craig, Author at Urban Homesteading

Author: craig

5 Ways to Preserve Tart Cherries

Posted on June 30, 2025June 30, 2025 by craig

With summer in full force here, cherry season isn’t far behind. We don’t have a cherry tree on our property. We’d thought about it and discussed it, but our garden space is so small, a tree would take up too much room. Thankfully, a friend’s parents have a cherry tree on their property and don’t want any of the cherries, so they call us up every summer to come and pick them.

For us, tart cherries are ready for picking in late July. I remember this specifically because in 2023 we went and frantically picked all the cherries before heading to the theatre for the Barbie movie. We arrived all sweaty and gross—because it was one of the hottest days in July—and the car smelled of fresh cherries when the movie was over.

Last year, we harvested over 45 pounds of tart cherries from their one tree. Unfortunately, the tree is slowly dying, so it’s likely our harvests will get smaller every year, so we might have to look around our neighbourhood to see who has a cherry tree and offer to harvest their cherries for them.

Big pots holding hundreds of freshly picked cherries

With 45 pounds of cherries—or even with a much smaller amount—an urban homesteader needs an arsenal of recipes to preserve those cherries. Here are my top five ways to preserve tart cherries.

1. Cherry Juice

Interestingly, my post on how to can cherry juice is my most popular post on this site. As well, presently, if you search “how to can cherries” on Google, the Google AI summary references this post. Given all the attention it gets, I recently went back and tightened it up a little bit.

These instructions are specifically for tart cherry juice, as that is what I was working with. But after a little digging, I learned that these same instructions should work for sweet cherry juice as well. Both tart and sweet cherries are acidic enough for water bath canning.

A jar of cherry juice sitting on a deck railing

We use primarily use tart cherry juice as an additive to homemade kombucha.

Click here to read my post about canning tart cherry juice, or check out the recipe below.

Canned Tart Cherry Juice

5 from 1 vote

Tart cherry juice is easy to make and safe to can, and makes an excellent base for mixed drinks or even enjoying as-is.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Cook Time 5

Course: Drinks

Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients

Tart Cherry Juice

Equipment

Water Bath Canner
Mason Jars, with Lids and Rings

Method

Heat juice to simmering.

Fill clean, pre-warmed mason jars, up to half-gallon size, with tart cherry juice, leaving ¼ inch headspace.
Wipe jar rims with a paper towel wetted with white vinegar. Place on lid and screw ring to fingertip tightness.
Place jars in a water bath canner, fill with water until submerged by 1-2 inches of water. Bring to a boil. Once water is boiling, start the timer. For jar sizes up to one litre / one quart, processing time is five minutes. For half-gallon sizes, processing time is ten minutes. If the water ever stops boiling, bring to a boil again and restart the timer. For elevations of 1,001-6,000 feet, add five minutes to processing time.

When process time is up, remove pot from heat and let sit an additional five minutes.
Using a jar lifter, carefully remove jars from canner and place on a thick towel on a counter or table and let sit undisturbed overnight.
The next morning, check if jars have sealed (lid is depressed), and store in a cool dark place for up to a year. If jars have not sealed, place in the fridge and consume promptly.

Notes

While there are no lab-tested recipes specifically for tart cherry juice, this information from Oregon State University Extension Service lays out guidance for safely canning fruit juice and specifically names cherries as an example. While this post is about tart cherries, sweet cherries are within the safety range for canning (a pH of lower than 4.6), but a quick check with a pH testing strip is always recommended.

Need to juice cherries first?

If you have a steam juicer, which is a set of three interconnected pots to extract juice from fruit and vegetables—which I highly recommend— you can juice cherries with your steam juicer. I have a full set of instructions here. (In the photo below, these cherries were frozen until I was ready to juice them, which is why they look a little frosty.)

If you don’t have a steam juicer, this post from Alpha Foodie explains a handful of other ways to juice cherries. However, the benefit of the steam juicer is that you don’t have to pit the cherries. You don’t even have to pull the stems off. So if you’re going to be juicing a lot of cherries or if you have a tree and will be doing this yearly, it would be to your benefit to invest in a steam juicer. They’re basically all the same, so I can’t really recommend a certain brand, but here they are on Amazon.

It’s important to note that I tested the acidity of my cherry juice before canning. If you’re using a juice extraction method that involves adding a lot of water, you may want to invest in some pH strips to ensure your acidity is well below 4.6 for safe canning.

2. Canning Cherries

If you prefer to eat your cherries whole, you should try canning cherries. I did this for the first time last year and the process was remarkably easy (once I got past the very lengthy process of pitting the cherries). You can find my post about the whole process here.

Following directions for canning tart cherries from another site, I went with a fairly light syrup when I canned them, but they came out incredibly tart. I’d recommend using a heavier syrup for tart cherries. But if you’ve got sweet cherries, a lighter syrup is probably best because the fruit is already pretty sweet.

Canned cherries definitely lose some of their texture and freshness. I don’t think I’d open a jar of canned cherries and eat them whole like I would with a handful of fresh cherries. But these are good to throw in fruit salad, to top ice cream with, or to use place of a maraschino cherry in cocktails.

Click here for the full post on canning cherries, or use the recipe card below.

Canned Cherries

5 from 1 vote

Canning cherries is simple and easy to do, and keeps that fresh taste of summer preserved for the depths of winter.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 1

Cook Time 15

Course: Fruit

Cuisine: Fruit

Ingredients Equipment Method

Ingredients

11 pounds Cherries, Sweet or Tart, weighed before pitting
Sugar, as per preference in the instructions below

Equipment

Water Bath Canner

Mason Jars with Lids and Rings, quart size or smaller

Method

Wash, stem, and pit cherries. Tart cherries may turn brown after pitting, so they can be temporarily put in a large bowl of water with a splash of lemon juice mixed in.
Prepare syrup, as per your preference, dissolving sugar in water. This can be done on the stove, heating until fully dissolved.
Very light syrup: ¾ cup sugar, 6½ cup water
Light syrup: 1½ cup sugar, 5¾ cup water
Medium syrup: 2¼ cup sugar, 5¼ cup water
Heavy syrup: 3¼ cup sugar, 5 cup water
Very heavy syrup: 4¼ cup sugar, 4¼ cup water
Cherries can also be canned in water only. The National Center for Home Food Preservation recommends medium syrup for sweet cherries and heavy syrup for tart cherries.

