Description
Batch 27 Gastronomic fusion
The aroma was that of the ultimate ham and cheese sandwich done the French way; a croque monsieur made using Dijon mustard and béchamel sauce – simply delicious. And so was the palate, lightly smoked porridge oats topped with slices of banana and sprinkled with cinnamon and brown sugar. Following the careful addition of water, we got a large skillet of paella rice topped with artichokes, shrimps and spiced with sweet smoked paprika. To taste, we found fried garlic mushrooms with lightly smoked salmon and lemon-zested crème fraiche. This truly was an example of individual delicate flavours achieving that fascinating fusion of sweet, savoury and smoke.
Batch 28 Spruce on the loose
Sticks of calligraphy ink joined slices of dried papaya in maple syrup as autumn leaves fell upon school textbooks. Dark chocolate was found incarcerated in an old pipe tobacco box lined with crystallised spruce sap. The nose had us in a boreal forest, but the palate transported us to summer fields and fruit orchards: green apple slices mingled with dried ginger, toasted cereals and a spoonful of thick-cut marmalade in an orchardist’s tobacco pouch. Water introduced nectarines and peaches, cedarwood mothballs and honey to the nose, while the palate transformed to a minted bay leaf bouquet garni, woven with nutmeg-infused orange peel, sweet chilli fruit leather and fondant.
Batch 26 Spanish splendour
An abundantly, almost extravagantly, rich aroma filled the room with the scent of chocolate truffles, rum-soaked raisins, butterscotch sauce and prunes stewed in port wine. The taste was just as luxuriant, with flavours of a Seville orange cake prepared with raw forest honey, which is a little less sweet and has a slightly salty note. With a drop of water we cracked the crunchy, caramelised crust of an authentic crema catalana to release the characteristic citrus and cinnamon aromas. On the palate, we cut slices of a cake from Brittany, a Far Breton – a flan-style egg and milk custard with prunes which reminded one of us of a similar dessert served in the Spanish Cantabria region, quesada pasiega.
Batch 30 Skooshy stroopwafel
We were reminded of popping the cork of an orange muscat wine bottle, with those typical aromas of apricots, oranges and pears next to toasted almonds on brioche and fragrant exotic wood. At first on the palate we found tingling spicy fruit flavours before we had a sip of very pleasing hot mulled white wine made with fresh orange juice, star anise, honey and cinnamon. Following reduction, we opened a tin of amaretto-infused mince pies – sweet, spicy and tart yet perfectly balanced, with mellow almond notes emanating from the liqueur. To taste, this was like a pumpkin-spiced iced coffee and “skooshy” (a very ‘technical’ Scottish term for cream in a can) cream on a stroopwafel.
Batch 32 Fife peaty potion
The neat nose was wonderfully vibrant, full of medicinal tinctures, smouldering heather, zinc oxide and lanolin cream, new leather upholstery, peat embers in a hearth and, underlying all that, some comforting tarry notes and suggestions of a mechanic’s tool box. Reduction brought orange oils, camphor, dunnage mustiness, smoked toffee, plums baked with treacle and then big, spicy, marmalade vibes. The neat palate was a medley of dark and red fruits, muddled together with wood smoke, dark-grained breads, liquorice root, herbal extracts and chip shop brown sauce. Water evolved the bitterness of expensive dark chocolate, added more dried herbal notes and brought a tangy carbolic edge, with peppery warmth and smoked oranges in the finish.
