I have for you today what I think is one of the most fascinating sweets I’ve ever tasted: what I’ve been calling Pine Pollen Fudge or Pine Pollen Truffles. I started working on the recipe last year, but had a couple accidents with my pollen (D’oh!) and, if you’ve ever gathered the stuff, you know…
Pollen
Pine pollen.
Wide pollen is a fascinating ingredient you can harvest from pine trees and cattails. Pollen has been used in cooking for thousands of years, and can be used in baked goods, candies, and other recipes. If you're new to pollen, I suggest starting by reading my intro to pine pollen. If you have some you'd like to cook, try making pollen cookies or pancakes.
Pollen and Honey Cookies
Pine pollen and honey cookies are a love letter to the life of bees, and a little study in complimentary flavors you can use when cooking with pollen. Although bees (at least to my knowledge) don’t harvest pollen from pine trees or cattails, the flavors of pollen, and the inspiration you can use from this,…
Pollen Bread
My pollen bread is essentially pollen cornbread, with a few tweaks, and it’s a good introductory recipe to start out with if you have some pollen to use. Most of the time, when people talk about cooking with pollen, they might think of pollen pancakes, and they can be good, as well as your other…
Pollen Pancakes with Conifer Syrup and Berries
I have a big stash of pine pollen I’ve been waiting to use the cold months and I finally got around to making some new things with it. If you’re not familiar, pine pollen is a thing, similar to cattail pollen, but much easier to harvest in my opinion, as the window for capturing it…
Pine Pollen
Most foragers know of cattail pollen, but, if you live in a city, finding marshes where you can harvest, getting waterproof clothing/waders, and, most importantly, hitting the spot at the correct time when the pollen is ready can turn harvesting an interesting ingredient into a frustrating experiment, at least it did for me at…
Duck Egg Spaghetti with Cattail Pollen, Shoot Relish and Marigolds
If you can collect enough flower dust to bake with you’re a foraging savant, and a better hunter than me. A quick google of “cattail pollen recipes” will show you different ways of using pollen, mostly for pancakes and baked goods. Honestly the baking looks interesting, and I love the color the pollen adds. But,…
