​Guernsey Gâche Mélée (pronounced Gosh Mel Ahh) is a traditional Guernsey baked apple dessert, and one of the finest desserts ever in Paul’s humble opinion! In Guernésiais (Guernsey's local patois), gâche mélée simply means cake mix.

It's made with apples, butter, sugar, flour, a bit of milk and sometimes spices (mum used a quarter teaspoon of mixed spice), all mixed and baked to a delicious golden brown.

At this time of year, with apple harvests being brought in and the nights really drawing in, this is the perfect if somewhat rich dessert.  It can be served cold (great for a picnic) though Paul loves it with a generous trickle of Guernsey cream or large dollop of custard.

The recipe below was originally handwritten and gifted to cousin Tina by her mother-in-law.  Mum's recipe was similar though with the addition of mixed spice.

​We haven't done a video on this yet... though I have a feeling we may!!  

Enjoy!!


Ingredients

1lb cooking apples (weighted after paring and coring)
5oz Self-raising flour
5oz Sugar
2.5 oz Butter or Suet (vegan option)
3 fluid oz Milk or Oatmilk (vegan option)
1/4 tsp Mixed Spice (optional, and in mum's recipe)
Good pich of salt

Method

Chop apples into small pieces (1/2 inch cubes).
Place all ingredients into a mixing bowl and stir well with a wooden spoon until toroughly miced.
Place the mixture into a well-greased tin measuring 7" by 9" and bake on Gas 2 / 300F / 150C / 140 Fan for 1.5 hours, till golden brown and the apples are cooked.  Add an extra 15 minutes if needed.
Cut into squares and serve with cream.

Dessert in photo baked by cousin Tina!!  🤗

​The second in my series of articles of A Guernsey Gardener in London was published on 20th December 2021 in the Guernsey Press, my homeland newspaper.  The article looks at our Christmas harvests, and how a typical day used to be when I was growing up at Le Pignon in Castel, Guernsey.  The first two paragraphs of the article are copied below, and to read the full article for free click on the link under the paragraphs.  Enjoy!!  👍

"‘CHRISTMAS time, mistletoe and wine’, so suggests an old client’s most catchy and ‘memorable’ Christmas song, though for us gardeners and growers it’s less about mistletoe and wine and more about Brussels sprouts, parsnips, new potatoes, carrots, cabbage and any other vegetable we can bring into the kitchen, straight from being harvested, for cooking for our Christmas lunch.

I guess of all days of the year Christmas Day is the day us green-fingered lot want to harvest fresh vegetables straight from a garden or allotment. A day for celebrating the bounty of the work that has gone on throughout the year to ensure the crisp freshness and homegrown tastes to share with family and friends that grace our table. For some, Christmas Day is a day of celebrating a birth two millennia ago, for others it’s a time to gather and share gifts and happy times, and for a few it’s simply a day off from the everyday drudgery of life – for most it’s likely a mixture of these and a fulsome meal around a crowded table strewn with disarmed crackers, printed novelty jokes and a microscopic plastic magnifying glass."

To read the full article for free click the link below:

https://guernseypress.com/news/features/2021/12/20/all-i-want-for-christmas/​

​Yesterday, the first in a new series of articles of A Guernsey Gardener in London was published in the Guernsey Press, my homeland newspaper.  The article takes it all back to where it began for me - as a young child in a lane in Rue du Lorier, St Pierre du Bois, Guernsey.  The first two paragraphs of the article are copied below, and to read the full article for free click on the link under the paragraphs.  Enjoy!!  👍

"MARTYNDALE, Rue du Lorier, St Peter’s… that’s where the seed of A Guernsey Gardener in London was set, though it was not for another four decades and more that the seed would be sown.

