Bushfood Brownie with roasted Davidsons plum ice cream

My Second Davidson Plum Season

Bushfood Brownie – roasted Davidson plums and bunya brownie recipe

Davidsons plum roasted with Brown Sugar, cinnamon and lemon myrtle.  

 Roasted Davo Ice Cream

What a joy it is to be given ripe fruits from a neighbour or friend’s trees. Even more so when that tree and fruit are native and endangered in the wild. As is this case this season with Davidsonia species, commonly and affectionately referred to as Davo’s or Davidsons plums.  

Four species exist in the wild and they range in distribution from north Qld to northern NSW. Currently it is illegal to pick fruits from the wild, so playing the long game and planting out your own supply of these very special native fruit trees is essential to their survival and important part of making sure our first nations people foods and traditions are kept healthy and alive for us all. I’d like to gratefully acknowledge that the plums I was gifted by my most fab village friend CC and were grown on Bunjalung country. Bundjalung means ‘One mob” and raising the profile and awareness around our native foods here in Australia could be another pathway towards reconciliation. We cannot underestimate the power of food to unite us. The story around the white discovery of “Davidson’s Plum” is the same old thing we hear about our early settler's, white man came, saw black fella eating foods, copied him, then named it after himself blah blah blah. Focusing on the information we have around indigenous uses and culture is far more interesting. Currently through my research I'm unaware of a local dialect word for the Davo plum in my local cobaki area/Bundjalung country, But in northern Queensland mob call Davidson's plum “Ooray”. Using indigenous dialect pertinent to the area and food item can take a little research and asking around but the value of keeping this word in our vocabulary animates and contributes to keeping culture alive in Australia. I hope to keep learning more about this gorgeous sour purple hued fruit, and this is one of the most exciting things about the wild food journey is you never stop learning. The season for Ooray is relatively short and depending on variety, but I think you could say late December to late January you may be lucky to spot some fruit in cauliflory fashion on the trunk on a spindly Davidsonia tree around the northern rivers. They are generally un understory rainforest plant but also keep an eye about parks and council plantings as there are a few trees I myself am aware of in our local streets. Or otherwise get to a local market, we are lucky that some beautiful people with the foresight to plant out commercial crops many years ago are established locally. Playing with fire native foods and Byron Bushfoods and two of my local ethical suppliers that sell ooray fresh at local farmers markets and create amazing products for you to have ooray love in your life year-round. The options and inspirations are endless with this fruit, yes, its sour but sour is an essential flavor to balance out many a dish, consider using it where any acid might cut through the fat to give the clean palate taste we all so enjoy. To me they are perfection sliced so finely and put with creamy white moldy cheese or a bitey cheddar. The ultimate classy addition to a hors d’oeuvre, crab cake with pickled sea greens and davo plum, what a bite! We have those settlers to thank for adding a shit tone of sugar to anything they found in the wild, and we know jam is a tried-and-true blue way to top an aussie lemonade scone. Cordials, dressing, vinegars, award winning chef and good buddy Mikey made Davidsons plum Lee Cha Su sauce and with it we marinated Bangalow pork belly and served it with a wild dock and radish kim chi, as one of the seven courses in our “Chef and the Forager” degustation event in 2022.  

This was the first time for me being gifted a quantity big enough to really sink my teeth into so to speak, and get messy creating some ooray magic. And boy did I come with the goods, this is the best brownie I've ever tasted hands down its got the crunch of the meringue on the outside the gooey fudgy center, the perfect lift to the dark choc is the tartness of the roasted davos  and the bunya nut flour is lush and again lifts slightly the earthy notes of the dark chocolate to a higher piney heaven. I topped this all off with, and again, I kid you not one of the best ice cream creations I've ever made too. Winning. This recipe was inspired by the bush, but also my fellow forager and wild food educator Sally A from Rewild. Sally is a force of nature and collects and makes her own flour from wild native ingredients. As do I and her incantation of this brownie included dock seed flour which is the wild cousin of buckwheat. In freezer, sealed is my supply of home milled bonyi (Bunya Nut ) flour from our last bumper season, so I gots to thinking, and the bunya and davo bushfood brownie concept was born. As with all of my recipes I scour the internet and all my cookbooks for ideas and read countless recipes using similar cultivated ingredients and I modify and adapt to create with wild foods that I have around me. I had enough Davo’s to make a splash and its mid-summer so the idea of a sherbert coloured plum ice cream lingered in my head a few days until I got mum on the job with me to start processing my plums. I decided to treat them all of them same way, to roast them halved seeds removed (and kept, to add to the food forest) with brown sugar, a touch of cinnamon and a couple of Lemon myrtle leaves thrown in /for good measure. This way I could create many things with the plums and freeze or refrigerate them in batches so in they went for about 20 mins on 160c fan forced and got all juicy and soft. From the juices, I made cordial, adding the baking juices to a simple sugar syrup. Then I took a third of them to create the roasted ooray ice cream and reserved the others for the brownie topping and some for my future self and guests in the freezer for now. 

