Supporting autumn fruiting raspberries

Autumn fruiting raspberries are great. You just chop them down in ground level in February and they grow again, giving you lots of lovely fruit year after year (in my case in late July and August) with very little further effort. You don't even need to support them. But, if like me, you are growing them right next to a path and/or the doors to the greenhouse and/or shed, you might want to, as otherwise they do tend to scratch at you as you walk past.

In previous years, we have used bamboo canes with string tied around them to try and keep the raspberries in. But the raspberry canes have proven stronger than the canes. So what we've now done is buy wooden stakes. The wooden stakes were approximately 180 cm long with pointed tips, so we could bash them more easily into the ground.

We used a mallet to drive them about 30 cm into the ground and then tied string around them at three heights to keep the raspberries in. We actually did it while the raspberries were almost ready to fruit, but doing it before they grow is probably more sensible.

Here's a picture from last year:

You'll notice that since last year, we've also added some paving slabs to make a path. These are not concreted in. We just removed patches of lawn to make them level with the grass. This is fine for us, as their weight keeps them in place, but if you have anyone or anything come into your garden that might injure themselves on unsecured slabs, you're probably better off concreting them in.

Here's a picture of the garden as it is today. You'll notice that I've already got my first bamboo canes in one of the beds. They're for mangetout. And behind them I have broad beans growing. My beds are a bit messier this year, as I'm growing flowers in them before I put some of the veg in, and not all the mixed seeds I scattered have grown, leaving a rather patchy impression in the beds. However, the bees will appreciate any flowers I grow at all, and the sparrows also appreciate them. I've seen them devouring large chunks of leaf from some of the plants.

German Apple Bienenstich (Bee Sting) Cake

I've adapted this recipe from Dr Oetker's German website: https://www.oetker.de/rezepte/r/apfel-bienenstich-torte

Bienenstich is German type of cake. The word means bee sting, but it's not clear why they're called that, as they don't contain any honey. Instead, their key characteristic is their caramelised almond topping.

German cakes are usually delicious. But it's often hard to find the ingredients for them in the UK. I've therefore adapted this recipe so that UK ingredients can be used. I used Gala apples in mine, but if I make it again, I'll either pre-cook them a little ot try a different sort, as although these tasted good, they remained overly firm after being cooked. The cake freezes adequately. It doesn't look as good after being frozen and there's a little deterioration in texture (you probably wouldn't want to serve the defrosted version to guests), but it still tastes fine and is fundamentally still a nice cake you enjoy eating.

German Apple Bienenstich (Bee Sting) Cake

You will need a 26 cm springform cake tin (I've often been successful using a 23 cm tin and adapting the cooking time with other cakes, but this cake wouldn't fit in a smaller cake tin. You might get away with a 23 cm tin if you only only use 3/4 of the ingredients).

Ingredients

A little butter for greasing

Pastry:

350 g plain flour

135 g sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract (or essence)

1 pinch salt

125 g soft butter or margarine

2 eggs (medium)

Filling:

1.5 kg eating apples(this is usually around 11 or 12 eating apples)

250 g full fat crème fraîche

4 eggs (medium)

1 tbsp cornflour

85 g sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract (or essence)

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Topping:

75 g butter

75 g sugar

100 g whipping cream

150 g flaked almonds

Optional serving suggestion:

Whipped cream

1. Grease the base of the springform cake tin. Preheat the oven on to about 200 °C/180 °C fan.

2. Put the pastry ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix everything with a mixer using the dough hook to form a dough – start on on the lowest speed, then gradually increase to the highest speed. If your butter or margarine is too hard, this will take much longer (and you risk crumbs flying everywhere).

3. Separate the dough into two halves, then roll one half of the dough out on the base of the springform cake tin. Place the springform cake tin rim around it. 

4. Shape the rest of the dough into a sausage long enough to go all the way round the inside of the edge of the cake tin. Place it around the edge of the dough on the base of the springform cake tin and use your fingers or thumbs to press it against the sides of the cake tin, so that it goes all the way up to the top of the spring form cake tin.

6. Mix the crème fraîche with the eggs, cornflour, sugar, vanilla extract and cinnamon.

7. Core then peel the apples. Cut them in half, then cut each half into 6 to 8 slices (ideally smaller than I did). Layer the apple slices on top of the pastry in the base of the cake tin (the German recipe did not specify what it meant by "layer", so although I started off placing them neatly, I ended up piling them in. Possibly I should have tried to keep them in neater layers). 

8. Pour the crème fraîche mixture over the apples. 

9. Put the cake tin in the bottom third of the oven and bake for about 30 minutes.

10. While the cake is baking, make the topping:  melt the butter and sugar in a pan. On a medium heat, add the cream. Stir for about five minutes while the mixture thickens a little (mine did not thicken much at all).

11. Stir in the almonds. 

12. Once the cake is out of the oven, reduce the oven temperature to about 180 °C/fan 160 °C. Spread the topping over the part-baked cake, then return to the bottom third of the oven and bake for around another 40 minutes.

13. Leave the cake to cool in the tin on a cooling rack (this will take at least one hour). Then remove the cake from the tin. Serve with whipped cream, if desired.