For raw pack canning:
Fill jars with cherries and syrup, leaving half-inch headspace. Debubble and add syrup if needed. Wipe jar rims with a paper towel wetted with white vinegar. Put on lids and screw rings to fingertip tightness.
For hot pack canning:
Add cherries to pot of syrup and bring to a boil. As soon as mixture boils, fill jars with cherries and syrup, leaving half-inch headspace. Debubble and add syrup if needed. Wipe jar rims with a paper towel wetted with white vinegar. Put on lids and screw rings to fingertip tightness.
Put jars in a water bath canner, fill with hot water until jars are submerged beneath 1-2 inches of water. Bring to a boil on the stove. Once boiling, process for the indicated time below. If at any time the water stops boiling, bring to a boil again and restart the timer.
For raw pack canning (quarts or smaller):
0-1,000 ft: 25 minutes
1,001-3,000 ft: 30 minutes
3,001-6,000 ft: 35 minutes
6,001+ ft: 40 minutes
For hot pack canning (quarts):
0-1,000 ft: 20 minutes
1,001-3,000 ft: 25 minutes
3,001-6,000 ft: 30 minutes
6,001+ ft: 35 minutes
For hot pack canning (pints or smaller):
0-1,000 ft: 15 minutes
1,001-6,000 ft: 20 minutes
6,001+ ft: 25 minutes
Remove canner from heat and let sit five minutes. Carefully using a jar lifter, remove jars from canner. Place jars on a thick towel on a counter or table overnight. In the morning, check that jars have sealed. If so, jars can be stored in a cool dark place for up to a year. If any jars have not sealed, place them in the fridge and consume promptly.

3. Cherry Liqueur

In my never-ending quest to look for creative ways to use garden produce for food and drink, I quite often end up making alcohol recipes. A few years ago I stumbled across this cherry liqueur recipe on Serious Eats.

This recipe calls for sweet cherries, but since I have tart cherries I make it with what I have. I follow the recipe exactly, just swapping out the cherry types. This is an absolute winner of a recipe. If I pull out a bottle of this at a barbecue or a family gathering, the bottle is very quickly emptied.

The only alteration I make the recipe is in step two where you make a cherry syrup and store it in the fridge for a week. I’m always concerned about things like that growing mould, so I freeze it for a week instead.

I didn’t make cherry liqueur last summer and I deeply regretted it because it’s so amazingly good. It’ll be near the top of my preserving list this year.

4. Cherry Wine

If you have some experience with winemaking, I highly recommend making a batch of cherry wine. While most folks would likely think of cherry wine as a sweet drink, it works amazingly with tart cherries too.

Practical Self-Reliance has a great cherry wine recipe to get you started.

Like with the cherry liqueur, I didn’t make a batch of wine last year and regret it. Wine will also be high on my to-do list this year. And like cherry liqueur, if I bring out cherry wine at a barbecue or family gathering, it’s very quickly gone because it’s so addictively delicious.

5. Cherry Jam

Tart cherries make a lovely jam for spreading on pastries or morning toast. The Frugal Farm Wife has a great, easy-to-follow recipe on their site.

The recipe requires that cherries be pitted and stemmed before making jam. Sometimes sour cherries will go brown if they’re cut, so by the time you’ve pitted them all, some of your earlier cherries might be an unsightly colour. To help prevent this, you can put pitted cherries in a bowl of water with a splash of lemon juice—this will help preserve the colour while you pit the whole batch, so everything is gorgeously red when you’re ready to make your jam.

Preserve Your Garden Harvest With Confidence

If you’re like me and you have a garden full of dozens of different plants (we typically have 50+ different crops), then you need a great guide to get you started on preserving your harvest. I recently released my first cookbook, Preserving Your Urban Harvest, which includes 73 recipes to preserve 21 common garden favourite crops. The cherries section features the two recipes above—cherry juice and canning cherries. You can click here to find out more and order your copy.

The cover of Preserving Your Urban Harvest by Craig Jamison

What To Do With Too Many Saskatoons

Posted on June 25, 2025June 25, 2025 by craig

It’s almost saskatoon season here in this part of Canada and it can be a bit of a game of chance if we’re going to have an overabundant harvest or nothing at all. It’s always a race to harvest the saskataoons on our bush before the birds do, but the birds are much more efficient than I am.

I distinctly remember one Saturday evening a couple years ago where the saskatoons were near perfect ripeness and I said to myself “I’ll harvest these tomorrow morning before the birds get to them.” When I went out with my harvesting bowl a mere 18 hours later, the bush had been stripped bare of saskatoons and we had a grand harvest of about half a cup. (The year before this, we had harvested somewhere around six litres.)

If I’m particularly determined to enjoy saskatoons and the birds have beaten me to it, there are parks nearby with plenty of saskatoon bushes that I could raid. These berries tend to be smaller than the ones I have here, but they’re just as delicious and just as abundant.

On a year where we get a small harvest, we don’t bother with figuring out how to preserve or cook or use the berries—we just pull them out as a snack at a barbecue. But on those years where we get six litres or more, we need a list of recipes so that we make the most of those saskatoons!

From my understanding, saskatoons are more of a regional name for these berries. Depending on where you are, you may know these as juneberries or serviceberries. When looking for recipes online, you’ll likely have better search results using these other more common names.

Baking recipes

While I don’t tend to bake with saskatoons, I think it would be fair to say that most people’s first thought of what to do with saskatoons is to make pie or other baked goods—so let’s start with some of these!

Saskatoon pie

It’s very likely every Canadian prairie family has their own variation on the traditional Saskatoon pie. This is my step-dad’s recipe, which makes two pies:

Crust ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cups margarine or shortening
1 large egg

1 tablespoon vinegar

Crust instructions:

Knead flour and margarine to make a fairly dry and loose crumble.

Add egg and vinegar and knead until it forms a stiff dough. Add a splash of water if needed to keep the dough rollable and workable.
Divide into two parts and roll out two bottoms and two tops.

Pie ingredients:

8 cups saskatoons, cleaned and stemmed
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Pie instructions:

Place bottom crusts in two 9-inch pie plates and trim edges.
Place 4 cups berries in each pie.
Mix flour, sugar, and cinnamon and pour half of mixture over each pie. Sprinkle a tablespoon of lemon juice over the berries in each pie.

Moisten the rims of the crusts. Place top crust on each pie and crimp-seal around the edges, trimming off excess. Make a small hole in the top of the crust to allow steam to escape.
Bake at 350 F for 45 minutes or until pie looks done.
Serve as-is or with ice cream.

