Bramble jelly and other preserves

What a lovely day to pick blackberries


Looks there will be more ripe next week


My haul after 10 minutes



It has been so nice out that I've been going down to the beach to pick blackberries most days for the last week. I freeze them, top cheese cakes with them, use them to make crumbles and now to complete my fruit based preserve smörgåsbord make Bramble Jelly with them. Recipes for bramble jelly range from being very simple, using just black berries, sugar and water to the more exotic which encompass tempting liqueurs.
After a long hard think I've opted for the alcoholic version using some Creme de Cassis .

Ingredients:
3lb of Blackberries, washed
2 large cooking Apples, peeled cored and diced
450ml Water
Juice of 1 Lemon
Jam Sugar
A couple of tablespoons of Creme de Cassis

First string up a jelly bag in you're kitchen. Put blackberries, apple, water and lemon juice in a large cooking pan bring to the boil and then simmer for 20 mins approx (until fruit is soft). Tip the contents of the pot into the jelly bag and with a large bowl underneath and leave to drip overnight (It is tempting to smash the fruit down to make more juice but this will result in cloudy jelly). For every 600ml of juice in the bowl add 1lb of jam sugar (or any with added pectin) and pour into the cooking pan, put on a low heat while stirring constantly to stop burning and to dissolve all the sugar. Now add the Creme de Cassis and bring to the boil for 15 minutes stirring constantly. The idea is for the jelly to have reached setting point by boiling, a good test of this is to dot a plate with the jelly and when you see the jelly wrinkle rather than run when you tip the plate then setting point has been reached. Decant the jelly into jars and when cooled slightly add the wax seals and lids. If the jelly has'nt set you can easily just boil it up again, as I had to do on my first batch.

These are all the preserves we've made this year (so far). Marmalade, Raspberry Jam (homegrown), Greengage Jam, Green tomato chutney (homegrown), Hot red tomato chutney (homegrown) and Bramble Jelly (homegrown).

Making Chutney

Even though there has been a resurgence of good weather in the last few days some of the vegetables have looked decidedly tired. The runner beans finished a couple of weeks ago and so we ate the last of them and pulled them down for the compost bin. The tomatoes are doing very well although I’m finding it hard to keep up with the watering. When the first downpour of rain started 2 weeks ago I went out and collected all the low hanging tomatoes green and red, my reasoning was the either the slugs would have them or they would just rot in the wet and I could not let either happen. I have been using organic slug pellets around the base of the tomato plants as well as a fence from heavy duty chicken wire to protect them from the Sheep. I would have liked to try the beer trap method but I thought the dogs would get it, the egg shell method but we don’t have our own chickens... so that idea was out and nematode worms are one for next year as well as I found them hard to find.

So anyway with the tomatoes I made some green tomato chutney, I made some hot red tomato chutney.

Ingredients:

• 1kg green tomatoes cut into small chunks
  
• 2 cooking size apples cut into small chunks
  
• 500g soft brown sugar
• 500ml malt vinegar
• 4cm of root ginger peeled and crushed (keep in one piece so you can fish it out at the end)
  
• A couple of red chillis, left whole
  
• 125g sultanas
• 300g shallots, chopped
  
• 1 tsp salt

Place all the ingredients into a deep cooking pot (I use the biggest Le Creuset virtual cauldron in mums kitchen) and then bring it all to the boil stirring constantly to dissolve sugar and the stop the mixture from burning. When it has reached the boil you must then turn it down to a tame simmer, (with the lid off) and then keep stirring as often as possible for 3 hours approx. The aim is to be able to stir through the chutney and the bottom of the pot to stay visible as no liquid remains. I then fished out the chillies and the ginger and decanted the chutney into sterilized jam jars. When the mixture has cooled slightly add wax discs and then lids and leave to cool completely before adding you’re labels.

Brugmansia