Sloe and Bramley Apple Jelly Recipe
This teeny jar of Sloe and Bramley Apple Jelly is the last one left in our larder, vintage September 2005. The jar is 1½ inches high and the ladle is in fact a mustard spoon. We ran up some individual portion pots for a friend of ours, as a joke. This one must have got left behind. She had made the mistake of leaving a large jar of our Sloe and Bramley Apple Jelly on the table, when she gave her husband Newmarket sausages for supper and he polished off most of it in one sitting. This recipe makes a good raunchy jelly to eat with red meat,...
read moreDamson Cheese Recipe: for savoury and sweet dishes. How to freeze damsons/plums.
I opened the fridge door this morning and a small cloud of fruit flies floated out. What was going on? We had just given the fridge its quarterly spring clean. I investigated further and found a large bag of tiny damsons from Kent, that I’d bought on Saturday and now it was Tuesday. I washed and picked over the fruit. Only a few were turning. It’s surprising how quickly autumn fruit can go off, even in the fridge. At this time of year, we are given a lot of fruit for preserves. Quite often we pop them in the freezer (how to freeze...
read moreOld Fashioned Apple Jelly Recipe
This morning I decided to make apple jelly with the apples that our friend Anne Mary gave us last week. They are now in the jelly bag, left to drip for the rest of the day. (What is a “jelly bag”? See tips and tricks below). We always use cooking apples for apple jelly so that it is not too sweet and much more adaptable. For years I only thought of jelly as an accompaniment to meat. The jars opened and enjoyed but usually lost in the depths of the fridge. I cringe now at the thought of the great jellies that must have been wasted...
read moreTwo wild plum jam recipes
Here are two of our wild plum jam recipes. Wild plums taste quite tart, similar to damsons. They are excellent for jam and jelly and both are not too sweet. The following recipes describe two methods for making wild plum jam. If your plums are barely ripe (still pretty firm) go for the first one, if they are soft and ripe go for the second. The barely ripe recipe will have a sharper taste. Barely ripe wild plum jam recipe: Ingredients: 900g/2lb of barely ripe wild plums 900g/2lb of preserving sugar Method: Wash the plums and discard any...
read moreBlackberry and apple jelly best recipe
The blackberry season is just starting here in Cheveley and it’s time to make our first batch of blackberry and apple jelly. I think that this is definitely the queen of jellies, so good that it can be spread on toast in the morning for breakfast or dolloped on plates and eaten with mild soft cheese. Try and pick the blackberries when the sun has been on them; midday is ideal. For the apples, we use windfalls because they are bruised and will not keep even though they might look perfect. Blackberry and apple jelly is sometimes referred...
read moreWild Plum or Damson Jelly recipe
My Wild Plum Jelly recipe is at the bottom of this post. Click here for Wild Plum Jam. It’s nearly midnight and the kitchen is filled with the smell of simmering wild plums. Delicious. I went out hunting for them late this afternoon and picked about eight pounds from the hedgerows at the end of the village. As there are still loads ripening with the promise of more, I decided to use all the plums for jelly. The wine and chutney can wait till later. I always feel a bit of a devil when I find food for free. At this time of year I have a...
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