Medlar Jelly

[dratsea]

Just made 10 jars and it has set. There are still 100kg of fruit on the tree, Monmouth, any takers? You need to be tall or bring a ladder!

Damn, I'm in Suffolk .

I'm hoping I'll come across some medlar jelly at a Christmas fayre, not tasted it before but I'd like to try it. What's it like?

Never heard of it before - I'm not near Monmouth either. Hope you enjoy it!

The tree where I work has loads, but don't you have to wait until after the frost for them to soften? Last year I made spice cakes from them and they were lovely.

Just been licking out the pan, well with my finger and licking that. The taste just lingers, and lingers, and.. The pan, few kilos of aluminium was mil's pride and joy and Mrs dratsea also found the jam funnel.

I did medlar vodka a couple of years ago and you can do medlar brandy. I've also dome medlar cheese, bit like membrillo. That was a faff though.

Whowants I let them blett in the cellar.

Dratsea - please could you share your recipe? I have a tree full of medlars, and although medlar brandy is lovely, it doesn't use enough of them!

They need to be "bletted". I cleared a couple of low lying branches into 4x2 plant trays last month. We have now had a frost and today I can shake the tree and catch them as they fall. Maybe bletting creates C2H5OH but the smell last night as I boiled them up just permeated the entire house. The tree is over 50 years old. The wisteria is even older, if I can believe the nonogenerians who trundle past most days and went to the local primary school.

weaver, went on line, Mr Google has thousands of recipes but if the medlars are all totally bletted you need to add about 20% unripe fruit, mine when halved were about 20% still yellow, added a few lemons (1 per kilo) and had some very unripe cooking apples, two small halved into the pan. Got to boiling, put on top of the log-burner for the rest of the day. Strained overnight, boiled a few minutes this evening, added as much sugar as fluid and got to the boil and waited two mins (I did do the "take a spoon and see if it forms a skin on a cold plate"). I had to ask the WI about what to do with the lids (boil for ten minutes) but I did as my mum always did and put the jars in the oven for about ten minutes before decanting.

Sorry, a saga rather than a recipe - but it worked!

Mrs WI BIG CHEESE has just phoned back asked that I submit a jar for inspection. Might be off to the Gulags.

Still got 100kg fruit on the tree if anyone is interested.