More baked goods

In my searching for recipes I stumbled upon this great site with a whole list of saskatoon berry baked goods, including biscuits, breads, turnover, and more.

Preserving recipes

As this blog likely indicates, I’m a fan of preserving food so we can enjoy it throughout the year. There are, unfortunately, surprisingly few saskatoon preservation recipes, but I’ve got a couple to get you started.

Preserving saskatoons in kombucha

This is a recipe of my own invention and it turned out remarkably well.

A few years back I had started exploring fermentation methods of preserving blueberries, attempting both a salt fermentation and a kombucha fermentation.

After succeeding with that—and liking the kombucha fermentation better—I decided to try the same with saskatoons. And, thankfully, it worked! With this kombucha fermentation, I was able to keep delicious saskatoons in my fridge for weeks, impressing my saskatoon-loving family members who thought the season was long gone.

You can find my recipe for kombucha-fermented saskatoons here.

Saskatoon jam

Perhaps the most common home preservation choice when it comes to saskatoons is to make jam.

The Bernardin website has a great recipe for saskatoon jam, found here.

Alcohol recipes

One of my favourite garden produce projects is to turn food into alcohol. At any given time I have anywhere from four to eight different types of wines stocked away and a few different liqueurs. When we have guests over, this makes for a very impressive (and delicious) accompaniment to dinner.

Saskatoon wine

Last year I attempted my first batch of Saskatoon wine using this recipe.

It turned out very delicious, but my main learning from the project was to wait until fermentation fully stops rather than following directions to the letter. I had bottled the wine when directed, but fermentation hadn’t finished and had continued while in the bottle. Upon opening, two of our bottles gushed upward like a geyser, even striking the ceiling once. It was a mess to clean up. (In hindsight, I could have used a Campden tablet to cease fermentation before bottling, but I generally don’t use them.)

It’s a recipe I will make again and once I’ve mastered it (and perhaps tweaked it a bit), I’ll have a version here on the website.

Saskatoon liqueur

On the same site I’ve already linked to twice in this post, I also came across a saskatoon liqueur recipe that could be described as saskatoon schnapps. You can find that recipe here.

If I can manage to get the saskatoons before the birds this year and have a large harvest, I’ll give this a try too!

More food preserving recipes

If you haven’t already checked out my new cookbook, Preserving Your Urban Harvest, please do so! It includes 73 recipes to preserve 21 garden favourite crops, including saskatoons!

The cover of Preserving Your Urban Harvest

Each produce has two to four recipes, to help get your started on your food preservation and urban homesteading journey. The saskatoon section includes the above kombucha-fermented saskatoons and a saskatoon and Grand Marnier jam.

Summer is Finally Here: A Garden Update for June 2025

Posted on June 19, 2025June 19, 2025 by craig

It’s almost hard to believe that less than a month ago, the ground was all black earth and we were just starting to get things going for the year. Now, in the middle of June, the garden is fully planted and we’ve already begun harvesting a few things. Summer has come on very fast.

Most dramatic is our front yard. These are mostly perennial bushes and flowers, so they’re among the first things to come up. When the rest of our property is mostly newly-sprouted plants, the front yard is fully grown and thriving. The front yard also keeps the bees busy—between flowers on the mustard, strawberries, raspberries, and decorative flowers, there is lots of food and opportunity for pollinating insects.

The front garden with its many flowers and bushes.

Early harvests

The front yard is also where I’ve done some harvesting already.

First were the chives and chive blossoms. I’ve focussed mostly on the pastel purple blossoms and have made some chive blossom jelly and chive blossom vinegar. I’ve also frozen some blossoms with plans to try making some biscuits with them in the next few weeks.
Strawberries have started ripening too. It’s just a few here and there right now, but there are several dozen green ones that are only a week or two from being ready. I’m cleaning, chopping, and freezing these so they can be enjoyed later, either on ice cream or in oatmeal.

Chamomile, while not a perennial plant in this climate, has come back and fully established itself in our garden. Similar to mustard and borage, chamomile self-seeds, so wherever you first plant chamomile, that’ll likely be your chamomile patch going forward. It’s only been a few weeks and I think I’ve already harvest as much chamomile as I harvested last year. We definitely didn’t have enough last year, so we’re looking forward to the larger harvest this time around.

Everything is planted

While we tend to receive gifted plants throughout the summer that we replant in our garden, so planting is never truly over, we’ve finished the bulk of it.

Our front garden is largely perennials or self-seeding plants that regrow every year (like mustard and chamomile). Our patch along the side of the house will be beans and peas this year (versus corn and peas last year). The corn has moved to a far distant patch in our neighbour’s yard in an attempt to prevent the squirrel from raiding our crop and destroying everything.

The squirrel is resourceful, though, and has already found the corn. And rather than wait for the corn to fully grow and develop, it’s started attacking the small sprouts that are coming up. With the help of a friend, we collected some pop bottles to create little safety domes over the corn to protect them for the first few weeks. (Since it looks like we’re growing pop bottles, I call it our “soda patch”.)

Our back garden this year consists mainly of garlic, a few squash, broccoli, peppers, and Brussels sprouts, with a collection of a few other random things.

The neighbour’s garden is where we’ve got the corn, popcorn, tomatoes, potatoes, beets, onions, cucumbers, and canning peas, as well as a random assortment of a few other things.

Our neighbour's garden with an assortment of plants, including a large potato patch.

And our other neighbour’s yard, where we do a strip along the shared fence, we’ve got peas and squash.

In the meantime, while we wait for things to grow and flower and produce food, we are keeping the bees happy with our mustard. It grows plenty of vibrant yellow flowers and the bees and other pollinators love it. On particularly busy days, you can hear the buzzing from several feet away because our mustard patch is the social hub for these insects.

Books to add to your library

I’m a writer at heart, so while I love writing this blog and will continue to do so (and it’ll continue to be 100% free), I can’t help but also put things into book format.

I recently released Preserving Your Urban Harvest, which collects 73 of my favourite recipes for 21 favourite garden crops. Some of the recipes are already here on this blog and some are not. Whether you’re new to food preserving or experienced, you’ll likely find some tasty recipes to enjoy.

If you’re feeling a bit more adventurous, I’m currently working on a book of wine recipes so you can “drink your garden”, which I hope to publish this summer. After that is a sourdough cookbook with a whole wide range of recipes. And then I may have a few other ideas after that. So stay tuned!

