PiPs's blog

We are only half way through spring and already the temperatures feel like summer. Hot windy days with no rain have left our lawn and garden golden brown and crunchy. Over a railing in the back yard, well hidden from the scorching afternoon sun a star jasmine has been thriving and filling the kitchen with its scent. We now wake to the morning call of stormbirds.

My current job is winding down into its final week and I have been busy applying for jobs with some success. I have been called back for a second interview for an in-house graphic design position this afternoon. Fingers crossed …

During the week I had the good fortune of spending a day with Brett Noy at his award winning bakery Uncle Bob’s Bakery in Belmont. In 2012 Brett Noy was the first Australian ever appointed to judge the World Cup of Baking—the Coupe de Monde de la Boulangerie—his passion for baking, attention to detail and dedication to the training of Australia’s future bakers shone through every conversation we had.

Brett and his team were so accommodating and gracious throughout the day. They answered all my questions and even allowed me to get involved in the days bake. It was great to see a different side to sourdough production as I have only been involved with small wood-fired micro-bakeries up to this point. So much food for thought … thanks again Brett!

With all this activity I have been keeping my baking relatively simple. I am still following the formula I posted here but on occasions experiment with one feature and watch the result. This week I experimented with using freshly milled whole-grain flour to feed the levain. As a result, 10% pre-fermented flour was from freshly milled wheat and another 8% freshly milled spelt and 2% freshly milled rye was added to the final dough—so in all, 20% of the flour was freshly milled whole-grains.

To keep a sweet flavour profile in the levain while feeding with freshly milled flour required some changes to the build times. The trick is to keep them short and reasonably warm to maximise yeast growth and expand them well before increased acid build-up occurs. This meant the builds were expanded as soon as they doubled—about three to four hours.

There was a wonderful point as mixing commenced—you could see the whole-grain levain streaking through the dough as it dissolved and finally disappeared. For the remainder of the afternoon the dough sat in bulk and continued on schedule until shaping and retarding overnight in the fridge. A miche and two batards were baked the following morning after a few hours on the bench coming to room temperature.

The crumb and crust were keeping in line with previous pain au levain I have baked but with perhaps a more defined wheat flavour. There isn't a sharp tang but instead a delayed flavour that is quite hard to pinpoint. We took the batards to a Sunday afternoon BBQ where a friend took a bite and exclaimed that "while she had eaten bread before … she had never tasted it until now” … a wonderful quote made all the more poignant when I explained that the bread she was eating was comprised of only flour, water and salt …

… and the tart making continues …

... a berry and ricotta tart for the Sunday afternoon BBQ. A sweet ricotta filling is baked into a tart shell and then cooled. It is then topped with a strawberries and blueberries which have been lightly soaked in caramelised balsamic. A light and bright afternoon tea …

Cheers,
Phil

Two years ago Nat purchased Chad Robertson’s Tartine Bread for my birthday and wrote an inscription on the inside cover … ‘To inspire you’ …

When I want to shake things up in my kitchen and try something different this is the book I turn to. I love the restlessness and pursuit of perfection in the stories. For me, this is its inspiration. It is not a manual and it is not a handbook … it’s the story of a journey.

While I have baked many of the formulas in Tartine Bread over the years I have not experimented enough with Chad’s schedule for maintaining a leaven. This was to be part of my inspiration this week so I converted a portion of my firm levain into a 100% hydration starter fed with 50% freshly milled wheat and 50% plain flour.

The trick is, you see, to catch Chad's leaven at the perfect time. I find this is even more critical for me using fresh milled flour and I have on many occasions had to do an intermediate build to save an over-fermented leaven. And the best (and cheapest) tool I have found for judging leaven readiness? … my nose!

After fermenting in the cool night air the leaven passed both the float and sniff tests (sounds gross) and was then mixed into the dough. Tartine’s sesame loaf uses the basic country bread formula with a cup of toasted unhulled sesame seeds mixed through the dough in the early stages of bulk fermentation.

The slow gentle dough manipulation is relaxing, but I still find it a high maintenance bread to prepare. Keeping temperatures maintained with a small amount of dough over a four period can be tricky during the seasons and the constant attention required for turning the dough can be frustrating. In the end however I was rewarded with subtle dough that shaped easily and bloomed beautifully in a hot oven.

