Preserving & Jam Making

[GnomeDePlume]

I couldnt find a thread so decided to start one

Anyone else busy preserving?

Decided this year to make a proper effort to conserve home grown gluts of fruit and vegetables.

This year I have made:

Blackcurrant jelly
Blackberry and apple jelly
Creme de Cassis
Tomato passata
Tomato ketchup
Sweet chilli source
Hot chilli sauce

My new favourite toy is a steam juicer:

www.amazon.co.uk/juicer-diameter-suitable-induction-stainless/dp/B00HA7CRNY/ref=sr_1_6?s=gateway&keywords=steam+juicer&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1567847324&sr=8-6

Anyone else interested in sharing tips and frustrations?

I'm a total beginner but had a lot of apples from my tree a couple of weeks ago and this week I've been trying out making apple jelly!

My favourite recipe so far is the David Lebovitz one - a teaspoon of calvados (apple brandy) in the jelly adds a touch of depth to the flavour.

I've made an apple and lavender one this morning adding the lavendar to the juice as the recipe suggested, but the lavender buds mostly got skimmed out in the setting process. Next time I think I'll boil the flowers in with the apples. it was also too sweet, probably didn't have enough water in with the apples in the boiling stage as the juice came out quite syrupy. So I think I'll give those jars to the children for their breakfast toast!

I've tried making 'pear butter' in small batches in the slow cooker.
It's pretty simple, but I don't make enough to preserve it properly....I always worry I won't be able to seal the jars or sterilise them properly and they will all be wasted.

@swissmilk in that case, have you tried the ball jars? Once you've filled them and put the tops on, you boil the whole jar for ten min so the water comes over the lids and it then forms a pressure seal (and it's easy to tell as the dimple in the lid is down rather than up when unsealed).

I found them foolproof to use, honestly, and that was on my first try at making any kind of jam or jelly.

PhilipJennings apple jelly sounds interesting. I made an apple and sage jelly once for a pork accompaniment. It wouldnt set so I added pectin. Then it set like rubber!

swissmilk I have never tried making apple or pear butters. This year we are using our meagre crop to make cider

Harvested peppers and tomatoes today so I am going to have a go at roast pepper ketchup.

That sounds delicious!

I've never thought about making cider. I don't drink it myself but DH likes it. What equipment do you need for that?

Equipment needed is something to crush the apples (called a scratter), a press and something to brew in, could be a brew bucket or similar. Once brewed you need bottles, caps and a siphon tube.

The ingredients are simple: apple/pear juice, yeast. I add campden tablets to the juice to stop any wild yeasts taking hold.

A lot of brew shops allow you to hire the scratter and press. All the other equipment is available from places like Wilkinsons.

How did you make the creme de cassis? I’m doing a few gins and jams but interested in this!

All I have to harvest is herbs, apples, which aren't quite ready yet (though DH made his first apple tart in 20 years with them yesterday and it wasn't half bad!) and one almond, which i don't think I'll get much mileage out of.

Last year I did apple pie cream liqueur, which was even better than it sounds (and I still have a jar of the base un-creamed mixture left ready to finish off another batch this autumn) and spiced apple jelly. This year I think I'll do apple and rosemary jelly and mint jelly (apple based) because we have tonnes of mint.

We're toying with the idea of downsizing to a stupidly dinky house on a quarter of an acre, which would have me up to my eyeballs preserving by this time 2021 : ) And by about 2025 my hypothetical quince tree would be starting to bear fruit. Mmm, tasty daydreams...

MrsD0147 this is the recipe and also where I read about steam juicers:

www.thegoodlifefrance.com/make-homemade-creme-de-cassis/

We have ended up with quite a few bottles - helped by a bumper blackcurrant harvest.

UtterlyUnimaginativeUsername can you share the recipe for the apple pie liqueur please?

The downsizing idea sounds like a good one. That is how much we have as an allotment and it does give plenty of opportunity to try things out without having to commit fields to something you then find you dont like.

I'd love to have a field to commit to, to be honest! I'd like enough space for a cow and a couple of pigs. But it's incredibly hard to buy land around here unless your parents have owned over 10 acres for over 10 years and you're buying within 3km of them (seriously, it's an actual planning condition!) so we're stymied on that front.

The apple pie cream liqueur was basically brandy with as many apples chopped into it as you can fit (just make sure they're covered at the top), plus cinnamon and nutmeg, steeped for about 6 weeks, then strained. That's the base mixture, which you can store for a long time. Or you can use half brandy and half vodka if you want less of a brandyish taste. Then, when you want to drink it, mix 1.25 cups of it with a tin of sweetened condensed milk and a cup of double cream. I searched for hours and couldn't find a satisfactory recipe without the condensed milk, but it works really well. If I were an apple, it's how I'd want to go.

Thank you for the recipe.

We are fortunate, we are a member of an allotment/smallholding society so we are allowed to grow anything. No limits on having trees (we have a small orchard which we are hoping to expand).

Thanks @GnomeDePlume that’s great although don’t have a steam juicer!

Thanks for the top tip philip I will give it a go.

MrsD0147 I got the juicer from Amazon it's life changing! So much easier to use than running fruit through a jelly bag. Means I can make blackberry jelly without leaving the kitchen looking like I dismembered a corpse.

I've made plum jam and waiting for my big tomatoes to get a bit redder to make passata. I'm stuck on the settee at the moment with an 11 week old kitten sleeping on my lap so a day of preserving is kind of ruined.

TroysMammy I'm impressed with plum jam. Our plum trees havent done much this year. I think sleeping kitten is a good reason for not preserving.

I finished the ketchup this morning and have a jam pan full of blackberry syrup which needs to be brought to a set and potted up.

The plums were from a patient who I gave surplus veg plants for his housing complex garden in the spring. I gave him a jar of jam in return.

Good idea with the surplus plants to send them off to a good home. I always feel a bit guilty if I cant find a home for the spares. Feels like I am letting down the plant world!

I am gathering up unwanted apples and pears and making cider. Same idea as your plum jam in that donors have been promised a bottle or two in return.

I bought some greengages on holiday- love greengage jam - but they weren't enough really so I added some red blueberries from my garden. Unexpectedly, that bush has cropped in this its first full year, but not enough on its own for jam. Leftovers on my breakfast this morning.
My dirty secret is that I have been using jam sugar this year for the first time. I also made "rosehip honey" following an old recipe I found and the rosehips from the garden. It's a bit too "jelly" like using the jam sugar but I will happily pretend it was supposed to be like that.

And try making apple butter if you have too many apples.

bellinisurge well done on keeping your blueberries safe. Ours are fully netted but each time a bush has got to ripe DH has found a fat little thrush waddling round the cage having eaten a whole bush worth.

Crops seem to be ending sooner than other years (though perhaps I say that every year).

We will be drying beans from the french bean plants as soon as we pull them up.