Out Now: My First Cookbook!

Posted on June 13, 2025June 13, 2025 by craig

I’m excited to announce that my first cookbook is out now!

I’m a book lover by nature and while this site will continue to grow and will continue to be 100% free, I can’t help but write it all down in book format, accompanied with full page photos. Preserving Your Urban Harvest contains 73 recipes for 21 common home garden favourites, with some recipes found here on this site, but with so many more not found here.

I’m releasing in paperback first and will follow up with an ebook in the near future for those who prefer a digital cookbook.

Here’s the cover:

Cover of Preserving Your Urban Harvest cookbook, which features four jars of preserved foods

And here’s the blurb:

Preserve your harvest. Enjoy it all year.

Whether you’re growing tomatoes on a balcony, or tending a backyard garden, Preserving Your Urban Harvest shows you how to make the most of your crops with 73 simple, delicious and time-tested recipes.

From apples to tomatoes, this book covers 21 common garden favorites with easy methods like water bath canning, pressure canning, fermenting, pickling, and more. Create pantry staples and creative treats—without needing a farmhouse or a root cellar.

Inside, you’ll find step-by-step instructions for:

Butter Chicken Curry Sauce

Fermented Garlic Scape Hot Sauce

Bread and Butter Pickles

Pressure Canned French Fries

Saskatoon and Grand Marnier Jam

Written by self-taught food preserver Craig Jamison, who shares years of hands-on experience preserving garden produce with his husband, this book is for anyone who wants to turn homegrown food into year-round abundance.

Ready to fill your pantry with flavor, not just food? Let’s get preserving!

Paperbacks are available right now on Amazon! Click here to get yours now!

I’m already hard at work on my next book about making wine from your garden crops, and then I’ve got a few other ideas after that—so if cookbooks are your thing, there are plenty coming from me in the future!

How to Make Chive Blossom Vinegar

Posted on June 12, 2025June 12, 2025 by craig

Chives are one of the first plants to come up in the garden every year. They have a lovely aroma and a delicious taste—sometimes I’ll just pluck one and eat it as I walk around the garden. In late May and early June, the chives start flowering with a gorgeous pastel purple flower.

When used fresh, chives are excellent on eggs or sprinkled atop any dish that could benefit from a burst of green colour and the soft bite of oniony chive flavour. But preserving chives is remarkably difficult. While it is possible to dehydrate them, they lose a lot of their flavour in the process. I’ve chopped and frozen some, but the flavour again starts to fade. The best way to enjoy chives is to enjoy them fresh.

A chive plant with pastel-purple flowers

For those set on preserving them, though, there are a few options. I’ve done up a batch of fermented chives a few times (using this recipe) and they come out tasting like very oniony sauerkraut, which has its place on the table with certain dishes.

The pastel purple blossoms are where some unique preservation options come up. The first is chive blossom jelly, which I’ve got here, or if you prefer a low-sugar version you can find that here, though the required low-sugar pectin is difficult to find in Canada. The second is chive blossom vinegar, which is a unique showstopper—it’s vibrantly pink, has a tantalizing aroma, and a delicious taste.

I typically use chive blossom vinegar with dinner—I’ll add a dash of it to the pan to help deglaze, plus the acidity adds a brightness to the flavour of whatever I’m cooking. It would work very well in a simple homemade oil and vinegar salad dressing and would also add a unique taste when sprinkled on fries.

How to make chive blossom vinegar

The first thing you’ll need is chive blossoms. Unfortunately, one of the only ways to get these is either by having your own chive plant or knowing someone that does, as I’ve never seen chive blossoms available for sale anywhere.

You’ll need about two cups, plus some chives for extra added flavour.

A Pyrex measuring glass filled with chive blossoms and chives

The only other ingredient you’ll need is vinegar. You’ll want a mild vinegar so that the taste of chives is allowed to shine. I typically make this with white wine vinegar, but I’ve also made it with unseasoned rice vinegar. I’d likely avoid white vinegar as it can be a too harsh. While I’ve never made it with apple cider vinegar, that may work well to hav an apple/chive taste, though the colour likely won’t be as vibrant.

Step one: Combine all ingredients

You may want to give your chive blossoms a rinse in case any insects or dirty have come along for a ride. Once patted dry, add the blossoms and chives to a large jar and top with two cups of vinegar. Put the lid on and tightly close it.

A mason jar filled with vinegar, chives, and chive blossoms

Step two: Let it sit

This recipe is remarkably easy, because all you do is let it sit for two weeks in a dark place at room temperature. It’s good to shake it daily, so I like to keep it in the cupboard right in front of my pots and pans, so whenever I go to make dinner, it’s in my way and I remember to shake it.

Step three: Strain and bottle

After two weeks, the vinegar should be bright pink and have an amazing chive aroma. Strain the vinegar, dissolving the solids, and transfer the vinegar to whichever bottle you want to use to store it.

A bottle of chive blossom vinegar; the vinegar is a brilliant pink colour

Step four: Enjoy

Use the vinegar as you might use any flavoured vinegar. You’ll find uses that work for you, such as salad dressing, deglazing pans, or a homemade fresh salsa (don’t use it for canning since you can’t be sure of the acidity level).

Over time, the colour will fade and the vinegar will turn brown. This is purely a colour change; the taste should remain just as vibrant and amazing and you can continue to use it as you like.

Chive Blossom Vinegar

5 from 2 votes

Brilliantly pink and with an amazing aroma and taste, chive blossom vinegar is a showstopper of a condiment.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 10

Infusing Time 14

Course: condiments

Ingredients Method

Ingredients

2 cups Chive Blossoms

1 handful Chives
2 cups Vinegar with a Mild Flavour like White Wine Vinegar or Unseasoned Rice Vinegar

Method

Wash and pat dry chive blossoms to remove insects or dirt.

Combine all ingredients in a large jar and tightly close.
Store in dark place for two weeks, shaking daily.
Strain vinegar, discarding solids. Transfer vinegar to a bottle or jar.

What To Do With Too Much Rhubarb

Posted on June 6, 2025June 6, 2025 by craig

Home gardeners who grow rhubarb know that once the plant establishes itself, you soon have too much rhubarb. We don’t have rhubarb in our garden, but both of our neighbours do, and neither one wants their rhubarb, so we harvest it all. Last year was the first year we tried to harvest all of it, as it’s usually too much to bother doing that. We ended up stocking away over 100 pounds of it in our freezers. I had to figure out pretty soon what to do with too much rhubarb.

