March Recipe

This month's ADAPT recipe is from Celia Bloor:

Homemade Jam/Jellies

Trying to empty my freezer ready for rhubarb and new veg coming in, I find I have several bags of blackberries, elderberries and crab apples (even the ornamental ones can be eaten).

At the busy time in autumn I picked them so as not to waste them and dumped them in the freezer for later. Luckily these will blend together and give me a choice of clear jellies. I am not fond of these berries – too many pips-that is why they are lingering.

I could make blackberry, blackberry and apple, apple or elderberry (which is best with apples in too!) jelly. (See details in table) The method works as I gained an award for my redcurrant jelly at Woore show last year!

Basically you add about 1 pint of water to 4 lbs of fruit and stew well for about an hour. The apple peel and core can go in.

Then you find a jelly bag and stand (Lakeland Plastic at Bridgemere?) or a piece of fine cloth, a hook in the ceiling (lucky me I have beams) and a piece of string.

Tip the stewed fruit and liquid into the bag and leave to drip. Patience here gives a nice clear jelly. If you don't mind it being cloudy then you can help it along by squeezing! I put the residue in the garden so that mice and birds can eat the seeds.

Measure the juice when it stops dripping and put back into large pan or jam kettle. Add 1lb of sugar to each pint of juice 800g/litre. If you warm the sugar in the oven first it will dissolve more quickly.

Have clean warm jars ready and after about 10 mins rapid boiling it should gel when a drop is placed on a cold saucer and then you push the surface and look for wrinkles. I use a layer of kitchen grade wax on the surface (melted in a can in boiling water) as I always get mould otherwise!

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