Feel the force
Brighten your day by treat yourself to some delicious forced rhubarb and make a delicous dessert that will have you dreaming of summer.
Hello friends
I hope you have had a good week. I have had a lovely muscial week with lots of singing ( 2 choir rehearsals) and a charity station gig 2 hours of belting out non stop pop songs and hopefully raising lots of money for Cancer Research. I love singing as part of a group and love the friendships I have made as a result of being in not one but two choirs. Its almost as good for the soul as baking!
In the kitchen I am delighted to have been able to get some forced rhubarb. In the summer we often have more rhubarb than we can eat from our patch at the allotment but I still love to get hold of forced rhubarb if I can because I love the stuff. You might have noticed I have a fair few rhubarb recipes on the blogs.
Forced rhubarb is highly coveted by chefs and foodies for its superior flavour and colour.
Forced rhubarb, unlike traditional outdoor-grown rhubarb, which is harvested in the spring and summer month is in season from `january to late march. Personally I love it for its taste of summer in the middle of winter.
Commercially forced rhubarb is grown outside for two years before be lifted after the first frost and transferred into heated forcing sheds where it is then grown in the dark.
The result is rhubarb that grows quickly and is sweeter and more tender than its summer counterpart and has a bright pink or red skin the colour of which is absorbed into the white flesh during cooking.
Yorkshire rhubarb growers claim the Rhubarb Triangle produces the best roots in the world because of the area’s soils and micro-climate. Indeed the area known as the Yorkshire triangle, the area between Morley, Wakefield and Rothwell, is a protected designation of origin (PDO), meaning that only rhubarb grown within the triangle can be marketed as "Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb".
Yorkshire Forced rhubarb began in 1877, the first place in the world to construct special forcing sheds. And West Yorkshire once produced 90% of the world’s winter forced rhubarb.
Forced rhubarb production saw its heyday around 1940s, when there were hundreds of farms within the Rhubarb Triangle.
In the late 1960′s and early 1970′s, fields which had been used to grow rhubarb were developed into housing as they were very close to urban areas and now there are just a handful of 12 growers.
It’s important to keep the light away because otherwise the rhubarb starts to produce chlorophyll which takes the sugar out of the roots and into the leaves. This is why in yorkshire it is still harvested by candle light. The stalks are carefully cut by hand, leaving the roots intact so that they can produce more rhubarb the following year. Once harvested, forced rhubarb is packed and shipped to markets and restaurants around the world.
So having got my hands on some now seemed a great time to share one of my favourite recipes which is best made with forced rhubarb. Orange posset with rhubarb compote. I hope you enjoy it.
Until next time have a delicious week
Orange Posset with Rhubarb Compote
Orange posset with rhubarb compote is a delicious and eye catching dessert that is super easy to make and it looks and tastes amazing!
