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Finding the Forgotten Feast

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Dessert Recipes

A selection of recipes for snacks and desserts featuring wild edible plants. You'll find baked goods, ice creams, cookies and cakes, all using wild nuts and berries.

A plate of pine nut cookies.
Photo by Holly A. Heyser

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•  Recipes: Ice Creams & Ices | Booze & Brewing | Baked Goods | Wild Syrups

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Ice Creams and Ices

I love making ice cream with wild ingredients, and, where something creamy isn't appropriate, ices and sorbets.

Some of my favorites are wild mint leaf ice cream, paw paw ice cream, and black walnut ice cream, which is also great with butternuts or hickory nuts.

I also make a damn good gooseberry and blackberry sorbet.

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Booze and Brewing

Infused liqueurs, wild beers and wines, even wild champagnes are big favorites. It's an important way to preserve the aromas and flavors of many wild foods.

Some of my most popular recipes are elderberry wine, elderflower liqueur - and elderflower champagne - as well as spruce tip beer, and my all time favorite wild brew, a red ale fermented on wild juniper yeast I call Junipine.

Fir tip ale recipe
Photo by Holly A. Heyser

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Baked Goods

I am not a natural baker, but I do have a few recipes for baked goods I am happy with, mostly cookies and simple cakes. Especially cookies.

The pretty picture at the top of this page is of my pine nut cookies, and some of my other popular baked goods include persimmon bread, olive oil rosemary cake, butternut squash bread, fig bread, huckleberry muffins, butternut cookies and anise cookies made with wild fennel seeds.

And come holiday time, venison mincemeat pies are well worth the effort - sweet, tart, savory, fatty, and crunchy, they check all the boxes.

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Wild Syrups

One of the most versatile things you can do with a wild fruit or aromatic herb is to make a simple syrup with it. This brings out the flavor of the fruit, and is shelf stable.

My most popular wild syrup is prickly pear syrup, but I also make a mean spruce tip syrup, that also works with pine or fir, a simple blackberry syrup, and an intriguing fig syrup that is great on ice cream or pancakes.

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The Latest

Candied angelica stems in a glass jar.

Candied Angelica

By Hank Shaw on July 3, 2017, Updated June 6, 2022 - 15 Comments

Angelica is a giant herb that grows wild all over the cooler areas of the Northern Hemisphere. Candying its hollow stems is a great way to enjoy angelica or lovage.

Read More about Candied Angelica

Ripe manzanita berries

How to Eat Manzanita Berries

By Hank Shaw on August 14, 2015, Updated May 19, 2020 - 24 Comments

Manzanita berries are ripening all over California right now, but few know that they are not only edible, but are well worth your time to collect. The secret? Grind the dry, apple-like berries to make a sort of manzanita sugar.

Read More about How to Eat Manzanita Berries

A tray of huckleberry muffins.

Huckleberry Muffins

By Hank Shaw on July 30, 2015, Updated May 21, 2020 - 12 Comments

It’s huckleberry season here in the West. And while my favorite way to eat hucks is in a bowl with cream, I also love huckleberry muffins. My version has a bit of a tang to it from sour cream.

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Mint leaf ice cream recipe

Fresh Mint Ice Cream

By Hank Shaw on July 2, 2015, Updated May 19, 2020 - 18 Comments

Mint ice cream is pretty common, but usually it’s made with mint extract. But if you make your ice cream by infusing the mint leaves into the cream overnight, you get a much stronger, more herby mint flavor you will not forget.

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paw paw ice cream recipe

Paw Paw Ice Cream

By Hank Shaw on November 6, 2014, Updated October 28, 2020 - 21 Comments

Paw paws, the Hoosier banana, custard apple or Indiana banana. America’s largest native fruit, is indeed a little bit like a banana — and it makes a great ice cream.

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Close up of butternut cookies.

Butternut Cookies

By Hank Shaw on October 17, 2014, Updated December 28, 2020 - 10 Comments

It’s nut season all over the country, and one of my favorites is the butternut, a relative of the black walnut. These cookies are by far my favorite way to eat them — and yes, they are wonderful with black walnuts, too.

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elderberry ice cream recipe

Elderberry Ice Cream

By Hank Shaw on July 7, 2014, Updated May 8, 2017 - 6 Comments

Elderberries are in season here in California, and one of my favorite ways to enjoy them during our hot summers is in ice cream. Here’s how to make it.

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fennel cookies recipe

Anise Cookies

By Hank Shaw on June 15, 2014, Updated January 24, 2021 - 4 Comments

I don’t eat a lot of sweet things, but I do have a soft spot for cookies. These I call “Bacchus Biscuits,” and they’re my take on a Greek fennel seed cookie. It’s like a shortbread cookie, not too sweet, with toasted fennel seeds in it. They last a while and are great as a quick snack.

Read More about Anise Cookies

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Hank Shaw holding a rod and reel in the American River

Hi, my name is Hank Shaw; I’m a James Beard Award-winning author and chef. I started this site back in 2007 to help you get the most out of all things wild: fish, game, edible wild plants and mushrooms. I also write cookbooks, have a website dedicated to the intersection of food and nature, and do a podcast, too. If it’s wild, you’ll find it here. Hope you enjoy the site!

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