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Cobnuts
Posted By Kerri
Stephen went to the Hammersmith Farmer’s Market on Thursday and came back with cobnuts! We were both really excited by this as we’d read a lot about them but never seen them before. They’re a bit like hazelnuts and grow mostly in Kent.
I was worried they were destined for the same fate as the onion squash and the chestnuts (both purchased by Stephen and left to languish at the back of the vegetable bowl before they went rotten and I had to dispose of them) but he spent much of the morning researching recipes and found this for ginger and cobnut cake. It’s raining again today and we both thought this sounded perfect for a rainy Sunday afteroon.
Before baking the cake, the cobnuts need to be shelled and roasted in the oven. The nuts puff up during roasting and become sweeter.
We didn’t have enough nuts to make a whole cake so made a smaller one and baked it in the oven for about 20 minutes, then we left it to cool while we got on with roasting our beef.
The cake actually turned out more like a biscuit, it was very dense in texture and flat too. We didn’t have self raising flour and had to improvise with baking powder which may have had something to do with it. It was tasty though, and we had it with custard which I love.
Aug 19th, 2007
Oh! Cobnuts. I have yet to get some this year. Always great trying new things 🙂 Looks delicious.
Thanks Niamh.
I can’t believe I’ve never had them before, I lived in Kent until I was 18! They were really tasty, if we can find some more then I think I’d like to try them as a savoury dish.
The discussion I had at the market went something like this:
Me: Are these cobnuts?
Stall assistant: No, they’re hazelnuts.
Me: Hmm but they’re also called cobnuts aren’t they?
Stall assistant: No, cobnuts are different.
Me: Oh. I’m sure that cobnuts are a type of hazelnut.
Stall assistant: No, they’re different.
Me: Okay, I’ll have some anyway.
Anyway, cobnuts are indeed a type of hazelnut. Lots more information here for people who are interested:
http://www.kentishcobnutsassociation.co.uk/about.htm
http://www.cobnuts.co.uk/info.htm
I love cobnuts – and the first of them arrived in my greengrocers a couple of weeks ago. However, I’m laying off for a few more weeks as they’re just too expensive right now… I live very close to ‘cobnut country’ so will be going for lots of them this year.
Last year I did a really nice cobnut pesto – cobnuts, garlic, parsley, parmesan, oil – very nice indeed. It went with pasta and chard. Am on the lookout for new recipes this year!