The sesame flavours are subtle. I think Nat was expecting stronger flavours from this bread and was surprised by its sleepy nature. A tablespoon of sesame oil in the dough could be a nice addition without overpowering any of the future flavours that would be stacked on a slice or two.

My miche adventures continue …

My experimentation with creating high extraction flour has moved on to the process of tempering. By slowly adding a controlled amount of moisture to grain over a period of time, the bran will toughen allowing easier (and larger) separation when milling. My process of tempering is high-touch. I don’t own a grain moisture meter so I was extremely careful that the grain was dry to touch before milling.

One percent of water a day was added to the grain over a four day period followed by a final 24 hours rest before milling. Normally I mill cold grains from the fridge but have heard that this can lead to the bran shattering into smaller pieces so I instead milled room temperature grains. I feel like I am a bit stuck with this. The small stones on my mill have a tendency to heat up the flour quite substantially but I do end up with larger pieces of bran and softer flour using this process. Hmmm …

The resulting flour was sifted to 80% extraction in one pass and was not re-milled or re-sifted. A more complicated miche was planned for this bake. I would use a rye starter in addition to my standard levain, plus include a small amount of barley malt extract for flavour and colouring only.

Tempered High Extraction Miche (2 x 2kg miche)

Formula

Method

1. Mix rye sour and leave to ferment for 12 hours at 25°C
2. Mix levain and leave to ferment for 5-6 hours at 25°C
3. Combine flour and water then mix to shaggy consistency - hold back 100 grams of water.
4. Autolyse for one hour.
5. Add levain and rye sour to autolyse then knead (french fold) for five mins. Return the dough to a bowl and add salt and remaining 100 grams of water. Squeeze the salt and water through the dough to incorporate (the dough will separate then come back together smoothly). Remove from the bowl and knead a further 10 mins.
6. Bulk ferment for two hours with a stretch-and-fold half way through. Mine was ready after 1.5 hours … watch the dough!
7. Divide. Preshape. Bench rest 30 mins. Shape into large boules and proof in floured baskets seam side up.
8. Final proof was 1-1.5 hours at 25°C
9. Bake in a preheated oven at 250°C for 10 mins with steam then reduce temperature to 200°C and bake for a further 40 mins. 

One and half hours into a planned bulk ferment of two hours I could tell the dough was ready for division and shaping. Perhaps it was the inclusion of the rye starter, perhaps the malt or perhaps both … either way, the dough was moving fast.

I am becoming braver with both my proofing and handling of these large breads but peeling one into my home oven is still a stressful moment. Our poor little oven does its best to punch it up while I sit and dream of a masonry oven or stone floor deck oven and the results I could achieve.

The sifting method, malt and rye starter created a darker crumb than previous miche but gave the bread a deep flavour that was nicely balanced. I had suspected the rye starter would have a large impact on the flavour but this was not the case at all.

So will I continue to temper grains before milling? I am really not sure. It creates more planning and logistics before a bake. I do end up with softer flour, but the heat generated by the mill really bothers me. I think some experimenting with tempering and using the fridge to cool the grains before milling may be in order.

Cheers,
Phil
p.s. Happy World Bread Day everyone!

I am not sure if things happen for a reason or not, but sometimes pleasant surprises occur and push you in directions different from what you had in mind. These events can be small or epic, but I am sure they are all important in the making of ones life. What I do believe however, is that if you put out a question or an idea to the world and keep it close to your heart it will be answered … one way or another :)

Two weeks ago I really hadn't been giving rye breads much thought apart from reading a couple of articles relating to Chad Robertson’s latest experimentation with rye bread formulas … oh, and I may have been more than a bit obsessed with Lisbeth Salander and the amount of open faced sandwiches she consumed :)

This all changed however on a dreary Saturday afternoon when by chance we stopped by our favourite antique store. To be honest it is more than a store. It’s a warehouse that floods your senses. I can only take it in small doses as there is only so much visual clutter, weird aromas, dust and awful music playing that I can take.

I couldn’t believe it! Sitting on a shelf near the front door was a Danish rye bread slicer. My heart skipped a beat. I had read about them some time ago and even remember sending Nat an email with a picture of one exclaiming something along the lines of, “how cool is this!” It was in lovely condition possessing a blade so sharp that my blood turned cold with the thought of the possible injuries. Needless to say it now lives in our home tucked up on a very high shelf, far from small curious fingers.

