Damson and Apple Jelly (cheese)

[Phoenix]

Hubby and I made some of this lovely stuff earlier on. Yesterday we went and foraged for wild damsons, they grow in the hedgerow nearby, luvvly jubbly. We picked just under 5lbs of them, and after picking over and losing the dodgy ones, we had 4 and a half lbs. Peeled cored and sliced 6 eating apples off our tree, and cooked them all down with some water.

We then pushed the resultant gorgeous mush through a sieve, and weighed it, added an equal amount of granulated sugar, about a teaspoon and a half of allspice, and cooked it til it reached about 105 degrees and had thickened - took about an hour.

This lovely tasty wonderful dark blood red puree filled 7 small (500g) screw top Kilner jars, and is cooling as I type. All the lids have gone 'pop' so the vacuum has worked. And the tiny amounts left in the pan set, so fingers crossed the contents of the jars do too.

WW had made jam before, many years ago, but I hadn't ever made jam, despite wanting to do so for ever... looking forward to our next attempt!

By the way its proper title was Damson Cheese but we adapted it to include apples, plus I wasn't keen on the cheesy name hence the Jelly title!

Nix

[Green Aura]

Sounds delicious, but what a waste of the skins - they're my favourite bit of damson or plum jam. It's even worth breaking your teeth on a missed stone for

[Millymollymandy]

You can call it Damson Butter! I have a cook book that goes into great detail about jam/jelly/cheese/butter making from fruit (it's my bible!) but I've never really noticed quite what was the difference between cheese and butter from the instructions

[WhiteWolf]

All now set we were a bit worried about that


MMM, what is the book, we need all the help we can get at the minute being newbies to all this.

Regards

WW & Nix

[Millymollymandy]

Er hang on while I run downstairs and check!

OK it's Food from your Garden by Reader's Digest. It's a really good book which lists just about every fruit and veg and how to grow them then gives a list of recipes for each one. At the back there's a huge section on preserving from chutneys to jams and jellies, syrups and cordials and wine making and really explains stuff properly. Even has a bit about poultry keeping! plus a bit on mushrooms, wild plants you can eat, and hedgerow stuff to forage.

[WhiteWolf]

Hi MMM

Sorry for delay in replying (I actually thought I had posted ) thanks for the book reference, will keep an eye out for it.

Regards

WW