Looking back, those days of the late ’60s and early ’70s were pretty idyllic for me… a huge garden with flower borders, loads of lawn to play on and a good area of ground set aside for the growing of fruit and veg. We were surrounded by fields, flower-splashed meadows and family, friends and a host of aunts and uncles who were named such simply for being part of our lives than being a blood relation; the occasional cow found in the garden that would be led around the side of the house, up the road, and along Route des Paysans and back into its field; secretly scrumping in a nearby orchard (when in fact the owner always knew full well); the spring-picking of violets and primroses that would be sent off by dad to Covent Garden (note – not something to do these days); the whole street pasting asters of all colours of the rainbow onto a float for entry to the Battle of Flowers… and that heavy heady smell of the glue; walking to St Peter’s School and all the playground fun, and swimming certificates for a width, a length, two lengths and more; and the utter joy of a walk down to L’Eree and a day on the beach… a beach which to this day is one of my favourite places in the world to sit, chat, laugh and reminisce with a swiftly melting soft ice cream cone and crumbly chocolate flake in hand."

To read the full article for free click the link below:

https://guernseypress.com/news/features/2021/11/12/where-it-all-began

As we stepped into mum's apartment the other day, my senses were immediately struck by a smell that I knew so well yet also could not quite place. I'd been caught by a scent that was both heavy and heady, yet full of light and shade at the same time. Each pace I took along the hallway the stronger the scent became... until, as I passed the kitchen doorway, I saw some narcissus in a small glass vase and was instantly transported to another time and place; to a time some four decades ago and a place some 3 miles from where I stood...

When we lived as a family at Le Pignon, a home near the centre of the island in the parish of Castel, I would walk with friends to school; Castel Infant School. I guess I was around ten or eleven, with no cares in the world and a host of unknown hopes and dreams ahead.

Our journey to school would be along Rue des Varendes, which lead onto Le Villocq, up Le Neuve Rue, right into Rue des Cauvains (avoiding the electric shock treatments of the Castel Hospital!!), then passed the King Edward VII Hospital, and then, as we got to the T-junction with Les Vieux Beauchamps there they were, directly in front of us.... a field of golden daffodils dancing in all their sunshiney glory. Yet for me it was not the yellow beauties that caught my eye, it was the yellow-eyed white narcissus that did, and they caught my nose too... and my imagination. These cherished mutli-headed floral gems were called Avalanche, and dad told me that they were from the Scilly Isles, which I always thought a wonderful name for an amazing multi-headed cascading fall of blooms... yet a silly name for a group of islands.

As we'd walk home from another joy filled day of school - and I do mean that as my schooldays were full of the joys of learning, of numbers, of letters, of nature, of play, and of friends - we would pick a bunch or two of flowers on our way. Diving into the field, we would gently pick a handful with the billy-goat-gruff farmer looking on... "Don't take too many... I gots to make my livin'".

As we walked to the back doors of our homes, where comfort and love abounded, the hands of each of my friends was the glory of a bunch of golden daffodils for their mum; in mine a multi-headed magisterial mystery of name and of place enveloped in gold and white petalled flows for my mum, Mary.

Those few steps into mum's apartment a few days ago really took me back... more than four decades... to a heady scent of the past.
​

A Guernsey Gardener in London - Day 25

When we were in Guernsey the other day, mum started chatting about the houses that we have lived in over the years.  She began with their first home, the one she and dad lived in when they were first married.  Then the house that they built together with a States of Guernsey loan and where we grew up as a young family.  The middle stages of our family life together came next at our house near the centre of the island; more convenient for dad to get to and from work and giving him more time at home.  From there the move was to a brand new build on a small Clos, and from that home there was the one to where mum now lives, overlooking Belle Grève Bay, the islands and the White Rock where dad was a docker for much of his working life.

We then went back over the list, and the times that we spent at each.  I noticed that these next memories were significantly around the gardens of each home.

