Tag: plant

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Wild Sage Madeira Cake

Wild Sage Madeira Cake

This delicious lemony cake with hints of sage will fill you with warmth on a wintery day!
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Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 50 minutes
Course Dessert
Servings 10 People

Ingredients
  

  • 200 g Plain Flour
  • 1 tsp Baking Powder Or use self raising flour instead.
  • 2 Lemons (unwaxed) zested with juice saved.
  • 150 g Butter Softened
  • 75 g Granulated Sugar
  • 75 g Granulated Golden Sugar
  • 4 Free Range Eggs
  • 150 g Icing Sugar
  • 1 Sprig Wild Sage Flowers you can use any flower you like, crystallized if you're going to serve the cake later or fresh if being served right away.

Instructions
 

  • Preheat the oven to 180°c/Gas Mark 4, Rack in the middle.
  • Mix the Flour and baking powder, if not using self raising, together and sift twice to mix well. Set aside.
  • Mix the butter with the lemon zest using a wooden spoon or mixer until creamy.
  • Add the sugar, continue to mix until extra creamy.
  • Now add one egg at a time continuing to whisk. Add a spoonful of the flour with each egg to stop the eggs curdling.
  • Fold in the remaining flour using a spoon and add some of the lemon juice (approximately 2 tbsp, but to taste)
  • Line a loaf tin with greased parchment and spoon in the mixture ensuring it is evenly spread out.
  • Put into the over for 50 minutes, or until it is cooked through. Test with a knife inserted to the middle. if it comes out clean it is ready. Do not open the door of the oven until at least half way through cooking or you'll have a very flat cake.
  • Remove from the oven and tin, place on a cooling rack until completely cooled.
  • Mix the Icing sugar and lemon juice to create a runny but not water like consistency and pour over the cake. It's ok to be messy…
  • Add sprigs of your favorite flower to decorate the cake. I like sage as it goes very well with lemon and actually adds flavour rather than just being pretty.
  • Serve your showstopper cake to your friends and delight in the little wild addition!
Keyword cake, forage, lemon, madeira, sage
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Shade & Sun Leaves

Here we are looking at sun and shade leaves. This is useful for natural navigation as it can help us to determine the sun’s dominant location in the sky. With this simple knowledge it can allow us to work out which way we are heading.

Lets use Ivy as an example, it is the most readily available plant in most gardens and streets so can be easily identified and studied. It is also an extremely adaptable plant, which is why it is so pervasive in our gardens.

Ivy starts of life as a sciophyte. Sciophytes are shade loving plants or trees, they have specially adapted leaves that maximise the absorption of light without the worry of drying out from the heat of the sun. Ivy will therefore grow really well under the shade of trees (think bases of trees, woodland floors) and will establish itself quite well.

As you can see from the photos above the ivy is only growing on the Northern side of the tree which receives the least amount of sunlight. Growing on this side can be advantageous to plants, that can adapt to it, as there is much less competition for space than there would be in the sun.

Notice that the leaves on the Ivy above are ‘hastate’ (tri-lobed). The ivy in this picture is young and seeks shade however you should notice that it is growing upwards, towards the light after all, once it is at the top of the tree, it will struggle to find a shady spot.

Below are two more photos, of the same plant. Before you say he’s got the wrong plant there! I can assure you they are both ivy, but notice the difference. The ivy in the first ‘sun’ picture has smooth ‘lancolate’ (lance like) leaves, smaller, lighter, thicker, shiny leaves. The leaves in the ‘shade’ picture have large, darker, thicker, dull leaves.

What has happened?

Well… the ivy has grown and, after a period of approximately four years, it develops from a sociophyte into a heliophyte, a sun loving plant. Think of this stage as the plants adolescence, the period before it flowers and produces seed. A time in its life when it will need more energy in the form of sugar created by the process of photosynthesis. Something it would struggle to do with those low sugar producing shade leaves.

It goes through this change so it can maximise the advantages of being exposed to strong sunlight that would otherwise dry out, and kill the initial well adapted shade loving leaves it produced earlier in its lifecycle.

You’ll notice that in the shady areas the Ivy will retain some or all of its shade loving leaves but will put all of its attention into growing towards the sun, and creating those spear like leaves specially adapted to harvest the sunlight.

This process of adaptation is not exclusive to Ivy nor is it a hard and fast rule. In truth the Process of a plant adapting to sunny or shady conditions is a complex, multifaceted process that happens on a systemic and molecular level. However, if used and combined with other methods of natural navigation it is another brick in the wall of knowledge when combined together will form a strong foundation for finding your way when others don’t.

Most of all enjoy the process of looking closer at the natural world and get outside!

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Daisy

Known to all, even the hardest non-botanists, the daisy is the romance of poets and writers from Geoffrey Chaucer to Thomas Hardy. 

A Native wildflower, the daisy can be found everywhere from mountain grasslands, costal cliff-tops and sand-dunes, on hedge banks and, especially, lawns and other grasslands. 

It flowers from February to December, peaking in late spring, including all through mild winters.

As you can see from my time-lapse video of a daisy it’s flowers open and close at dawn and dusk and on overcast, dull or wet days (just like the dandelion – see article on dandelions).

It has historically been known as a valued herb for healing wounds. We shall revisit the works of Nicholas Culpeper M.D. from the 17th Century.

Daisy

“ The leaves, and sometimes the roots are used. They are among the traumatic and vulnerably herbs, being used in wound-drinks, and are accounted good to dissolve congealed and coagulated blood. They also help pleurisy and peripneumonia. In the king’s-evil the decoction given inwardly and a cataplasm of the leaves applied outwardly, are esteemed by some. An infusion boiled in asses’ milk is effectual in consumption of the lungs”.

More modern uses are crushing the leaves and applying to wounds which will still work to soothe and help healing. In some places it is still known as ‘bruisewort’ In a remedy for lumps and swellings as a result of injury, and also for chronic skin diseases due to impure blood, such as boils.

All in all the often overlooked garden weed is powerful as a medicinal herb both today and through history. 

Enjoy

Tom