Depending on your climate and your specific rhubarb plants, you may have already harvested yours or are looking at doing so pretty soon. For us, a few of our plants seem to be a month behind anyone else. When everyone else’s lilac bush is full of purple blooms, ours is just warming up for the season—and then when everyone else’s blooms fall off, that’s when ours looks gorgeously purple. Our rhubarb is similar—we tend to harvest it in July or August, so it’s more of a mid-summer crop for us rather than a spring one.

Here are some of the projects I undertake with rhubarb, as well as a few great ideas from around the internet that haven’t quite made it on this site yet:

Freezing rhubarb

The first and easiest is to simply freeze the rhubarb. It freezes well and holds together decently when thawed and frozen rhubarb is good for most uses. If you prefer to pickle rhubarb, you shouldn’t freeze it first because it will affect the texture, but for juicing, jelly-making, and alcohol uses, frozen rhubarb is fine.

After harvesting the rhubarb and chopping off the toxic leaf, I wash and dry every stalk, then chop them into one-inch lengths. I set them all out on a towel for a few hours to fully dry, then bag them up, date them, and freeze them.

Bags of chopped rhubarb ready for the freezer.

I’ve gone on to use this frozen rhubarb for juicing, kombucha flavouring, wine making, gin flavouring, and jelly making. My step-father likes to make rhubarb crumble and rhubarb pie and will use our frozen rhubarb for this and the results are just as good as fresh.

Rhubarb ginger gin

Of everything I make, this is by far the most popular. Rhubarb ginger gin is sweet and juicy with just a hint of warmth from the ginger and it makes for easy drinking. It mixes phenomenally well with Coke.

The process is simple—combine gin, rhubarb, sugar, and ginger in a large jar and let it sit for a month, then strain, bottle, and serve. You can find the full recipe and instructions here.

If you’re not a ginger fan, you can omit the ginger and make rhubarb gin. I’ve also done this and the results are a little sweeter.

Rhubarb schnapps

Not much of a gin fan? You can also make rhubarb schnapps. It’s a very similar process, but it uses vodka instead of gin. This recipe isn’t on my blog since I haven’t made it in a few years (as I’m much more of a gin drinker than a vodka drinker), but this looks like a great version here.

Rhubarb juice

Rhubarb juice cans easily. And if you have a steam juicer, that makes the process phenomenally easy.

This post explains how to extract rhubarb juice and safely can it.

Rhubarb juice is acidic enough to be canned as-is, but most people add sugar to sweeten it and balance the taste. For myself, I tend to use the rhubarb juice in other recipes (some of which are below), so I can unsweetened juice so I’m never unsure of how much sugar to add for the future recipes.

Rhubarb jelly

One such use of unsweetened canned rhubarb juice is rhubarb jelly. I will sometimes make rhubarb jelly for some folks that request it and the process is very easy when I already have pre-canned juice on hand and don’t have to juice the rhubarb as part of the recipe.

An easy step-by-step guide to making and canning rhubarb jelly can be found here.

Rhubarb wine

There are two staple wines I make every single year—dandelion wine and rhubarb wine.

Rhubarb wine is a great starter recipe for folks new to home winemaking. You can find a complete recipe with instructions here.

A bottle of rhubarb wine with two glasses that are half filled with wine.

While the recipe is easy to make as is, as the first step is to just dump sugar and chopped rhubarb in a bucket and let it extract the juice, I’ve found I get far superior flavour if I use the canned rhubarb juice I made. While wine made from rhubarb chunks is delicious, it seems the chunks sometimes add just a hint of bitterness to the final taste—but using only juice removes that bitterness and I’m left with a wine that is incredibly smooth, juicy, and delicious.

I may experiment with the rhubarb wine recipe a little bit this year. Last year after mis-understanding a recipe, I threw some ginger into a dandelion wine batch and ended up with a surprisingly delicious dandelion ginger wine—the ginger is just a background note but complements it perfectly. I suspect I’d get the same amazing result with rhubarb ginger wine. So if that’s a success, it will appear on this site eventually.

Pickled rhubarb

One of my favourite things to do in home preserving is to pickle things. I pickle cucumbers, hot peppers, beets, carrots, cauliflower, and more. Pickled rhubarb is one of those more surprising ones with a unique flavour and texture. You can find a good recipe for it here.

Dehydrated rhubarb

Every home preserver has their preferred preserving method. For me, it’s canning. But for some, it’s dehydrating. Dehydrating rhubarb is easy and because it shrinks so much (since a lot of what makes up rhubarb is water), dehydrating can be a real space saver if you have a lot of rhubarb. This site has easy-to-follow instructions, as well as some ideas of how to use your dehydrated rhubarb.

More to come…

As this site grows, I’ll come back here and update this list with more fantastic ways to use up your overwhelming rhubarb harvest.

How to Make Sourdough Pizza

Posted on May 27, 2025May 27, 2025 by craig

It seems I’ve really gotten into a sourdough kick over the past couple months. I’ve baked some bread, made English muffins, baked some cookies, made some crackers, experimented with spaetzle…and now I decided to tackle pizza! I’ve always found the thought of making homemade pizza from scratch to be somewhat overwhelming. But I figured now was the time to teach myself how to make sourdough pizza.

As with most of my sourdough projects of late, I hopped onto Zoom with my bestie and we worked through the recipe together. What’s nice about doing it together is that we compare the results and discuss the steps as we go, so we figure things out faster.

How to make sourdough pizza

The first and most important thing you need is a healthy and active sourdough starter. If you’re new to sourdough and don’t have a starter going, check out my post about that here. It can take up to a couple weeks to have a really active starter.

The night before doing this recipe, you’ll want to feed your starter so it’s active and bubbly in the morning when you start making your dough. It’s okay if the starter has fallen by the morning; we don’t need this at the height of its activity.

This recipe makes one regular size pizza. You can either double it if you’d like for two pizzas, or split the dough in half when you roll it out for two individual size pizzas.

This recipe can be made with a simple pizza pan and does not require a pizza stone or any other specialized equipment—but if you have those, you can use them.

Step one: Make your dough

In a bowl, combine 1/4 cup of your starter, 240 grams (2 cups) of flour, 3/4 cup water, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. (I didn’t have olive oil on hand so I used vegetable oil and the results were fine.)

