Sour yet satisfying

Hello my loyal readers!

Today (finally!!) is the time for some sour action. I spotted this amazing recipe from a bit older Finnish cooking book and thought I''d give it a try. I remember having this big bush of goose berries in our back yard for many years ago. The berries were tasty but unfortunately I wasn't a fan of any kind of sour berries back then. Therefore when I saw this recipe I was surprised. I have never seen any recipe using these berries. So let's get started!

For the crust you need:

150g (5 oz) Flours

100g (3,5 oz) Butter

50g (1,8 oz) Sugar

1 Egg yolk

1/2 the insides of an vanilla pod (I left it out since I didn't have one)

The filling:

700g (24,7 oz) Goose berries

1,25dl (1/2 cup) Water

200g (7 oz) Sugar

60g (2 oz) Potato Flours

40g (1,4 oz) Peeled and grated almonds (I was confused by this so I just used almond groats)

On top:

3 Egg whites

150g (5 oz) Sugar

+ 26cm (~10 inch) cake tin

First I did some serious cleaning up for those berries before the baking began. I can assure that it took me longer then awhile to do that! :D Then I mixed up the ingredients for the pie, wrapped the dough into foil and put it in the fridge to settle for 30 mins. After cooling down and letting the butter to harden it is noticeably easier to work with. So therefore I rolled the dough into a little bit bigger circle than the cake tin and put it in there. Before the filling, the crust had to be precooked in the oven (200°C, 400F) for 10 mins. Naturally cover the crust with greaseproof paper and put some dried peas on top of it to hold it down.

Next up there was the filling. By following the pictures you can see what I did. So first off, I boiled up the water and the sugar. The added the berries into it and let it boil in the medium heat for 15 mins. After boiling them, get the berry liquid and heat it up again. At this point, dissolve the potato flours into the tiny amount of cold water and then add it to the boiling juice. When the liquid starts to precipitate add the berries and almonds. I have to admit that it was pretty scary. I remember what happened with that corn starch so there was reason to panic! Hahah.

Anyways, everything turned out better and I was ready to spread the filling on the crust.

When the filling has cooled down enough it is time to create the beautiful mask for the lady! Froth the egg whites and add the sugar little by little to it. I followed the books picture, which came out perfectly the same, but you can always be creative when decorating cakes!

Bake the cake in 190°C (375F) for 20 mins until the meringue gets some color.

This is actually as easy as it looks, and I was very happy about the outcome! The meringue was a bit undercooked despite the color but it didn't ruin the taste. Even the almond bits were a nice plus since there was something to actually chew on. For this one I'd give 8/10 since I'm still not a big fan of sour food. :P

Thank you for your time and hopefully we'll see again soon chicsters!