Chocolate 'Basque' Cheesecake

Along with thirteen dogs, nasturtium capers and picking plums

With hands buried deep in the glorious tumble of the pale green leaves and stems of the nasturtiums as they clamber and fall down over the edges of the neat wooden boxed lines of the oak-framed raised beds, their flowers a mixture of crimson red, burnt orange and peach, smudged and streaked with the laughter of nature. I try not to think too hard about what else might dwell in these great tangles of stems and buds where my hands are immersed as I pluck one by one the little seed pods that are beginning to swell. After removing two great big spiders from my house this last week, both at night when all was nearly in darkness, but something troubled the symmetry in my line of sight, it would be fitting to pull my hand out of the twisted knots of nasturtiums to find something with eight legs scurrying along my arm, but all is in my mind it seems.

Nasturtium seeds

These little green seed pods with their curious ridges, tightly bundled together in clusters that I’ve picked this morning, waiting to be brined for a night, and then pickled with hot spiced vinegar to then sit in glass jars along with the other bits and pieces that I keep in the larder.

With two little dogs, from the thirteen hounds of various shapes and sizes, ranging from a few kilos in weight to over eighty kilos of Great Dane that I also make nice things for every day, I walk down to visit the plum trees. Marjorie Seedling, dark, soft plums, almost ripe, that hang in deep purple bunches, almond-shaped, dusty almost, with the occasional drop of crystallised juice on their skin where a wasp took a bite, deliciously sweet. Far too early I think, but ripe all the same. Biting into the dark powdery skin, the flesh stained red where its aureate pulp meets the purple exterior. Deeply golden, full of juice that I wipe away with my forearm as a sticky slick, the stone I flick deep into the Sedge grass, perhaps one day to grow and stand tall to compete with the other trees in the orchard. Behind this gnarled, lichen-encrusted tree, a grey skeletal feathering covers the branches, climbing from the trunk to the tips of its boughs, stands a low-hanging plum tree, a Yellow Pershore. Surprisingly ripe with its blushed, butterscotch teardrops that hang heavy above me. I shall wait one more week before picking them, another few warm days to bathe in the quiet sunshine that will ensure that the sugars are at their sweetest. For this early harvest, I’m minded to make small deep cuts in each fruit with a stout paring knife, to twist and remove the stone from inside and dry them as prunes in the sun if indeed the weather Gods will allow such folly.

Plum season

Otherwise, it’s off to the dehydrator to shrivel and sweeten.

It feels a little puzzling that these two trees are ready so early in the year but then with that oddity comes the fortune of ripe fruit.

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Last week

Another week that has passed, days where I baked sourdough loaves, laminated scones enriched with layers of sharp cheddar and butter and a dice of pickles. I have preserved mackerel in vinegar, put away heads of baby artichokes ‘sott’olio’, steamed slices of thinly sliced beetroot and their leaves with a scattering of fennel seeds and a good pour of rose vinegar. I have harvested onions, pointed cabbages and a small basket of Jersey royals, and found bushes of wild raspberries growing in the woods in a spot that no one knows of. Baguettes made with sourdough and dark rye slashed and then floured, baked on stones till bursting with golden crusted ears. Trout fillets, cut from the whole fish, painstakingly pin-boned, rubbed with a sweet cure, then smoked over oak until firm to the touch. Poultry rubbed with wild garlic salt, bright green and fine, then roasted in butter till the skin is crisp, rested and sliced then finished with capers.

Breadmaking

Chewy bagels, made with L, (a very smart nine year old who makes all sorts of breads with me), a fermented dough, left overnight, deftly rolled with a technique that she’s learned, placed onto trays, rested again then poached in malted water then baked. Some dipped in poppy seeds, some in sesame, the crusts dark and chewy, perfect with cold cream cheese and a slice of cold smoked trout, and for something sweet a Basque cheesecake, a chocolate one, baked for twenty minutes, rippling precariously as I take it from the oven, cooled and left to set. Cold and wobbly when sliced, with only a spoonful of sour cream to sit next to it on the plate.

Here below is the recipe.

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Dark chocolate ‘Basque’ Cheesecake

Baked in a paper in a hot oven as its cousin but without the burnt top. You might think it a little too wobbly when you take it from the oven, but you must have patience and faith.

If you don’t stray from the recipe it will work just fine.