Gooseberries! Share your recipes!

[stormylee]

My very favourite thing about our new house is the fact that we now have black currant bushes, red currant bushes, an apple tree, rhubarb... and gooseberry bushes! And gooseberries are now ripe for picking...



...green gooseberries (a green variety, that is, not unripe gooseberries!)...



... and purple gooseberries...

I love gooseberries, and while we mostly eat them as-is, I'm always looking for new ways to use them in recipes, too. Muffins, pies and cobblers - all good! This year, a few new ideas...

First off, daraeve's amazing Gooseberry Squares.

Such simple ingredients produce absolutely delicious bars that really highlight the goodness that is gooseberries! This will be a gooseberry season staple for me. (The photo in no way does the bars justice, mind!!)

We also decided to try and make gooseberry liqueur this year - berry liqueurs are good, gooseberries are good, so how could gooseberry liqueur be anything but good? Here are the ingredients in the jar, all shook up!



Will let you know how this turns out in a month or three...

[Dreamer in Ontario]

Fruit flan using stewed gooseberries as the filling

[stormylee]

Dreamer in Ontario wrote:
Fruit flan using stewed gooseberries as the filling

Oh I like the sound of that! Stewed gooseberries and custard or a sweet cream cheese layer...

[Dreamer in Ontario]

You can dry them, too. Use them anywhere you would normally use raisins.

[stormylee]

Great minds think alike! I was just thinking that myself as I was explaining gooseberries to a friend who's never had them and said they are like grapes: tough skin and soft, seedy interior!

[stormylee]

Gooseberry liqueur ready to be bottled! It's already so, soo good (the vanilla bean added such a nice touch!), and I'm sure it'll get even better after ageing a little further in the bottle. It turned out quite cloudy - we were quite frankly too impatient to strain it but will try straining it next year!



I've also got blueberry liqueur, black currant liqueur and apple liqueur ageing in the basement. We went a bit liqueur crazy with this year's harvest!