The small garden in their first home, surrounded by vibrant farmland and in an area where and at a time when many still grew their own potatoes, some root veg and brassicas.  Then at our next home, where I first came into being, was the beautiful lawn and vegetable garden that mum and dad created; a peaceful garden nourished by seaweed and which has formed the backdrop of photos of so many guests that stayed at mum and dad's B&B.  From here was a move closer to dad's work, and for me my favourite garden of the homes in which we lived; one which was bordered on two sides by a growing bamboo fence line that seemed to stretch to the heavens and was as deep as any deep hedge can be.  The dozen chickens would roam under the arching laburnum in their own vast chicken-wired homestead.  We would grow in the greenhouse - tomatoes, melons and cucumbers - and Freddy the tortoise would hibernate in here overwinter, under the bench in a hay-stuffed box.  My older brother kept pigeons in his pigeon hut; all fanciful feathers and courteous cooing.  And then there was the seemingly vast area of orchard with eating apples, cooking apples, pears and a plum tree; trees ripe for climbing, pruning, fruiting and harvesting.  Across the path was the ever so productive vegetable garden that dad would find his spare time in, and I would go and help him and learn and feel love.  The leisure area of the garden was another large space sandwiched between here and the back of the house.  A small-scale formal garden of canna lilies, fuchsia, hydrangea and strawberries sat alongside the vast patio where people would smile and parties would happen and the sun would forever shine.  I guess these were very happy years; a family of five in full swing.

Moving on and downsizing, with the family with heartache doing the same, the gardens that mum and dad created around our Grande Rocque home were truly amazing, particularly considering there was nothing there to start with and that the base soil was significantly sand.  There were wonderful borders edged with pink and blue granite and the bowling green lawns that dad created.  These bowling green lawns were truly bare feet worthy; springy and soft, and lush and life-enhancing.  I remember dad always having a little pocket knife with him; walking across the vibrant green lawn he would dip down and dig out a dandelion or daisy and they would get thrown on the compost heap.  You see, dad wanted a pristine lawn, and that's exactly what his groundsmanship delivered.  Then the palm trees went in, Cordeline Australis and a very spiky yucca that we smuggled back from Ibiza... sshhhh, don't tell!  Mum would tend her roses and all the colour of the garden and the two of them would spend hours just being; the two of them in sync.

When it got to the stage where the garden and the painting of the house was really getting too much for them both, they decided to move to where mum lives now.  A garden, of course, was essential, and if it be in many pots then that would do quite well.

Mum and dad chose an apartment on the ground floor where they have spent many countless hours sitting on the patio taking in the sun and the sea and the salty air.  At one point there were 84 pots of varying shapes and sizes containing flowers of various sorts, though the ones that have always taken mum's fancy are Arum lilies, hydrangeas, and geraniums and pelargoniums.  On any drive around the island we would pass a house that used to sell these colourful scented plants on the roadside, it was just around from Port Soif.  Whatever variety they had, whether crinkle leaf or flat or variegated, and whatever colour, whether white or pink or crimson or purple, these were always called Port Soif plants - mum's Port Soif plants.  Many of them still flourish now and are topped up with other plants each year, all from cuttings mum so studiously loves taking.  As it's now winter, and all in the pots is pretty sparse apart from a few geraniums still holding on to a scrambling of flowers, we left mum with 200 blue LED lights rambling through the dead and dying branches of the plants in the pots.  Many of these plants will be back out next year, including the geraniums, and particularly the hydrangeas with their resplendent vibrant mop heads replacing the dancing feathery dried pom pom heads which are on view today.  In the meantime, it will be the bright blue gems of LED that will dance in the breeze and please the eye.

It was in this 15 or 20 minutes of chatter, whilst Richard had a shower, that it brought me back to the fact that I know so well... Gardens in all their many guises are a haven for the body and a haven for the soul.

We are beginning to learn of and understand the benefits of gardening and gardens, and how the act of gardening and the time of spending time in green open spaces and gardens, alone and with others, is so beneficial to our mental and physical health.  What dawned on me as mum and I sat chatting about the plants, the layout, the weather, and the times of fun that had been had in all these homes was that the memories of gardens, outdoor spaces and wonderful places nourishes and can live with us forever.  It is through these moments of memory that we roll back in time and space.  It is in these moments of memory that we literally do travel in time.

I guess these times and these memories are where the seeds for The Guernsey Gardener in London were sown.  And now I can share these moments with others, if they so wish.

A Guernsey Gardener in London, Day 18