In an instant my brain flicked into rye mode, and accompanied by endless cups of tea I spent the next few days obsessively researching and putting together a formula for a Danish inspired rye bread. It seems to me that there is no ‘correct’ way to make a Danish rye so I took elements and methods that appealed most to me and made my own.

The basic idea I had was this: 80% rye flour, lots of grains and seeds, dark beer, malt and the use of a pre-dough that fermented all of this the day before baking. I also wondered whether fermenting the cooked grains and seeds would reduce the amount of phytic acid? Any thoughts?

Danish Inspired Rye (2 x 1650g)

Method

1. The day before, prepare the rye sour (1.) in morning
2. Also in the morning boil 200-300g of rye grains for 30mins then soak for the remainder of the day. (You want to end up with 600g drained weight – I had leftovers which I use in cooking)
3. In the afternoon/evening prepare the pre-dough. Drain soaked grains and combine with rye sour, water and remaining pre-dough ingredients. Stir to combine and then ferment for 16hrs.
4. The next day combine pre-dough with final paste ingredients and mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon for 20-30 minutes (basically stir/mix until tired. Rest then begin stirring again)
5. Scoop into greased and lined tins (mine are 8 x 4 x 4 pullman) and smooth top.
6. I proved them for one and a half hours before covering with lids and placing on a baking stone in an oven preheated to 270°C.
   I immediately dropped the temperature to 200°C and baked them for one hour and 45mins. I removed the breads from the tins and baked them a further 15mins directly on the stone before removing them from the oven.

When the loafs were only slightly warm they were wrapped in plastic then placed in the fridge for what seemed like an eternity. This gave me plenty of time to start delving into the world of Danish open faced sandwiches … Smørrebrød.

Hot spring weather in Australia seems an enormous distance from Denmark but I am now hooked on these flavours. I love dark rye breads. I love butter. And I love the emphasis placed on combining ingredients/decorations that create both visual and culinary pleasures. The bread is a canvas on which to experiment!

The bread I baked is not bitter or sour, but has an assertive flavour that can best be described as meaty, and when topped heavily with simple butter it is a treat unto itself. When I finally emerged from the seemingly endless world of Smørrebrød research I finally settled upon two combinations for my first Smørrebrød—and both began with a layer of butter.

The first had a layer of blue cheese, then a thin slices of crisp green apple rubbed with lemon. It was topped with bacon and dressed with chives. The second was a simpler affair of herrings (unfortunately I could not find pickled herrings so used Dutch ones instead) which was topped with thin slices of red onion and a sprig of dill.

… they were eaten with a knife and fork …

Cheers,
Phil

For the most important years in a young boy’s life I had the good fortune of living next door to my grandparents—perched high on a hill at the very edge of town. I have so many fond memories of these years—watching storm clouds build in the west, a school holiday spent watercolour painting with my grandfather, piano lessons with my grandmother, summer days spent picking grapes, kippers on toast for breakfast, fig jam and fresh grapefruit.

Surrounding their house was a large garden that was not only beautiful but also plentiful. Grapevines across the road, almond trees, stone fruits, a vegetable garden, rhubarb, chokos (chayote … yuk!) fig trees and lining their back fence were citrus and grapefruit trees.

These grapefruit trees are simply incredible. After all these years they still produce a constant stream of fruit and every trip up to my family sees me bringing home large bags brimming with grapefruit and lemons. And to top this off is the fruit from my parents own burgeoning citrus trees.

Back in Brisbane, we hand on as many grapefruit as possible to Nat’s parents and some of our friends but this still leaves us with extra fruit using up valuable fridge space—my first instinct with excess fruit is always to make jam.

You see, I grew up with jam makers—my grandparents always had a steady supply of cumquat marmalade and fig jam topped with wax seals, and I remember many afternoons spent making apricot jam with my mum from boxes of fruit picked out of an orchard behind our house.

My method for grapefruit and lemon marmalade is pretty high-touch. Six grapefruit and six lemons are covered with water in a large pot and boiled until the skin is easily pierced with a skewer. After being taken off the heat the fruit is then left to soak overnight.

The following morning I half the fruit and scoop out the flesh which I place in a muslin cloth to separate out the liquid. The peel is sliced thinly and I combine it with the extracted liquid in a large pot before adding the same weight in sugar. (… or up to one and a half times the weight depending on the sweetness required) I then cook out the marmalade until it wrinkles in a set-test. It is then bottled in sterilized jars and finished with a boiling water bath.