Mix it with a spoon until you get a shaggy dough, then mix it a bit more by hand using the stretch-and-fold method. If you find your dough is too sticky, you can work some extra flour in. Tacky dough that feels sticky but doesn’t actually make a mess of your fingers is fine; sticky dough that adheres to your fingers is too wet.

Step two: Two sets of stretch and folds

Let the dough rest for about 10 minutes, then do a set of stretch and folds.

Let the dough rest for an additional 10 minutes, then do a second set of stretch and folds.

Step three: Let rest and rise

Place the dough ball in a lightly oiled bowl (to prevent the dough from sticking to the bowl) and let it sit at room temperature for about 8 hours, or until it’s approximately doubled in size.

Step four: Stretch out dough and form your crust

Preheat your oven to 475 F.

If you’d prefer to make two individual sized pizzas, split the dough ball in two.

On a floured surface, roll out your dough until it’s thin and the size of your pizza pan (or the size that you want). Roll up the edges to make a ridge around the pizza.

Step five: Top and bake your pizza

For my pizza, I spread on some pizza sauce (which is my pasta sauce repurposed for pizza), pepperoni, mushrooms, and cheddar cheese.

Bake for 13-15 minutes or until the crust looks cooked and the cheese is bubbly. Turn on the broiler and let broil for about 3 minutes to darken the top of the crust.

Remove from oven and let sit for a couple minutes before slicing and enjoying.

Sourdough Pizza

5 from 2 votes

Easy to make and delicious to eat, sourdough pizza is a staple at our house. This recipe is for one pizza or two personal pizzas. Feel free to double or triple the recipe as needed.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 8 30

Cook Time 20

Course: dinner

Cuisine: Italian

Ingredients Method

Ingredients

¼ cup Active Sourdough Starter
240 g All-Purpose Flour (2 cups)
¾ cup Water

1 tsp Salt
1 Tbsp Olive Oil

Method

Place all ingredients in a bowl. Stir with a spoon until it comes together as a shaggy ball

Gently work the dough with your hands. If the dough is too wet, add flour as you go. It should be tacky, but not sticky. When you pull your hands away, the dough should stick to itself, not clump on your fingers. Sometimes I need to add a lot of extra flour.
Once you have a tacky ball of dough, let it rest for ten minutes. Then do a round of stretch and folds, going around the dough two or three times. You may need to add a little extra flour.
Let it rest another ten minutes, then do another round of stretch and folds, adding flour if needed.

Transfer the dough ball to a lightly oiled bowl (to prevent dough from sticking to the bowl), cover with plastic wrap or a towel, and let rest for eight hours, or until dough has doubled in size.
Preheat oven to 475℉. Roll out dough on a floured surface, stretching it to larger than your pizza pan. Transfer dough to pan and roll the edges to form a crust around the pizza.
Add sauce and toppings.

Bake for 13-15 minutes at 475℉, or until cheese is bubbly and crust is beginning to brown. Turn on the broiler in the oven and let it broil for about 3 minutes, to brown the crust a little more.
Remove from oven and let sit for a few minutes before slicing and serving.

Spring is here! A garden update for May 2025

Posted on May 12, 2025May 12, 2025 by craig

I think we can finally say it—spring is here and garden season has begun! Normally we wait till the May long weekend to make that declaration because weather can still be rocky in early May and there’s still a chance of frost, but this year has been warmer than usual so far and the garden is already in the swing of things, even though we haven’t done much yet. The trees and bushes are starting to bud, the chives have come up, flowers are starting to grow, and all the birds are back.

Garlic

We finally planted our garlic. We typically do a fall planting, let it overwinter, and then it’s the first thing to grow in the spring. Last fall was warm and wet and we ran the risk of the garlic simply rotting and opted for a spring planting. Ideally, we would have done it a little earlier since garlic can handle a little cold, but nevertheless, it’s in the ground.

This year’s garlic is in a new spot. We like to rotate our crops to test out different areas of the garden for the different foods. Rotating crops is also good for soil health since different plants both take and deposit different minerals into the ground. I’ve noticed that last year’s garlic patch has garlic currently growing in it. I must have missed a half dozen heads of garlic during last year’s harvest. We will likely dig them up and move them to the garlic patch, because where they are now would be in the way of this summer’s crops.

Mushrooms

We’ve also set up our mushroom beds! Last year, we tried growing mushrooms at the bases of a few of our trees. We laid out lots of sawdust, spread out the grain spawn, and gave it a good water. We got one small clutch of oyster mushrooms and that was it.

This year, we’re trying three different types of mushrooms—wine cap, shiitake, and pioppino—to see if any do better than others. And this year we’re also upping our mushroom setup. Mushrooms really need better conditions than what we’d set up last year, so we’ve changed our tactic this year. We laid out a layer of dead and decaying squash vines and leaves from last year, a layer of wood chips we bought at the hardware store, the grain spawn, more wood chips, and more leaves and vines. We gave it a good water. The directions say it’s best to cover with a clear tarp for the first while, so I’ll get one and set it up soon. Hopefully we get some mushrooms or even a bountiful harvest—this is one of the crops we really want to succeed but have difficulty with every year.

Making a plan

I ordered seeds a few months ago and they’ve been patiently sitting our kitchen, waiting to be put in the ground. Next is to purchase seedlings and live plants. We tend to go on or around the May long weekend to pick up what we need, and we focus on things that we have trouble growing from seed, or take too long to grow from seed, such as chamomile, hot peppers, herbs, leeks, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts. It sounds like a small list, but we inevitably come home with two to three times the amount of things we set out to buy.

My husband will start tilling the ground and planting seeds and plants in the next few weeks. In early June, my step-dad will come to the city and immediately be put to work in our garden—the two of them quickly power through the whole project and get this massive garden installed in a matter of two to three days.

Barren garden, waiting to be tilled and planted

Assessing our stock

The preservation recipes I undertake every year will vary based on what’s coming up in the garden, but also on what we still have on the shelves in our food storage room. While canned foods are theoretically good indefinitely as long as the seal on the jar hasn’t been broken, I find for many things the quality degrades after a year and a half to two years. (As well, some canning companies recommend using food up within 18 months, as the seal may degrade past that date.) So, for example, I still have a lot of hot sauce in storage from last year that will be fine for the coming year, so I will likely skip hot sauce this year. On the other hand, we’re almost out of green tomato chutney, so I’ll make a big batch of that to last the next couple years.

