At home with Jackie How to grow carob trees and use the pods in the kitchen

Carob trees are nothing but trouble and she doesn’t think much of the crop, but JACKIE FRENCH can’t help growing them anyway

You really, really don’t want to plant a carob tree – not unless you have fallen in love with their triangular shape, dense shade and leathery, shiny leaves, and have planted a named cultivar of a bisexual carob, because if you haven’t, you aren’t going to get any carob pods.

This may not be a problem if you can’t stand the stuff. I find carob ‘chocolate’ to taste somewhere between beeswax and sweet cardboard, and even though carob has a reputation as an excellent stock food, our chooks seem to share my opinion of the pods, raw or cooked. (Admittedly, our hens are spoiled.)

Carob trees usually need both a male and a female tree to fruit, plus enough bees to help the pollination. Commercially, one male is grown to every five female trees. (The affairs of carob trees are their own business. I make no comment.)

Worse, if you do want to harvest the carob, the trees can take seven years to fruit, and far longer in colder areas or if there is any interference to their long tap roots when planting them out.

Carob trees sulk. Ours sulked for about five years. I must have planted them hastily, and admittedly into stony soil, which they are supposed to tolerate, though it is perfectly drained, which is also essential for carob. They need full sun, too. In our deep valley, probably no part of the garden is truly in full sun,

and certainly not where the carobs are, as they get shaded every afternoon by the casuarina trees.

They also weren’t watered after that first year. Carobs are drought hardy, but ‘hardy’ doesn’t mean ‘will grow with no water at all’ when little comes from the sky. No wonder the poor things sulked.

They grew happier at about five years old, doubling in size that year and every year since. They are about 5m tall and 3m wide now, and haven’t grown much in the last decade, which probably means they won’t reach their potential of 10m high by 10m wide. No wonder carobs make excellent shade trees for paddocks.

Carob trees flower in summer, which means the flowers won’t get burnt by frost, even if you go down to –8°C in winter, but they need protection from cold winds in the first winter.

The flattish pods are 10–30cm long and about 2.5cm wide, and contain seeds that will break your teeth if you think they are the source of carob. They’re not – it’s those brown pods. Carob seeds are only good for planting, and not very good at that, as they need to be covered in hot water and left to soak for three days, and even then will have low germination and suffer from ‘damping off’.

If you want carob powder, throw away the seeds, simmer the pods for about 30 minutes, then dry them in hot sunlight or a low oven until crisp. Use a coffee grinder or similar to reduce them to a fine powder, then throw this away, too. Or use it as ‘cocoa’, if you must:

Pour a little water over 2–4 teaspoons of carob powder, 1 teaspoon of sugar (optional) and a few drops of vanilla essence (optional) in a saucepan. Mix until smooth. Add a cup of milk and heat slowly, stirring all the time. Drink hot.

Carob doesn’t have chocolate’s caffeine or theobromine (the stuff that makes you feel wonderful), or its taste. On the other hand, it’s brown.

Here's a recipe for carob ‘chocolate’. If you find it deeply boring, you have been warned.

1 cup carob powder

2 cups caster sugar

125ml milk (or coconut cream)

60g butter (or substitute)

1 tsp vanilla

Mix the carob and sugar in a saucepan with a little of the milk until smooth. Add the rest of the milk, then the butter. Heat slowly, stirring all the time, until it’s thick enough to coat the spoon, then stir a bit more. Take off the heat, add vanilla and beat for about five minutes (this gives it a smooth texture). Pour onto a greased oven dish, then cut when cold.

I nd carob ‘chocolate’ to taste somewhere between beeswax and sweet cardboard, and even though carob has a reputation as an excellent stock food, our chooks seem to share my opinion of the pods, raw or cooked. (Admittedly, our hens are spoiled.)