I just adore the play between the sweet and tartness combined with the texture of the peel. Toasted pain au levain and marmalade—breakfast has never tasted better!

We were bringing a treat to morning tea with friends the following day so a few grapefruit and lemons were kept aside. On top of a flaky sweet shortcrust pastry from the Bourke Street Bakery cookbook I put together a citrus tart using lemons and grapefruits. My skill with shortcrust pastry is improving and each result brings further encouragement.

Rest the dough! Work quick! (it’s getting warm in our kitchen) Rest the dough! … and did I mention rest the dough?

Zest from grapefruit and lemons are combined with their juice plus cream, sugar and egg yolks. This filling was a bright delight and I found the grapefruit added an element of interest and to a well-known favourite. Flaky pastry covered the quickly emptied plate.

And amongst all this kitchen activity some bread found its way to the oven—as it does every weekend—and yet again it is my take on Gerard Rubaud’s pain au levain. I am continuing to retard the shaped loaves overnight and then start the next morning with the aroma of fresh baked bread.

A loaf is left out on the bench wrapped snugly in a tea-towel and the remainder are sliced and frozen for use during the week. mmm … marmalade on toast perhaps?

With the kitchen wiped down and clean we relax into the late afternoon. Perhaps a treat?

Cheers,
Phil

Each day I try and find some time to write. It’s a habit I started years ago. And although I am sometimes shuffled along in life, and occasionally forget my place, it's a practice I always return to. It is not so much a diary, more like a snapshot in time and atop of every page I start with a grateful list for that particular moment in time.

So here goes for today:
I am grateful for the phone call from Dennis
I am grateful for a hot coffee next to me
I am grateful for my day off spent with Nat
I am grateful for an amazing find at an antique shop and the idea it spawned for another blog post
I am grateful for the new Grizzly Bear CD

Some of our plans are beginning to burble into life and as we watch where they might flow, many life lessons are being learned—patience, it seems, is lesson number one! These ‘in-between days’ need something special to lift our spirits and help us stop and appreciate our lot in life. These ‘in-between days’ require comfort food.

Our love of fig & anise bread is well known. I have mentioned it in postings here quite a few times, but it is still kept as a rare treat for us. A giddy excitement comes over us as it emerges from the oven—quick fingers pick at caramelized figs oozing from the crust—suddenly breakfast the next morning seems too far away.

The initial inspiration came years ago from the Pearl Bakery’s fig and anise panini formula in Maggie Glezer’s Artisan Baking. Over the years I have tinkered and experimented with ingredients and methods. I have crushed the aniseed, toasted the aniseed, used different varieties of figs, pureed the figs and added walnuts—and do you know what?

I think the ingredients are best left alone. Simplicity wins again it seems.

Fig & Anise levain (2 x 1105g Batards)

Formula

Method

1. Mix levain and leave to ferment for 5-6 hours at 25°C
2. Mill spelt flour and combine with bakers flour.  Mix with water holding back 50 grams of water.
3. Autolyse for 5-6 hours.
4. Add levain to autolyse then knead (french fold) for three mins. Return the dough to a bowl and add salt and remaining 50 grams of water. Squeeze the salt and water through the dough to incorporate (the dough will separate then come back together smoothly). Remove from the bowl and knead a further three mins.
5. Begin Bulk ferment. After 30mins add in dried figs and aniseed. Squeeze through the dough until evenly distributed.
6. Bulk ferment for a further three and half hours untouched.
7. Divide. Preshape. Bench rest 30 mins. Shape into batards and proof in couche seam side up.
8. Final proof was approx 2 hours at 24°C - watch the dough – we had friends over so I watched the dough not the clock as I was easily distracted.
9. Bake in a preheated oven at 250°C for 10 mins with steam then reduce temperature to 200°C for a further 30 mins.

I distinctly remember pre-shaping the dough and commenting on how silky and extensible it felt. The figs draw some of the moisture and the dough feels very easy to handle for a 75% hydration dough. It smells heavenly as it bakes and becomes almost intoxicating when pulled from the oven. This bread never disappoints.

Kids need comfort food from time-to-time and the fig & anise flavours are too much of an acquired taste for them to be excited over—in fact I would say it is almost the opposite reaction. A quick scan of the fridge revealed some egg-whites leftover from a custard tart baked earlier in the week—Meringues!

