Sugar and Spice and all things nice

Autumn is a brilliant season in so many ways. Sure, its sad to see the end to the summer, but isn't that bitter pill easier to swallow with the abundance of tasty morsels in the hedgerows and woodlands?

This week I received a gift of hazelnuts from our neighbour and picked up a load of sweet chestnuts in the woods round my parents's place.



So, what to do with them all?



Why not combine my two favourite things - cooking and crafts? I found a yummy-sounding recipe in my Alice in Wonderland craft book. It was described as Sugar and Spice Comfits; a combination of nuts, seeds, spices, and dried fruit. I used roasted sweet chestnuts and hazelnuts, pecans, pistachios, blanched almonds, toasted caraway, fennel, and coriander seeds, some crystallised ginger, dried cranberries, sultanas, sunflower seeds, pinenuts and sesame seeds. Go mad - throw in whatever you have to hand (you'll want about 100g nuts, 50g dried fruit, 1 tablespoon spice seeds, 25g other seeds)!



Once I'd chosen my ingredients I made a small amount of sugar syrup by heating 50g caster sugar in a heavy pan over a gentle heat until it melted and turned into a syrup. I then removed the pan from the heat, mixed in the fruit and nuts, then spread it out on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper and left it to cool.



These are meant to be brilliant on icecream, or you you can just snack on them as they are (which is what I've been doing). Yummy.



And for my next trick I collected up a load of sloes from the hedgerow, bought a bottle of gin and mixed up some sloe gin (700 ml gin, 450g sloes, 150g sugar, 1/4 teaspoon almond essence).



It won't be ready to drink until the end of January so I'll have to report back then. Between now and deepest-darkest winter I'll be shaking the kilner jar regularly, at least until the sugar dissolves. It'll be ready with perfect timing to see us through the harshness of coming back from a warm holiday to the cold British winter!