wiped out right now. Trevor and I spent the better part of this weekend scrubbing some other person’s dog’s hair off the floors (and out of the vents, and out of the fridge) and trolling home depot like zombies and sanding the walls of our new apartment. And for the few hours I wasn’t doing that, I was thinning carrots (and pruning tomato suckers and ripping up dead peas). Which was actually kind of satisfying, but still exhausting. My feet are kind of tingly on the bottom because they’re not used to being used so much, and my knees are bruised and some wall-washing muscles in my arms I didn’t know existed are quite tired. The reason I’m whining to you about all this is not just to be heard, though. It’s just, I made you some red currant crumb bars, and I want to tell you about them, but I really can’t think of how to write a coherent and/or clever sentence about baking right now. So bear with me as I stream-of-consciousness blog about them.

Red currants. They have a short season, and it’s right now. They’re super pretty and quite sour and they burst in your mouth like gushers when you bite into them. I bought four bushes of my own this year but I only got five measly currants off of them. When I looked it up, I found out that currants, like raspberries, bear on second year canes, of which there weren’t many this year, so at least there’s hope for next year. Except that our new apartment doesn’t seem to get much sun. Some serious landscaping may be in order, although I think cutting down all the trees is probably a violation of our lease. Maybe we should try and find those sketchy contractor guys who snuck into our yard last year and hacked off a bunch of branches in the dark with hand saws. Sorry, my stream of consciousness got derailed.

Because I didn’t have any homegrown currants, I bought some. Last year, I made red currant chutney and red currant meringue pie and homemade cassis with my currant bounty. They were all delicious. This year, I went simple, and made crumb bars. They were also delicious. They’re a good intro to currants, if you’re not sold on them yet, because they mostly taste like coffee cake crumbs with a thin layer of tangy, bright red fruit. Give ’em a go. Also, let me know if you’re making anything this year with currants! I still don’t see very many interesting recipes for them around the web, so I’d love a little inspiration.

Red Currant Crumb Bars

Sweet homemade crumb bars with a tangy red currant filling. An easy summer dessert.

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen. 

• Author: Katie at the Kitchen Door
• Yield: 16
• Category: Dessert

Ingredients

 

• 1/2 c. plus 2/3 c. sugar
• 3 cups fresh red or white currants, washed and removed from their stems
• 1 TBS cornstarch
• 2 c. flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/3 sticks salted butter (5.3 oz.), cut into cubes and chilled
• 1 egg

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease an 8×8 or an 11×7 inch cake pan and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, gently stir together 1/2 cup of the sugar, the currants, and the cornstarch, until currants are coated with the sugar mixture.
3. In a separate large bowl, whisk together the remaining 2/3 cup of sugar, the flour, the baking powder, and the salt until evenly combined. Add the chilled butter cubes and the egg, and use a pastry cutter or a fork to blend the butter and egg into the flour. When finished, dough will be crumbly with pea-sized chunks of butter.
4. Press 2/3 of the dough into the prepared pan. Top with the currants. Clump the remaining dough together into a loose ball, then crumble it over the top of the currant mixture. Bake for 35-45 minutes, until currants are bubbly and top of crust is golden brown.

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As I try to keep up with the healthy habits I was starting to establish during my cleanse (no thanks to the likes of these chocolate-hazelnut mousse cakes I made for Lake Champlain Chocolates!), I’ve come to realize that if I don’t get started on the right foot in the morning, my whole day is thrown off. Making sure that I have a healthy breakfast doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll stick to the plan through dinner, but starting the day off with something bad usually means I can’t recover and end up indulging all day. This is good knowledge to be armed with, but it’s still something I struggle to execute on. I like mornings, so that’s not the problem – it’s more that I’m the sort of person who’s perpetually five minutes late to everything because I try to cram too many things into one time slot. So when 8:05 rolls around and I’m still in bed writing emails and catching up on my reader, and I suddenly realize I have exactly 7 minutes to get dressed, make breakfast, clean up from breakfast, brush my teeth, make my lunch, do my hair, and leave, breakfast frequently falls by the wayside. And I’m still 10 minutes late to work.

Enter pre-made breakfasts: I’ve found that having something already made in the fridge makes it about 90% more likely that I’ll eat something nutritious before leaving for work. If it’s something I’m excited about eating, I’ll even go grab a plateful at 7:30 and then return to bed with it. Last week I did really well with a batch of whole wheat fruit and nut pancakes that I made on Sunday and ate throughout the week. This week, I whipped up this breakfast quinoa bake and have really been enjoying it. A quinoa bake was kind of a logical next step when breakfast quinoa is already a staple meal of mine, and overnight oats have inundated the internet. So I threw some ingredients together that I thought might work, and it turned out even better than I hoped – it’s sweet, mild, and fruity, with a consistency similar to rice pudding. Definitely worth getting out of bed for. You can find the recipe over at Greatist – if you try it, let me know what variations you make!

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For the last cleanse brunch meal, I decided it was OK to push the boundaries of my rules and let pancakes onto the menu. In part, I think it makes sense to ease your way back into normal eating habits by creating healthy versions of your favorite foods. If you can eat the foods you crave without all the negative health effects, it’s that much more likely that the benefits of “cleansing” will stick! These pancakes, adapted from SELF Magazine, not only have no sugar and use whole-wheat flour, they also have berries, bananas, and crushed pecans to up their healthfulness.

