Background notes to some of the flavours

Sometimes the flavours that we use are more unusual than others and when I am talking to people about the chocolates, I realise that I am able to answer some of those questions - such as 'what exactly is Sea Buckthorn?' As I have decided against filling the chocolate boxes with wordy descriptions of ingredients (after all - most people only really want the chocolates...), I thought I could add a page on the website for those who want just a little bit more information. So this is it; please get back in touch with me if you have any questions or comments - I would love to hear from you.

Beech nuts or beech mast: Fagus sylvatica

I have heard that in lean times people used to make flour out of beech nuts; having spent the last few weeks gathering enough nuts to put in the chocolates I have wondered how energy and time efficient that could have been; they take hours to pick and process, fiddly little things that they are! However, once toasted they are a delight - a gorgeous roast chestnutty flavour. So the red squirrels need not worry, I have gathered only a few handfuls of their winter fare, and will only be including beech nuts as a flavour in November.

Sea Buckthorn:Hippophae rhamnoides

We picked the berries for this flavour on a magnificantly clear and calm October day, at an idyllic beach on East Lothian. We had gone to find some waves to continue our family quest to learn to surf, and thwarted (as so often seems to happen to us) by the flat sea, we spent a wonderful afternoon on the beach, with very good friends, just walking, chatting, reading the papers. Sea buckthorn is an amazing plant that we first became aware of in Nepal, where its berries were renowned as having more Vitamin C than any other fruit and where it was a valuable plant for feeding goats as it grows at a very high altitude. We were amazed to find that it grows so well in a coastal sandy environment here in the UK - so different ecologically from the Himalayan mountains. However, its berry is as sour and as Vitamin C rich here as it was there. It has a really strong 'tropical' flavour to it that persists when cooked. Looking up Sea Buckthorn on Wikipedia I was amazed to read that it is now classed as a superfood due to its high levels of anti-oxidants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_buckthorn). And just in case anyone reads the notes on that site about gathering the berries - yes they are really difficult to pick, but I can assure you that we did not resort to cutting branches off!

Atholl Brose

This is a traditional Scottish drink combining oatmeal, whisky and honey, often with the addition of cream. When I first came upon the drink many years ago, I was initially told that the name came from the Duke of Atholl favouring this drink for his breakfast every day!  However, in fact the more widely recorded version is far more interesting.  It is said that the recipe dates from 1475, when Iain MacDonald, Lord of the Isles, was fleeing under sentence of death.  He was pursued by the Earl of Atholl, who found out where the fugitive was hiding in the hills, and also learned that he was drawing his water from a small well. The cunning Earl of Atholl ordered that the well be filled with a mixture of whisky, honey, herbs and oatmeal; lingering to sample this fabulous combination meant that MacDonald was captured.

Seville oranges

January for me holds the special treat of making marmalade; I adore the rich, bitter smell that fills the house as seville oranges bubble away in the kitchen. I excitedly thought that flavouring a ganache with the zest of these amazing oranges would capture some of that aroma; I have to say that I was a little surprised and disappointed with the result when January finally came around and I could source these briefly available gems. However, although it was not as 'marmaladey' as I had hoped - it is intensely orange and much more so than with normal sweet orange zest.

There is a really informative page on the Waitrose website about seville oranges and their uses beyond marmalade, so rather than repeat all that here, just follow this link http://www.waitrose.com/food/celebritiesandarticles/ingredients/0701084.aspx

Lapsang Souchong

I was looking for a smoky flavour for mid winter, and wondering how to do this, when I happened to walk into a wonderful tea and coffee shop in Perth called The Bean Shop (www.thebeanshop.com). Reading their leaflet about all their different teas I was reminded that Lapsang Souchong is flavoured with wood smoke, and wondered whether that would pass the desired smokiness onto the chocolates. Lapsang Souchong is a black tea from the Fujian province of China. The tea leaves have been withered over pine or cedar fires, pan-fired, rolled and oxidized before being fully dried in bamboo baskets over burning pine. 

In popular legend it is claimed that the smoking process was discovered by accident.  During the Qing dynasty, an army unit passing through the area camped in a tea processing facotry that was filled with fresh leaves awaiting processing.  When the soldiers left and the workers could get back into the premises, they realized that to arrive at market in time, it was too late to dry the leaves in the usual way. So they lit open fires of pine wood to hasten the drying. Not only did the tea reach the market in time, but the smoked pine flavour created a new tea flavour.

