Cranachan

Cranachan

Cranachan is a traditional Scottish dessert. Originally, it was a summer dish made around the time of the harvest:

raspberries were picked in the summer months and, since there were no refrigerators at the time, they had to be eaten quickly: one way of doing so was to make cranachan.

It is also typically served at the end of a Burns Supper, which celebrates the life and work of Scottish poet Robert Burns.

Cranachan is basically made of double whipped cream with oats, raspberries, honey (to sweeten the cream) and whisky. Oats were – and still are – a staple diet in Scotland too, so cranachan really is a very typical Scottish dessert.

1.1. How to make it?

The ingredients for the Cranachan:

You'll need:

1. 300 ml of double heavy cream

2. 150 ml of raspberries

3. A handful of oats

4. 2 tablespoons of honey

5. A little bit of whisky

First, toast the oats in a dry pan, on low heat.

Keep shaking the pan. After 5-10 minutes, take the pan off the heat and wait until it is cool

Afterwards, purée most of the raspberries and keep a couple to decorate the dessert with later.

Add the honey and the whisky.

Next, whip the cream into soft peaks

Then fold the raspberr mixture gently into the whipped cream.

Do not completely mix it in. Just swirl it through the cream.

Spoon the Cranachan into glasses.

To finish it off, sprinkle some of the oats on top and put a couple of raspberries on top.

Stick the Cranachan in the fridge to chill for a couple of hours.

 Your Cranachan is ready!

2. History and Origin

Cranachan has no specific birth date because there is no written proof or historical evidence for it.

In fact, the only written proofs that were found were in cooking books dating from the early 1940’s.

Sadly, that is what brought more confusion because of the different recipes and names that each author gave. Chiefly because of the main ingredient:, the cream. In fact, some say that earlier recipes used Crowdie cheese – a soft spreadable cheese – instead of whipped cream. And that is why this recipe was formerly called "cream-crowdie".

Yet, if in the Highlands “crowdie” meant “cream cheese”,  in lowland Scotland,the noun simply referred to their oatmeal breakfast. Hence the confusion and the varying recipes: sometimes with cream cheese, sometimes with whipped cream. The rest of the ingredients, however, have remained the same for centuries.

3. The Evolution

Nowadays, the Cranachan’s traditional recipe iis often revisited, with new versions such as the raspberries Cranachan trifle or even the orange Cranachan.

Even the ‘traditional’ recipe is not served the way it used to be. The contrast is really marked: before, the Cranachan was served around June, which corresponded to be harvest time for raspberries, so that they were consumed just after having been picked. Cranachan was traditionally not prepared beforehand: each ingredient was put on the table so that everybody could dose at their own convenience in tall dessert glasses. Nowadays, Cranachan is consumed at any moment of the year or, sometimes, on special occasions, such as the Burns Night Supper on 25 January.

On the other hand, if people ever wanted to make a traditional Cranachan, they could never obtain the real version because of the difference between the Scottish products' quality in the good old days and our own contemporary products. But of course, you can still enjoy the modern international version!   

To conclude, we can say that Cranachan has evolved a lot from its beginning (except for two main ingredients that never changed). Unfortunately, it evolved so much that even the Scots themselves couldn’t tell what the original recipe is. Actually, Cranachan’s traditional recipe is a mystery for everyone and that’s what makes it an icon of Anglophone culture.

Doha Ait El Haj Ali, Fadwa Ajerroud Boushaba, and Thomas Marique