What should I do with black raspberries?

Bought some black raspberries at Green City yesterday.

I could make a cobbler. I could make a custard tart with them on top. But maybe someone has an even better idea...

You'll probably get some great ideas from the folks here.

And, you may have already thought of this. When I have an ingredients and I want something new, I go to a search engine and type in [ingredient(s)] recipe.

I'm always amazed at what comes up. I often don't use those recipes, but they give me great ideas. It's often fun when I have two disparate ingredients - see who has found an interesting way to put them together.

Enjoy them. They sound delicious.

Actually, I did that and was surprised at how little came up for black raspberries specifically.

Aren't black raspberries pretty much interchangable with red raspberries in recipes?

It's a good question! Who knows?

A custard tart sounds good. I know someone whose favorite preserves are the black raspberry variety made by St. Dalfour. Maybe you could prep some of what you picked up for future servings of toast...

Eat them out of hand

Make jam (be sure to add some acid if you can it, they are not very acid) or a soft topping for ice cream

Muffins with streusel on top (mmmmm)

Ice cream!

leek wrote:Eat them out of hand

Agree with this. Don't see the point in cooking fresh berries.

You could make a zabaglione for them if you really want to cook something.

Raspberries are one of the best (if not the best) fruits for freezing, especially if you can do on a tray, so the berries do not clump.

It may seem like a waste, but come February 08 when it's bananas and keeper apples, you'll thank me

Before the addition, I had a large stand of black razzes (I moved a couple canes, no fruit yet this year).

The best thing I ever did with them was make sorbet, just slightly sweetened (I may have added some lime zest and juice for balance). The ones I grew were very seedy so I ran them through a food mill to juice them. It made a dark purple, intensely flavored treat.

I'm envious. I grew up eating black raspberries off of wild vines on my parent's farm and never seen them for sale in Chicago. Are they normally available at the Green Market?

Although my preference has always been to eat them as is, my mom would typically make jam out them as well, which is quite tasty.

As for being interchangeable with red raspberries, I suppose you could use them in a similar recipes, but I don't think that they really taste all that similar. I love black raspberries, but I find red raspberries barely worth eating.

No, I bought them partly because I hadn't seen them elsewhere there.

Two ideas:

1) A few weeks ago, I made this recipe by Gale Gand I found on the Food Network site for Strawberry-Rhubarb Slump:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes ... src=search

It was really good and I bet you could substitute black raspberries for strawberries. You could also do a side-by-side slump with the last strawberries of the season (which would make a nice color contrast). I used vanilla ice cream from Bobtail instead of the whipped cream.

2) I made a strawberry semifreddo last week with some berries from Nichols Farms. Served it with a lavender shortbread cookie--both of those are really easy to make. I use Mario Batali's Meyer Lemon Semifreddo recipe and, what I did with the strawberries--which would work for the raspberries the same--is just substitute raspberry for anything lemon, mashing up the raspberries to varying degrees to get some juice and some texture. I also reserved some raspberries for a sauce, slightly sugared and salted them, and poured over the top. Recipe available at:

http://www.babbonyc.com/dolci-lemonsemi.html

You could also just make the lemon semifreddo and do a raspberry sauce instead of the suggested huckleberry sauce.

Gale Gand conveniently has a lavender shortbread cookie recipe online, which looks a lot like the one I use:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes ... src=search

cjk

Mike,

Last week, I made the Blueberry Crumb Cake from Maida Heatter's Book of Great Desserts for the first time (Now I want to try it with nectarines) and was pretty pleased with the results. Buttery lemon-vanilla scented cake, berries melting into the cake like a good muffin, and crumbly streusel topping with walnuts.

What could be better with your morning cup of coffee?

Wash 'em, put a tiny bit of sugar on them, mix them up, wait 30 mins and put on the absolutely very best cream you can get. EAT!

Yum!

Geo

Last year we had a discussion about berries, and English summer pudding proved to be a good option. Josephine kicked off the discussion with a discovery of currants, but raspberries are a key component -- and research turned up lots of recipes that used other berries, though raspberries were the most common.

Here's the thread:
http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.ph ... er+pudding

Another vote for summer pudding, especially since you can get red currants right now.

I'll second ice cream. I have great childhood memories of eating black raspberry ice cream at Peacock's. We'd beg mom and dad to go there nightly.

I also freeze black raspberries and bought so many last year I still had some this spring. I made a rhubarb fool and spooned it over the berries then topped with a few. I used the berries frozen and they they thawed by the time I served dessert. Wow, fresh rhubarb with the berries was a great combo and, as they're not in season at the same time, couldn't have done it without frozen berries.

I also love black raspberry jam but rely on others to put up the fruit. I hate canning.

I haven't looked for them this year but last year got tons at the Oak Park farmers market.

Now that others have commented, I do remember the best sorbet I've ever had. My friend just bought a new house and in the summer she had oodles of raspberries. She brought them over and we made a sorbet with some cred wine in it (could have been Merlot).

I have no idea what it was, but I've never surpassed that taste explosion since. I made one with frozen berries a few months ago. It was very good, but nothing like that one made with fresh berries.

Don't know if it's your thing, but what about making liqueur?

Sprinkle with Minus Eight vinegar and enjoy. I would mix in some peaches if you could get nice ones, blueberries strawberries and even nectarines would also mix well. If no Minus Eight, a soak in Moscato or sweet reisling would also make a a nice summer salad.

Gypsy Boy wrote:Don't know if it's your thing, but what about making liqueur?

I've never done any of this with raspberries, black or red, but the last time I had a ton of blackberries, I did three things: jam, ice cream, and liqueur. They all came out great. The jam was, well, yummy jam. The liqueur was possibly the smoothest I've ever made. The ice cream was not only delicious, but a beautiful color, as I bet one made with black raspberries would be.

Has anyone suggested black raspberry shortcake? Make some nice fluffy biscuits, split them, and fill with the berries and whipped cream. On reflection, that's what I would do.

Diannie wrote:I'll second ice cream. I have great childhood memories of eating black raspberry ice cream at Peacock's.

One of the few foods I really miss from Cincinnati: black raspberry chocolate chip ice cream from Graeter's I can't find a copycat recipe, but I know it's a custard ice cream base, and they use the same chocolate that they sell in the store as truffles, etc. If you make it, PM me, I'll be there!

Inspired by MikeG's post, I picked up some black raspberries at the Green City Market on Saturday. But it was too nice a day to be in the kitchen, and besides, I can't really polish off a pie by myself. So I made this:



All you need is a split Bennison's croissant (also available at Green City Market or at Bennison's in Evanston), black raspberries, and whatever other fruit you like (I used locally foraged red currants and market-bought blueberries). Spread the split croissant with Double Devon Cream (alas, not remotely local, but delicious all the same.) Sprinkle with berries and brown sugar. Lemon curd might be nice as well, if you have some.

Happily, I found that the croissant delivered all the buttery goodness of a pie crust, without all the fuss. Just promise me you won't tell Sandra Lee about this.

Ahhh...I was wondering if anyone would mention using clotted cream...yum!

For a quick and easy snack (that the kids can help with) you could get some clear small disposable cups. Fill with the vanilla yogurt...then add the berries. Last you crunch an oatmeal cookie in a baggie until it's in small bits. Then place the cookie bits on top of the berries.

my little girl just loves making (and eating) these. They're pretty good too

dan

Well, that's what I did with about half of them. A simple custard, studded with the nice jammy black raspberries. I agreed with the general consensus here that all they asked for was a bit of cream at most.

Other half eaten as is. All good. Thanks all.