This is also the opportunity to assess if there’s anything we thought we would use up but just ended up not. This happened a few years ago with peony jelly—it’s a nice recipe and I’ve found a few folks who love it and happily took it off my hands, but if I hadn’t, I would have ended up throwing out the jelly because we simply don’t use it up ourselves.

Assessing the inventory of food we still have has also been interesting in the sense that there is still a LOT left and it feels like we have too much…but then I realize that harvest is still a few months away and for some things they’re not really harvested until October, which is a full four months away. We will very likely have an overlap of old thing still around while we’re preserving new things, so we’ll have to make sure we’re clearly marking the dates on things so we use the older ones first.

Preserving food is an odd cycle, but a predictable one. In October, I’m exhausted and never want to do it again. In February I’m relaxed and enjoying the bounty of our harvest and could see myself doing more canning when the time comes. And now in May I’m eager for things to just grow already so I can harvest and make all of these wonderful things.

Here’s hoping 2025 is a bountiful year for all of us!

How to Make Sourdough Discard Crackers

Posted on May 1, 2025May 1, 2025 by craig

We hosted a dinner party recently and it evolved into a potluck where our guests were bringing the salad, sides, and the main course. We whipped up a dessert, but we were feeling like we should be doing a bit more since we’re the hosts, and it felt like our guests were doing all the hard work. So, I decided to add some appetizers to the menu and whip up a batch of sourdough discard crackers to serve alongside some hummus and toum.

As anybody who maintains a sourdough starter knows, you end up throwing out a lot of the starter. Every time you feed it, you discard a portion of it. While flour and water aren’t expensive, it does feel like a waste, so sourdough discard recipes are great ways to use up this discard instead of throwing it out. I recently made sourdough discard chocolate chip cookies, and as I grow this site more discard recipes will appear on the recipe index page.

These sourdough discard crackers come together quickly and easily and are highly customizable when it comes to the flavourings. I used a few teaspoons of Herbs de Provence, which is a traditional French and Mediterranean blend of herbs, typically including thyme, rosemary, savory, marjoram, oregano, and tarragon. But if I didn’t have Herbs de Provence on hand, I would have gone with just rosemary. I made these crackers on a Zoom call with my bestie who was also making it in her kitchen—she went with salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese, and they turned out excellent too.

How to make sourdough discard crackers

The first and most important thing you will need is a sourdough starter. If you haven’t got one going yet, you’ll need to do so and maintain it for at least a week before you start using it for recipes like this. You can find instructions on making a starter here.

For the dinner party I made these crackers for, I whipped up a double batch. I fed the starter an extra large helping the night before so I’d have a lot of discard on hand. Thus, all the photos in this post are for a double batch.

Step one: Setting up

Preheat your oven to 350 F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Melt two tablespoons of butter and let it cool slightly.

Step two: Mix the ingredients

Put a bowl on a kitchen scale and hit the tare / zero button. Then add 200 grams of sourdough starter discard, which will amount to approximately 3/4 cup of discard.

Add the melted butter, 1/4 teaspoon fine salt, and 2 teaspoons of dried herbs (or hard cheese like parmesan).

Give everything a good mix until it’s well combined.

Step three: Spread out on parchment paper

Scoop or pour the batter onto the parchment paper lined baking sheets.

Spread it out really thin. This can get a little tricky with the dough sticking to your spatula or knife and pulling up the parchment paper, so you may need to hold down the parchment paper as you do this.

Sprinkle the top with 1/4 teaspoon flaky or coarse salt. I went with coarse sea salt, but if you have a flavoured sea salt or butcher’s salt (coarse salt with dried herbs mixed in), these would work well too.

Dough is thinly spread and ready for the oven

Step four: Bake the crackers

Put the baking sheet in the oven.

Optional: After ten minutes, if you want to score your crackers to make nice squares or rectangles, take the baking sheet out and gently run a knife or pizza cutter through it. If you prefer to break the crackers afterward for a more rustic look, skip this step.

Crackers may take as short as 20 minutes or as long as 50 minutes, depending on the variations in oven temperature and how thinly the dough was spread. Crackers are ready when they look dry and hard and are starting to turn golden brown. I found it took about 30 minutes to reach this point.

Step five: Let cool and enjoy

Let the crackers cool completely and then break them into appropriate sizes. Crackers can be eaten immediately or stored in an airtight container for about a week.

Sourdough Discard Crackers

5 from 2 votes

These crackers are not only a great way to use up sourdough discard, but they're also delicious and easy to make.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 50

Course: Snack

Ingredients Method

Ingredients

200 grams Sourdough Discard (about ¾ cup)
2 Tbsp Unsalted Butter

¼ tsp Fine Salt
2 tsp Dried Herbs or Seasonings (such as Herbs de Provence or black pepper and parmesan cheese)
¼ tsp Coarse Salt

Method

Preheat oven to 350℉ and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Melt butter and allow to cool slightly.
Into a bowl, weigh out sourdough discard using a kitchen scale.

Add melted butter, fine salt, and herbs or seasonings, and mix until thoroughly combined.
Spread dough thinly onto parchment paper. Sprinkle the top with coarse salt.
Put in the oven and bake for 20-50 minutes, or until starting to turn golden brown. If desired, after the first 10 minutes, remove the sheet from the oven and score the crackers with a knife or pizza cutter.

When done, remove from oven and allow to cool. Break crackers into appropriate sizes. Crackers can be consumed immediately or stored in an airtight container for about a week.

How to Make Raspberry Crumble Loaf Cake with Lemon Drizzle

Posted on April 24, 2025April 24, 2025 by craig

While this pre-garden period drags on where there is no outdoor stuff to do, I continue to explore indoor projects. One of our goals every year is to use up what we have stocked away by the time we start stocking away new stuff from this year’s harvest. I’ve been eyeing a bag of raspberries I froze from last year that’s looking for an excuse to be eaten.

My bestie and I often hop on Zoom calls and tackle food projects together, so to use up my raspberries, we whipped up a raspberry crumble loaf cake with lemon drizzle. It’s not too sweet, has a bit of tartness from the raspberries, a sweet crumble topping, and a light lemon drizzle. It pairs perfectly with coffee or tea to make a nice afternoon snack.

The recipes I was looking at as inspiration all called for heavy kitchen appliances—a stand mixer with special attachments, a food processor—but this recipe here can all be done by hand without much effort. If you prefer to use a stand mixer and/or food processor, I’ll include those instructions as well, so you can adapt your method to what tools you’d like to use or not use.