The Bourke Street Bakery cookbook has an interesting recipe for meringues that involves heating and dissolving the sugar in egg-whites over a bain-marie. This mixture is then beaten to stiff peaks before being rustically dumped onto a tray for baking. I love the visual appeal of this and was further intrigued by an option that called for rolling balls of meringue in cocoa powder. They tasted as good as they looked!

The kids are meringue lovers now—the trick is now to convince them that these crunchy, gooey and delicious puffs are treats only!

Cheers,
Phil

I have baked and baked. Through a long winter I baked. Early mornings in my cold dark kitchen I baked. Every weekend I baked. For my friends I baked. For my family I baked … it was the same bread that I baked.

The fresh smell of spring surrounds us and the star jasmine hanging on our back fence is about to flower and flood our senses further. On our small porch a tomato plant has been busily producing a steady supply of tasty treats. Bruschetta nights have never tasted better. Bushfires colour the air.

With the coming of spring has also come change—unplanned change and unpleasant change—change I must learn to embrace. Our graphic design studio within a government agency has been affected by workplace change and my work colleagues and I have become surplus to requirements. This uncertainty has been ongoing for the past few months and it now seems we finally have some resolution and closure—just in time for the fresh beginnings of spring.

Baking has been a constant throughout this stressful process. Every weekend I would mix large batches of ‘Pain au Levain’ using Gerard Rubaud’s method to share with friends and family. I might perhaps adjust the amount of the freshly milled wholegrain flours in the levain or final dough but I never strayed from the path of consistency.

But consistency requires change. Spring means temperatures have risen (good grief, it is 31°C today). My levain expands quicker and the doughs proof faster—I have to change to adapt.

Spring Levain (4 x 900g batards)

Formula

Method

1. Mix levain and leave to ferment for 5-6 hours at 25°C
2. Mill spelt flour and combine with bakers flour.  Mix with water holding back 100 grams of water.
3. Autolyse for 5-6 hours.
4. Add levain to autolyse then knead (french fold) for three mins. Return the dough to a bowl and add salt and remaining 100 grams of water. Squeeze the salt and water through the dough to incorporate (the dough will separate then come back together smoothly). Remove from the bowl and knead a further three mins.
5. Bulk ferment for four hours untouched—no stretch-and-folds!
6. Divide. Preshape. Bench rest 30 mins. Shape into batards and proof in bannetons seam side up.
7. Final proof was for 1.5 hours at 24°C before being placed in the fridge for 12hrs.
8. Bring dough to room temperature for an hour while oven is preheating. Bake in a preheated oven at 250°C for 10 mins with steam then reduce temperature to 200°C for a further 30 mins.

It makes beautifully simple bread. Unfussy but elegant with a crust that shatters and sings—a silken crumb within.

So I continue to bake—and soon, who knows, maybe I will be baking even more that I could ever imagine :)

This post is dedicated to my amazing Miss Nat who watched over me and carried me through …  thank you XX
Phil

Many more photos get taken than appear on my blog. Picking and choosing is an agonizing task. Sometimes a photo just doesn't fit within the context of the prose but more often than not I have just taken so many photographs that tough compromises need to be made. I have decided to collect an assortment of photos and post them so they may see the light of day. Many will be familiar to readers of my past blog entries.

Please welcome the B-sides Part 1 ...

Cheers,
Phil

Please welcome the B-sides Part 2 ...

Cheers,
Phil 

Please welcome the B-sides Part 3 ...

Cheers,
Phil

What is traditional bread anyway? The more I read, the murkier this question becomes. Steamed golden crusts, curling gringe, high protein flours mixed into sloppy doughs and possibly even salt are a pretty new phenomena in the history of bread – yet they are marketed as ‘traditional’. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to create ‘traditional bread’ but I do like to understand where we came from to get were we are going. I guess I don’t want to get caught up in trends. Saying this however, I do have a particular bent towards French bread. And although I have a fairly limited understanding of bread history I know how much I love the aromas and flavours of my levain─and the French placed a massive importance on baking with a perfectly ripe levain. This resonates with me.

My recent baking with French flours brought home a desire to try and produce flavourful high extraction flour using Australian wheat grains. Again I am using my favourite Australian biodynamic wheat grains courtesy of ‘Four Leaf Milling’. It is a white winter wheat from South Australia with a protein level of 10.9%─full of colour and flavour with just enough strength.

