This week it is exactly fourteen years since we left London and moved to Hillside. Although a lot has changed since then, this time of year still takes me back very strongly to that week. The sense of excitement as we drove along the ridge above our valley through heavy mist illuminated by a hidden sun. The astonishment of having long views to east and west after the claustrophobia of city skylines. And the magic of lying in bed with a view of sky and the treetops. Morning sun lit up the yellowing foliage of poplar, hornbeam and hazel, on the flank of the opposite hillside. The vista animated by the passage of rooks, crows and ravens, black as voids in the glowing backdrop.
The farmer before us had kept all trees away from the grassland to maximise grazing for his cattle. All that remained were an old holly, an exhausted damson and dying plum. In that first winter, determined to make our own mark on the landscape and eager to get a head start on growing food to eat, we planted our westernmost field with an extensive orchard of apples, pears, plums, gages and damsons. However, it was another two years before we got the long planned for nuttery planted, and we wished we had done it sooner, as the hazels were so slow to get away. Seven varieties were chosen, both cobnuts and filberts, with three or four of each variety, to make a total of twenty four trees. Their rate of growth was a little dispiriting for several years. In fact, some varieties looked as though they might fail, but now, twelve years later, all of them are thriving and threatening to burst through their tree guards next year.
The primary challenge with the hazels is timing the harvest to beat the voracious squirrels. Filberts, (the name for cultivated hazels which produce longer, narrower nuts completely covered by the papery husk, as opposed to cobnuts which are rounder and have a shorter husk) are named after St. Philibert, whose saint’s day is August 20th, after which hazelnuts are deemed ready to start harvesting. However, the squirrels are quite happy to eat their nuts green and for a number of years, when the trees were young and their crops light, we found that they had beaten us to it and got the lot.
Two years ago in early August and in an attempt to beat the squirrels, I persuaded our friend, Paul, to come nut picking with me in a torrential downpour. Fortunately hazelnuts are quick to harvest, as a few weeks later I discovered that, although the green shells had turned brown, the nuts inside were not developed and the effort had been wasted. So last year and this I made a concerted effort to pick in early September, which has paid off. The benefit of having as many trees as we do is that, if you get the timing right, there is plenty for us and the critters. However, just a week can make the difference between feast and famine. I put ours in a single layer in plastic trays and allow them to ripen naturally in the late summer sun. As soon as they are uniformly brown in colour, which only takes a week or so, I move them indoors. Kept out of the way of rodents in a dry, dark place, hazelnuts keep well for a year or more. As rich, complex and perfumed as the best hazelnuts from Perugia, once you have eaten a homegrown nut you will never be satisfied with a shop bought one again.
When you cook with homegrown cobnuts recipes take longer, as they must be shelled, but this is a satisfying and meditative process, which puts you directly in contact with your ingredients. The nuts for this recipe took me 30 minutes to shell this morning, but as I shelled them I pondered the growth cycle of the trees, the amount of time it takes from their winter flowering to their late summer harvest and the processes required to make them edible. Slowing down the process of preparing and cooking food like this initiates a deep appreciation of the time things take to grow, harvest and prepare and gives you an understanding of the real value of food and those who grow it for us.
4 eggs
250g hazelnuts
200g honey
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
75g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
50g unsalted butter
½ teaspoon ground mace
A pinch of salt
2 semi-ripe pears
2 tablespoons of honey, to glaze
Set the oven to 180°C.
Generously butter a 24 cm round springform cake tin.
Put the hazelnuts into a baking dish and toast in the oven for 5 to 8 minutes until deep, golden brown. Check regularly to avoid scorching. Remove and allow to cool.
Retain 50g of whole hazelnuts and crush coarsely in a mortar. Using a Nutribullet or similar finely grind the remainder. Do not grind for too long or you will end up with nut butter. Transfer to a bowl. Sift in the flour and baking powder, add the mace and mix well.
Put the butter into a small pan and melt over a medium heat. Leave on the heat until the butter foams and the solids turn deep brown. Put to one side and allow to cool, but not resolidify.
Separate the eggs. In a bowl whisk the yolks with the honey and vanilla essence until pale and frothy and doubled in volume.
In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites with the salt until they form soft peaks.
Add the dry ingredients to the yolk mixture, pour in the brown butter and stir gently to combine.
Gradually add the egg whites a few spoonfuls at a time, gently folding in after each addition.
Carefully pour the batter into the cake tin.
Slice the pears in half and core them. Using a sharp knife slice the pears vertically without separating them at the stalk end. Gently fan them out in the palm of your hand and then place on the top of the cake batter. Scatter the retained crushed hazelnuts on any exposed batter between the pears.
Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until just cooked. The cake will continue to cook as it cools.
Just before the cake is ready, heat the two tablespoons of honey in a small pan. Immediately after removing the cake from the oven brush the honey all over the top.
Leave to cool in the tin before removing the tin and transferring to a serving plate.
Recipe and photographs: Huw Morgan
Published 2 November 2024
