Hedgerow jelly
Recipe by Sarah James
whatever you can find! I generally work on about 50% apples & 50% whatever else I can find but as a basic guide this is what I use
1 kg crab apples (cooking apples or tart eating apples / windfalls are fine)
400g blackberries
320g haws (hawthorn berries)
280g sloes
Approx. 1.2 kg sugar (depending on how much juice you end up with on day 2)
works well with wild damsons & rosehips too, this is a mix & match jelly so just use whatever you can find (just remember the 50/50 split).
1. Remove the apple stems and chop the apples in half, discarding any really nasty bits, but you don’t need to be too picky.
2. Put all the fruit in a large preserving pan and add about a litre of water (enough so the fruit is not quite covered).
3. Simmer until the fruit is all soft (this took about an hour).
4. When the fruit is nice and soft (you can check the apples by mashing them against the side of the pan), it is time to strain it. Use a jelly bag or a piece of muslin for straining.
5. Leave the juice to strain (covered up so as to protect from fruit flies) overnight. You could easily do this in a day, straining it for several hours, but overnight is preferable. If you want a clear jelly, do not force the juice out of the bag, this will make it cloudy.
6. Once all the juice has dripped through the bag/muslin measure it out.The juice should have a slightly syrupy consistency. I ended up with about 1.5 litres of juice. You should add 450 g of sugar per 600 ml of juice.
7. Add the juice to the pan and bring it to the boil. Add your sugar and stir it until the sugar has dissolved. Then bring it to a rolling boil.
8. Just use ordinary sugar, with no added pectin. The crab apples have a good amount of pectin in them, so you don’t need to add any more. To test that the jelly has reached its setting point, drop a bit onto a saucer that has been in the fridge to get nice and cool. If you push the jelly along the saucer, and it wrinkles a bit, it’s ready. (The “wrinkle” test.) Mine took about 10 minutes, but it can (apparently) vary quite a bit depending on the fruit you use.
9. You can sterilise your jars by boiling them in water and then drying them off in a low oven. Transferring the finished hedgerow jelly to the jars can be a bit messy! You can skim off any “scum”, but this isn’t always practical.
10. As long as it's sealed up well in sterilised jars it should keep for about 12 months.
fruit, jelly, preserves, jam November 14, 2011 22:59
No one has liked this recipe.
No comments yet.