In the past my method for producing high extraction flour was a single pass through my Komo mill on its finest setting then sift through a 20 mesh sieve (I think) and remill the caught material. This was sifted again with the caught material set aside. This would usually only remove 10% of the total weight of flour i.e. 90% extraction. And while this was delicious flour it wasn’t producing the crumb colour that I had in mind. I needed to purchase a finer sieve and I settled upon a 50 mesh Keene classifier and changed my method to a more labour intensive multiple pass milling method.

Method is a loose term though─I started by cracking the grains and sifting the coarsest pieces. This was continued with gradually finer settings on the mill and sifting through finer sieves. Any flour that passed through the 50 mesh was set aside until the end when it was combined with a small amount of the finest milled middlings to build the quantity to the correct weight for an 80% extraction flour.

I was excited even before I used the flour. It was softest, silkiest and most beautifully coloured flour I had ever produced through the mill. Plus it had all the wonderful fragrance of freshly milled flour.

Continuing with my French themed baking of late I decided to bake a miche, fendu (French for split) and batard using the freshly milled high extraction flour. My baking of late has shifted from long bulk ferments to concentrating on short controlled levain builds and mixing dough with larger amounts of pre-fermented flour. The short bulk ferment makes it easier to control temperatures in winter and assists with my goal of sweet tasting bread. At the end of bulk fermenting I was surprised by the balance of extensibility and strength─especially considering it was mixed with freshly milled flour. I named the miche in honour of the town of Tarlee where Four Leaf Milling is based.

Tarlee Miche and French breads (1 x 2kg Miche, 1 x 1kg Fendu, 1 x 1kg Batard)

Formula

Method

1. Mix levain and leave to ferment for 6 hours at 25-26°C
2. Mill and sift flour and allow to cool to room temperature before mixing with water (hold back 50 grams of water) and autolyse for a minimum of one hour.
3. Add levain to autolyse then knead (French fold) 5 mins. Return the dough to a bowl and add salt and remaining 50 grams of water and squeeze through bread to incorporate (dough will separate then come back together smoothly) then knead a further 10 mins.
4. Bulk ferment two hours with a stretch-and-fold after one hour.
5. Divide. Preshape. Bench rest 30 mins. Shape into desired shapes.
6. Final proof was for 2.5 hours at 21°C (this was quite variable – watch the dough)
7. Bake in a preheated oven at 250°C for 10 mins with steam then reduce temperature to 200°C. Miche was baked for a total of 50 min.  The batard and fendu were baked for a total of 40 min.

Cutting the Tarlee Miche in half was an exciting moment for me. It had to be straight down the middle. It couldn’t be cut in from the edge. The edge may give you more open crumb but it’s the centre that tells the whole story of the fermentation and oven-spring. From there it was quartered with half of it staying on the bench and the remainder sliced and frozen for the remaining week. All the loaves had thin dark crusts but this was most noticeable on the Tarlee Miche─possibly the perfect kind of crust to crumb ratio. Inside was slightly golden and sweet and more open than I imagined it would be. There is another photo of me with a huge grin after I had cut the miche ... it said it all.

Biscuits

Kids were kept busy in the kitchen as well. Nat had some very enthusiastic help making and decorating biscuits with lots of finger licking followed by lots of hand washing─this seemed to happen often. After the biscuits were rolled, cut and baked the excitement was taken up a notch as it was decorating time. I can vouch that they tasted even ‘sweeter’ than they look. Needless to say we were hounded for biscuits at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Oh the disappointment when they were declined.

Rosella Jam

A week ago I was baking with Laurie again, this time for the Hampton Food and Arts Festival held outside of Toowoomba. It was a beautiful day and we again sold out of bread by lunch-time much to the regret of late shoppers. While wandering the stalls Nat purchased a small bag of rosella fruit. Rosella shrubs are sometimes called the Queensland jam plant and it is a native of coastal New South Wales and Queensland. It is a versatile plant with both edible fruit and foliage. The fruit is most often made into very popular jams but can also be dried and used in tea making. 

We spent a lazy afternoon peeling fruit and simmering jam for bottling. And the result is a richly coloured jam that could be best described as being similar to plum jam but tarter. Delicious.

I am now laying low with a nasty head cold … no more jam for me until I can taste again─it’s too good to waste!

Cheers,
Phil ** sniffle, sniffle