Day 15. Barberry

Day 15.  Barberry, Berberis vulgare

A few years ago, I came across a small section of a hedgerow with these large shrubs, bearing hanging bunches of delicious looking and brightly coloured red berries.  A quick search on the internet and this looked to be Berberis vulgare, and to double check I took some berries, some photos and set-to crosschecking identification with other people and other sources of information.  Once sure, I tried the berries - arrestingly sour - even more so than sea buckthorn berries!  They are prized in Middle Eastern cuisine - so I persevered and went back to collect many more and try and find a way of using them with chocolate. One of the suggestions I read was that the dried berries can be ground into powder and used instead of Sumac powder.

They are a handsome shrub - and it seems were once common throughout the UK, in hedgerows.  However, they are a host to a wheat rust, and when wheat grew in importance as a crop, the barberry shrubs were grubbed out to protect the crop from the rust.  Nowadays, wheat varieties grown are rust-resistant so maybe it is time for there to be a revival of this lovely shrub in our hedgerows.

I dried them raw and also cooked them before drying, partly to try and manage some of their acidity.  We made some leather with them, and ground them into a dark chocolate which worked wellish, but their acidity overwhelmed the chocolate somewhat.  So, I tried white chocolate - hoping the sweetness and creaminess would temper the sourness of the fruit.  We used Chocolat Madagascar 37% white chocolate for this bar - a very creamy white chocolate, definately counterbalancing the sharpness of the fruit and of course the fruit gives the chocolate the most incredible colour!