I was surprised by these pancakes – I was expecting them to be decent, but not particularly good. I just haven’t had that much luck with whole wheat baking in the past, and I also have really high standards for pancakes, having grown up in a house where mixes were sneered upon and a fresh batch of dad’s blueberry-buttermilk pancakes was a weekend staple. However, these healthy little guys ticked off all my pancake check-boxes – they were tender, moist, flavorful, and thick. The fact that I could eat two with a generous drizzle of maple syrup and not feel guilty about it was just an added bonus. I will definitely be making these again!

Whole Wheat Fruit and Nut Pancakes

Adapted from SELF Magazine. Makes 8 pancakes / Serves 4.

• 1 c. whole wheat flour
• 1/2 c. rolled oats
• 1/4 c. crushed or roughly chopped pecans
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 ripe banana
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 c. buttermilk
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 1 c. frozen or fresh mixed berries
• cooking spray or a small pat of butter

1. In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, oats, pecans, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt to combine. In another medium bowl, mash the banana into a paste, then beat in the egg, buttermilk, and almond extract to combine. Add the wet mixture to the flour mixture, and stir until evenly mixed.
2. Spray a large skillet with cooking spray and heat over medium-low heat, or melt butter in skillet over medium-low heat. Make pancakes using 1/3 c. batter each. Top each pancake with a few berries. Cook for 3-4 minutes, or until the batter is bubbling on the top of the pancake and the bottom is golden brown, then flip and cook for 3-4 minutes on the other side. Repeat until batter is gone. Serve warm with extra berries and maple syrup. Place any extra cooked pancakes in plastic bags and refrigerate to store.

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I mean, I have a post called strawberries and one called raspberries… I need to complete the trend, don’t I?  Next berry season I’ll have to get more creative with my post titling abilities – strawberries #2! – but until then, we’re golden.

I think the thing I like best about blackberries may be that they grow in the backyard and I can walk up the hill with my little berry basket swinging and pluck the beautiful little berries from the far-too-thorny bushes and feel all earthy and wholesome.  As well as like I’m cheating the grocery store out of all that money they charge for fresh berries.  But then, a basket full of berries picked and washed and set aside, I’m not sure what I want to do with them.  Mostly, I feel like they should be photographed, because they’re gorgeous, and nature created them, and they were free, and I felt picturesque when I picked them.  Partly, I just want to eat them, because it’s easy and summery, but I’m not sure that posting a recipe that goes “Pick blackberries.  Wash blackberries.  Eat blackberries.” would be all that pertinent on a food blog.  So I feel like I have to make something with them.  And lately, I’ve been having this problem where the first thing I want to do with fruit is boil it with a bunch of sugar and then mash it up.  I’ve been doing it with rhubarb.  I just did it with plums.  I’m considering doing it with wild Maine blueberries.  It’s a useful thing, because then you can just drizzle your sugary-fruity syrup-butter on ice cream, or yogurt, or pancakes, or mix it with tequila and call it a day.  It concentrates the flavors and colors of these fruits, lasts a long time in the fridge, and takes up less space.  But making so much fruit syrup is starting to make me feel boring.

Which is why you are not looking at pictures of blackberry syrup.  Nor are you looking at pictures of blackberry pie, or blackberry muffins, because, while perfectly delicious and viable options for fresh summer fruit, I JUST WANT TO BE ORIGINAL.  Therefore, you are looking at pictures of Blackberry Brown-Butter Financiers.  Sounds good, right?  Trendy, even?  Well they were pretty good.  I only use the modifier “pretty” because I’ve never had a financier before, so I’m not sure how these compare to other financiers, but I liked them – they were moist but eggy, nutty smelling, not too sweet, and the blackberry in the middle gave them a sweet juicy bite that was just right.  They’re so cute and easy to pop into your mouth that they disappeared within 12 hours of coming into existence.  I would definitely categorize them as more of a tea-cake or snack then a dessert, and I think that the perfect place for them would be on a tray of other bite-sized goodies at an afternoon party.  But if you don’t feel like throwing a tea party, you could probably just eat them for breakfast.  I did.

Blackberry Brown-Butter Financiers

From Gale Gand’s Just a Bite.  Makes 24.

• 9 TBS salted butter
• 1/2 c. almond flour or finely ground almonds
• 1 c. confectioner’s sugar
• 6 TBS flour
• 4 egg whites
• 1 tsp applesauce
• 24 small blackberries, or 12 large blackberries

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.  Brown the butter – heat butter in a saucepan over medium heat until fully melted.  As milk solids start to separate from the butter, use a wooden spoon to scrape them from the bottom and prevent them from burning.  Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until butter is golden brown and has a nutty aroma.  Remove from heat and pour through a metal strainer.  Discard solids and reserve the clarified butter.
2. Sift together the almond flour, confectioner’s sugar, flour, and sugar.  Whisk to combine.  Add the egg whites, applesauce, and butter, and mix to combine.  Batter will be thin and pourable.  Pour or spoon into non-stick mini-muffin tins, or buttered financier molds.  Fill only about halfway – financiers will rise quite a bit.  Place a blackberry (or half a blackberry, depending on berry size, but in my opinion the more berry the better) into the center of each tin.  Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are golden brown.  The cakes should spring back gently when pushed, and a toothpick inserted into the center will come out clean.  Remove from molds and dust with powdered sugar to serve.

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