If you are able to source your own dock seed, it's very easy to process into flour, simply roast the seeds for 10 mis and blitz up to a very fine powder, its ready to use like that. (Blog post coming soon about all the uses of Rumex Sp.) Or if you want the bunya flour, try a native food supplier mentioned earlier in the post or this recipe works wonderfully with almond meal substituted for the Bunya flour. 

Recipes as follows 

Roasted davisdons plums  

Pre time – 10 mins 

Cooking time – 20 mins  

Ingredients 

Davidsons Plums  

Brown sugar – to sprinkle 

¼ teaspoon cinnamon 

2 fresh Lemon myrtle leaves 

1. Pre heat oven to 160 c fan forced.  

1. Wash, and half plums, remove seeds and place in baking tray in one even layer cut side up. 

1. Sprinkle with brown sugar, cinnamon and place Lemon myrtle leaves into tray. 

1. Bake till juices and running and plums are soft to a fork. 

1. Cool. Reserve and chill for many creations. 

OMG basically this is everything you’ve ever wanted in ice cream silky smooth and tangy tart yogurty Sherbert flavors. The roasting of the plums really concentrates the flavour and gives the ice cream a kick and the colour I mean wow! 

Roasted Davisdons plum Ice cream 

This recipe uses an ice-cream maker for the best results. Freeze the inner bowl of the machine 24 hours before starting the recipe 

Pre time- 24 hours – including freezing the bowl. And roasting plums   

Cook time- 5 mins 

Ingredients 

450g of Davidsons plums roasted and cooled 

600 ml thickened cream 

1 cup golden cane sugar 

2 tablespoons honey 

1 teaspoon vanilla seed paste. 

Pinch salt 

1. Place cream, sugar, honey and vanilla into a medium saucepan and heat gently until sugar in completely dissolved. 

1. Place the plums and ¼ cup of the cream mixture into the blender, blend on high for about 1 min or until completely smooth. 

1. Place a sieve atop a large bowl and pour the puree through it, push down to extract the best colour and flavour. Discard the pulp. 

1. Add the remaining cream mixture to the bowl and cover with cling film and refrigerate for at least 4 hours but better overnight. 

1. Churn the mixture in the bowl of your ice crem makers, according to instructions.  

1. Transfer to a freezer safe container and freeze. 

The brownie recipe is as follows this is a gluten free brownie. I used my friends duck eggs, another very gratefully received gift, they add a real richness that chicken eggs cannot compare with. Check your local market or ask at the produce store for duck eggs. 

Bushfood Brownie – Roasted Davidsons plum and bunya brownie reciepe 

Prep time – 20 mins 

Cook time – 45 mins 

Ingredients 

200g Butter cubed 

180g black dark choc chopped roughly 

4 duck eggs 

200g castor sugar 

½ teaspoon vanilla paste 

50g cocoa powder 

½ teaspoon salt 

100g bunya/ dock flour or almond meal  

1. Pre heat the oven to 180/160 c Fan. Grease and line a 30 x 20 cm tin with baking parchment (or make your own with brown paper bag and butter) 

1. Melt choc and butter on double boiler or in the microwave. Let cool a little 

1. Beat the eggs and sugar together in a large bowl using electric mixers for 7-9 mins. Long enough till its tick enough to hold a trail. 

1. Gently fold through cool choc, vanilla, flour, cocoa and salt. 

1. Pour the batter into the prepared tin.  

1. Take your roasted Davidsons plum halves and place them into the top of the batter pushing them down just slightly. 

1. Place it in the center of the oven and bake for 40-45 mins. 

1. Leave to cool in tin for a while before removing to slice into desired sizes. 

1. Serve with roasted Davidsons plum ice cream. 

Foraging forever x  

Chanterelle