Chocolate Green Pine Cones

This is what I did with those green Scots Pine cones I collected a few weeks ago, we’re making Chocolate Green Pine Cones.

We don’t often think about using any other part of pine apart from pine nuts, however, when we’re foraging (especially in the UK) finding pine cones that are big enough to eat in any sort of way is nearly impossible.

The Green pine cones are a great place to start and they are looking best around April & May.

To find our full pine ID guide click here

Here’s a guide with help to discover the difference between pine, spruce and firs

Be careful of Yew…

It’s worth making the note here that there’s one conifer you need to be vary aware of when out picking any tree that has needles, and that is one called Yew, Yew is deadly toxic.

The taxines contained in the tree are used in chemotherapy for a wide range of cancers, these are still commercially collected at present, in the incorrect doses they are lethal.

Click here for our identification guide on Yew

Ingredients to make Chocolate Green Pine Cones

• 10 Green pine cones
• 100ml Spiced Rum
• 500g brown sugar
• 200g dark chocolate

Method:

1. The Green pine cones were soaked overnight in spiced rum.
2. I keep the pine cones in rum and pour the rum and cones in to a pan
3. I then add the sugar to the same pan and slowly heat the pot until all the sugar has dissolved.
4. I’s then simmered gently for about 20 minutes, after which I leave them to steep and for all of the flavours to play together over night.
5. This process was repeated another couple of times before I strained the cones out (over 3 days – making the syrup stronger, the cones more soft and the flavour deeper)
6. Don’t discard the liquid, save that in a bottle
7. Placed the infused green pines cones on the end of a skewer and dunk them in melted dark chocolate. I pop the chocolate in a bowl in the microwave for 30 seconds until it’s softening up.
8. Once dunked lay them on a sheet of none stick paper and pop them in the fridge to go crunchy

   The result?

   A lovely bottle of Scots Pine spiced rum syrup and a pile of caramelized & chocolate-covered cones.

Find more Pine, Spruce & Fir Recipes here