Juniper: Juniperus communis

Sometime called mountain yew, juniper is a hardy low-growing tree found in mountainous and hilly areas. It is thought to have been used as a flavouring since the Stone Age, and has also been considered to have various medicinal properties since medieval times. It was one of the aromatic herbs used to flavour whisky, and more famously as a flavouring for gin. Indeed in the 19th century, sacks full of berries were sent to markets in Aberdeen and Inverness, for exporting to Holland to make gin. All parts of the tree were believed to have the power to ward off evil; for example in Sutherland, teething rings for babies were made from juniper wood to protect the babies from harm. See The Scots Herbal, by Tess Darwin, for more information about juniper and its history in Scotland.

The berries that we use in our chocolates are picked on Kenmore Hill; they are fiddly and difficult to pick especially as the foliage is quite spiky! However, you do not need many to get a lovely flavour, and when combined with the chocolate creates a wonderful fresh flavour - like the smell of a frosty winter day.

Breadalbane rose

I am not sure of the origin of this rose, but it is a really beautiful old fashioned pink or creamy white rambling rose that is locally known as Breadalbane. It has quite a delicate leaf habit and the rose in my garden is a beautiful dusky pink, with a rich old fashioned fragrance. The ganache is flavoured with petals from the rose itself, picked still warm with the July midday sun.

Blaeberry: Vaccinium myrtillus

Blaeberries have been eaten in Scotland for ever - staining fingers and lips for thousands of years! The blaeberries that we use are picked on Kenmore Hill - and this year (2008) has been a particularly good year for them - some approaching the size of the cultivated ones you find in the shops. The plant has also been used as a dye - although to fix that lovely purple you need an alum mordant; it is very versatile though and depending on the mordant can give you blue, violet, red brown or green.

Meadowsweet: Filipendia ulmaria

According to Tess Darwin's 'The Scots Herbal', the name meadowsweet is derived from its use to flavour mead rather than it's contribution to sweet smelling meadows; however, it is now more popularly recognised for the sweet heady scent that it contributes to meadows and hedgerows on warm summer afternoons. The fragrance is quite hard to pin down, and can veer on the side of unpleasant to some; however, when mixed with white chocolate it seems to have an aniseedy quality that is really delicious. It has been used as a flavouring since Bronze Age or before, but also has an important medicinal history; it contains salicylic acid, an ingredient of aspirin, and has been used to treat malaria, fevers and headaches. Its Gaelic name is Chuchulainn and is derived from the story that the legendary warrier of that name was treated with meadowsweet baths to cure uncontrollable fits of rage or fever.

Walnuts: Juglans sp

There are walnut trees growing just outside my husband's office in Dunkeld, and he has discovered that fresh walnuts have an amazing creamy, soft texture and flavour. They are difficult to process - the hard shell is covered with black soft skin, which needs to be removed; then once inside the shell the kernel is covered in thi skin that is bitter and needs to be carefully peeled away. It is this paper thin covering that dyes your fingers black as you handle it - and dyes them black for days!

Sloe blossom: Prunus spinosa

I recently attended an interesting meeting about Non-timber Forest Products, held at the Birnam Institute organisaed by Reforesting Scotland and the Forestry Commission. Amongst the very interesting folk there was a Miles Irving, a Forager, and we had a great hour in the afternoon hearing about his business and his enthusiasm for wild food harvesting (see www.forager.org.uk). When asked what he was gathering at the moment (this was in April) he mentioned Sloe blossom, which he said has an amazing bitter almond flvaour when infused in cream. So before the May rain brought down the local blossom, I had a play and sure enough - it does have a wonderful bitter almond flavour; it is necessary to get the balance right - too little and there really is no flavout - too much and you begin to think of cyanide in Sherlock Holmes stories - but get it right and it is fantastic. I am working on using it to flavour white chocolate thins, as I do with the meadowsweet.

Scots pine: Pinus sylvestris

Scots pine is a native tree and the ancient Caledonian pinewoods once covered much of Scotland, so the tree has featured for a long time in Scots myth, history and daily lives. It is a very resony tree - its Gaelic name is giubhas or juicy tree - and so was really important as a source of light during winter - long thin resinous sticks being used as 'candles'. It is the young green shoots that I use to flavour the chocolates - picked early in their growth they are not too resiny, and have a lovely fresh flavour.

Raspberries and strawberries

As I am sure you know, Tayside and Angus are famous for 'berries' and we only use locally sourced raspberries and strawberries in our chocolates. I chanced upon a delightful Pick Your Own farm just outside Perth earlier this week - I had a two hour wait for someone at Scone, and had passed the sign for the farm on the way down, and as it was a lovely morning I thought I would usefully spend that time picking fruit - if the farm was open. Up a little winding track and into the low hills south of Scone and you come to Mill of Montague Farm, run by James Watson and family. It is wonderful - no huge polythene greenhouses - just small fields of strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, currants, peas, lettuces and more. Go to http://www.berryscotland.com/farmshops.htm#JMWatson for directions and opening times