A slice of raspberry crumble loaf cake with lemon drizzle waiting to be eaten

How to make raspberry crumble loaf cake with lemon drizzle

This batter comes together pretty quickly and you’ll soon have this in the oven. While you could certainly eat a warm slice when it’s fresh out of the oven, I’ve found it tastes better once it’s been refrigerated and is nice and chilled. Regardless of how you eat it, let’s learn how to make it!

Step one: Make the crumb topping

Add 90 grams of flour (or 3/4 cup), 66 grams of sugar (or 1/3 cup), and 1/4 teaspoon of salt to a bowl. With a whisk or fork, give it a quick stir to fully mix the ingredients. I find baking projects work best with the flour and sugar weighed, so if you have a scale I recommend pulling it out, but if you prefer to use the volume measurements, that’s fine too!

Add five tablespoons of cold unsalted butter, cut into small slices or cubes. With a pastry cutter, potato masher, or fork, combine ingredients until you get a crumbly sand-like mixture. I’ve found that it looks like it’s not working and it’s just clumping together, but as I keep going at it with the pastry cutter, it’ll suddenly turn and all come together to the desired consistency.

Crumble topping fully mixed and with a sand-like texture

If you prefer to use a big Kitchenaid-style mixer, you can put all of this in the mixing bowl, use the paddle attachment and sit it to mix on low until you reach the desired consistency. Alternatively, if you have a large food processor, you could pulse the whole thing in there until the consistency is reached.

Put the crumb topping aside until needed.

Step two: Make the batter

Preheat oven to 350 and spray a 9-inch loaf pan with cooking spray.

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl—180 grams (1 1/2 cup) flour, 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Give it a quick stir with a whisk or fork to combine ingredients.

In a separate, larger bowl, combine wet ingredients—1/4 cup vegetable oil, 3/4 cup sugar, 2 large eggs, 3/4 cup plain unsweetened yogurt (I used Greek yogurt), and 2 teaspoons vanilla extract. Give this a good mix with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula to combine ingredients.

If you want to use a Kitchenaid-style mixer, combine all the wet ingredients in the mixer’s bowl and use the whisk attachment until well-blended. If you’re using a mixer, remove the bowl from the mixer for the remaining steps.

Add the dry ingredients to the bowl of wet ingredients. Mix with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until just combined and most lumps have disappeared. Be careful not to over-mix it.

Step three: Assemble the cake

Pour the batter into the greased/sprayed loaf pan.

Sprinkle 1 1/2 cups of frozen or fresh raspberries on top. Gently press the raspberries down so they embed in the batter, but do not submerge them. The end result will be cake with a layer of raspberries.

Using clean hands, pick up handfuls of crumb mixture and distribute them evenly over the cake, gently squeezing as you do so to create larger crumbs for a variety of textures and sizes.

Fully assembled raspberry crumble loaf cake ready for the oven

Step four: Bake the cake

Bake the cake for 55-65 minutes. Test with a toothpick to see if it’s done; a toothpick should be inserted in the centre and removed and there should be no wet batter on the toothpick. The raspberries may get in the way and make it difficult to do an accurate test, so you may want to move some raspberries aside with the gentle help of a butterknife.

Let the cake cool. When cool, remove from pan and transfer to a plate or serving dish.

Raspberry crumble loaf cake fresh out of the oven

Step five: Make the lemon drizzle

In a cup or small bowl, add 1/2 cup of powdered sugar, a pinch of salt, 1/2 tablespoon of milk (milk alternatives work fine, I used almond milk), and 1/2 tablespoon of lemon juice. Give it a stir with a teaspoon and it’ll soon come together to make a runny whiteish drizzle. If you feel it’s too thick, you could add a tiny splash of lemon juice or milk (like 1/8 of a teaspoon) to thin it out a bit.

Then, scooping it up with a spoon, drizzle it over the cake.

Raspberry crumble loaf cake with lemon drizzle

Step six: Enjoy!

You can slice into the cake at any time, but I do find it tastes better once it’s been in the fridge for a while and is nicely chilled. To keep it from going dry after slicing into it, put it in an airtight container or cover it with plastic wrap (you can put toothpicks in the cake to prevent the wrap from coming in contact with the cake). It’s best to consume within a few days, but good luck letting it last that long!

Raspberry Crumble Loaf Cake with Lemon Drizzle

5 from 2 votes

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 1

Course: Dessert

Ingredients Method

Ingredients

Crumb Topping

90 grams Flour (about ¾ cup)
66 grams Sugar (about ⅓ cup)

¼ tsp Salt
5 Tbsp Butter, cold and cut into small cubes

Cake

180 grams Flour (about 1 ½ cups)

1 ½ tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp Baking Soda
½ tsp Salt

¼ cup Vegetable Oil
¾ cup Sugar
2 Large Eggs

¾ cup Plain Unsweetened Yogurt (can use Greek yogurt)
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 ½ cups Raspberries, fresh or frozen

Lemon Drizzle

½ cup Powdered Sugar
Pinch Salt
½ Tbsp Milk or Milk Alternative

½ Tbsp Lemon Juice

Method

Make the Crumb Topping

In a bowl, combine all crumb ingredients. With a pastry cutter, blend the ingredients until they come together and form a sand-like texture. Alternatively, you can do this in a stand mixer with a paddle attachment or in a food processor.

Make the Cake

Preheat oven to 350℉ and spray a 9-inch loaf pan with cooking spray.

Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to a bowl and mix with a wire whisk or fork until evenly blended.
In a separate, larger bowl, add oil, sugar, eggs, yogurt, and vanilla. Mix using a whisk, spatula, or spoon until evenly blended.
Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients bowl. Mix until lumps have mostly disappeared, being careful not to over-mix (so do this manually rather than with a mixer).

Transfer batter to the prepared loaf pan. Sprinkle raspberries on top and gently press them partway into the batter.
Sprinkle crumb topping on top, gently squeezing fingers while doing so to create larger crumbs.
Bake for 55-65 minutes. When done, test with a toothpick—when inserted into the cake, it should come out clean and free of batter. If the raspberries are in the way and making it difficult, gently move some aside with a butterknife and try again.

When baked, allow to cool. Transfer to a wire rack when safe to do so.

Make the Lemon Drizzle

Combine all drizzle ingredients in a small bowl or cup and stir until thoroughly mixed. Using a spoonful at a time, drizzle over the cake.