Weekend Sport, Fungi And A Few Intoxicated Plums

This past weekend was fairly quiet although two exciting sports events kept us occupied for several hours every day. We spent the afternoons listening to the Ashes cricket series between Australia and England. Unfortunately, Australia lost, but it did come down to the 2nd last day of the deciding game. During the nights we kept an eye on the golf channel and the Solheim Cup that was being played in Illinois. The competition was even every day up to the last day when the USA was victorious.

Although there are a few yellow leaves around, the good summer weather is continuing. The wild roses have almost stopped blooming now and are forming colourful rosehips. The nights are also cooler and some mornings the bay is hidden by a layer of mist. On Tuesday, while walking to Pasila library, I came across these huge white mushrooms.

Initially, I thought they were White Chanterelles (Cantharellus subalbidus), but then I decided they were too big to be Chanterelles. Most descriptions I can find on Chanterelle mushrooms state the size of the cap to be from 3cm to 15cm. The large mushrooms in this group were as big as dinner plates stretching from about 24cm to 30cm. I will continue with my efforts in trying to identify them.

It has been a good summer for discovering mushrooms and fungi and my portfolio of pictures is growing fast. These coral mushrooms were growing under the pine trees in the Helsinki University Arboretum.

I am still trying out berry recipes but plums are in abundance too, so I decided to make a recipe I have had for ages and never tried. A plum tart with a creamy liqueur flavoured custard. There are many different types of plums for sale, but for this tart I decided to use the standard large round, dark red plums.

Plum Tart with Creamy Drambuie Custard

1 Cup or 150g Unbleached Flour
3ml Baking Powder
50g Soft Butter
75g Castor Sugar
1 Egg Yolk

1 Tablespoon Drabuie or Liqueur of your choice
1-2 Tablespoons Warm Water
8-10 Dark Plums

For the Custard:
100ml Milk
1 Tablespoon Sugar, or to taste, depending on the sweetness of the liqueur you may be using

1 Egg Yolk
1 Tablespoon Drambuie or Liqueur of your choice

• Prepare a cake or square tart pan. I used a springform cake pan to make it easy to take the tart out after baking and cooling.
• Preheat the oven to 180 C.
• Sift the flour and baking powder.
• Add the soft butter, sugar, egg yolk, 1 tablespoon water and liqueur and work into a dough.
• Add an extra spoonful of water if necessary.
• Roll out the pastry to fit the bottom of the cake pan.
• Cut the plums in half, remove the stones. Place the plums, cut-side down on the pastry base.
• Bake for approximately 20 minutes.
• Let it cool in the pan.

While it is baking – make the custard

• Heat some water in a medium saucepan.
• Whisk the egg yolk, sugar and liqueur in a small saucepan and place it over the warm water.
• Continue whisking while slowly adding the milk and simmer till it thickens to a runny custard.
• Set aside and let it cool.

Remove the cooled tart from the pan or divide into servings.
It can be sprinkled with icing sugar before serving with the custard.