Tag Archives: blackberry

Blackberry Fest

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As regular readers will be aware – we are in the midst of a bumper foraging session – and early this morning I turned 3kgs from last nights dog walk into the following corkers….

Blackberry Cordial (a new tastier and easier recipe!)
Blackberry & Almond liqueur (oh yes just invented and its good!)
Windfall Jam (our old fave for the Christmas Hampers)
Spiced Blackberry and Apple Cake (lasted for 1 tea break in the office!)

Took about 2 hours to make it all – but worth the effort…  but we have sadly now run out of Jars, so are on the scrounge and have ordered more bottles from Ebay!

Blackberry Cordial

1.5kg blackberries
1.5lt water (enough to cover them)
A big pan or preserving pan (I always use my super sized enamel pan)
2 cinnamon sticks
1tsp cinnamon
8 cloves
500g sugar

Method:

Pick over the blackberries – they will be seived so you dont have to be too thorough!
Place in the pan and cover with water (just) about 1 ltr per 1 kg of fruit.
Bring to boil and simmer for around 10 minutes until they burst.
Mash in the pan.
Strain through a mesh sieve into a bowl – add the blackberries a ladle at a time and use the back of the ladle to push through – then scrape out the residue into another bowl as you go just to make it easier!
Put the blackberry juice, sugar, lemon and spices back into the pan
Bring slowly to boil to ensure the sugar is dissolved evenly and doesnt burn
Simmer for about 25 minutes

Cool for 10 minutes – and decant into warm sterilised bottles – stopper and cool upside down (an extra sterilising technique)

Super Delicious Blackberry and Almond Liqueur

Complete the recipe for cordial as above
At the bottling stage fill the bottle 3/4 full with cordial – top up with Amaretto
You can make a ‘Knock Your Block Off’ version with 1/2 and 1/2 if its for Christmas!
Turn upside down and cool as usual
Ready to consume instantly!!! Or keeps as the liqueur…

Oh my goodness IT IS DELICIOUS and I am thrilled with this little invention / discovery, which is much tastier than last years.

Boil the blackberries with water
Push the cooked blackberries through a sieve
Bottling the Mix
The Finished stash!
Jam in the making

Black Berry & Apple Cake

Foraging Feasts and Christmas Grog

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our lane

It is barely mid September and our favourite Arundel foraging lane was filled to the brim this weekend with things to gather for a mammouth bake off / preserving / christmas moonshine session…

The lane is great as there are no cars and bizarrely barely any nettles – so it is perfect for the kids – but also means the hedgerow goodies are not contaminated by loads of fumes and nasty stuff.

We had been on a preamble on a dog walk with Lady Love – and seeing that the Sloes were at full size (and some shrivelling!) we decided to pick and freeze (to emulate the first frost which softens the berries) rather than wait and risk losing our crop.  The same technique can be done with Rosehips – which are one of the richest source of vitamin C that there is!  Mum used to make me rosehip syrup and warm water everynight and I think it is a shame that it no longer seems to exist, as it is truely moreish as well as fantastically good for you!

So the recipes that will follow from our foraging sessions will be :

Windfall Jam (already posted)
Blackberry and Apple Cake (lasts about 2 minutes)
Blackberry Liquer – a new addition to the Christmas Hamper
Blackberry Marshmallows
Sloe Gin 
Sussex Moonshine (replace the gin with vodka and add almond oil)
Rosehip Syrup
Elderberry Jam
Blackberry Cordial (already posted)  plus new recipe for this year Blackberry Cordial Mark 2!

What we really love about this is that in these credit crunch times we can create a huge amount of liquor and hamper goodies which are free produce, organic(? not accredited) and easy to make at home …  plus a very popular choice with our friends and families who have asked for ‘bigger portions’ this year!

Comment and let us know which recipes you like – or would like to see and we will take some pics of the finished articles!.. and have share our ideas on wrapping up for our own ‘Homemade Christmas’.

..amazed there were any left!
balckberries and rosehips
bounty in the hedgerow
sloes

Weekend Recipe – Blackberry Cordial

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Our Autumn hedgerow theme continues this week, as this years bumper stock requires some interesting new ways of preserving this delicious stock.
A friend of ours makes Elderflower cordial, but prefering something darker (and sweeter) we have opted to test drive a blackberry cordial… with our stash from earlier today.  This is similar to making jam but without the ‘set’.

BLACKBERRY CORDIAL
400g/16 oz blackberries
1 litre/1 3/4 pints water
300g/12 oz caster sugar
Wash the blackberries in cool water, they will be strained so you don’t need to check over and remove stems, the cooked fruit is passed through a colander and so all this is left behind.
Place the washed fruit, sugar and water in a heavy-based pan, place over a medium heat and bring to a boil.
Turn down to a simmer and cook for 6 minutes.
At this point remove from the stove and pass through a sieve, pressing down on the cooked berries with the bottom of a ladle to extract maximum juice.
Allow to cool, then bottle in steriled bottles and place in a cool dark place.
This has to be kept in the fridge once open and will last 2 weeks

We tried some with prosecco for an autumn cocktail – sublime!

Weekend Recipe – Windfall Jam

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We had some lovely feedback on our SLOE GIN recipe from last week, so we have decided to launch this as a weekly event.  Jacqui and her friends are now foraging in their kitchen notebooks to find nostalgic seasonal  recipes to share with the nation..

This week we followed the foraging theme and made a trial batch of Grandma Dora’s Blackberry and Apple Jam.  Gareth has been slamming the breaks on this week as we keep spotting bumper crops on the Sussex Lanes, which are then picked and stuffed into carriers ready for cooking.  We were also lucky enough to get a bag of windfall apples a friend, but you can use any cooking or eating apple (small english are the best).

WINDFALL JAM

500g Blackberries (washed)
500g Apples (peeled, cored and sliced)
1kg Sugar
1 lemon – the juice of!
Mix of steralized jam jars
Large preserving pan
2 small plates in the fridge ready chilled!

Put the blackberries and apples into a preserving pan and cover with a little water.  Simmer until the apple is soft.
Mash with a masher (my preference as we love ‘bits’ some people sieve but I think this is better!)
Add the sugar and lemon juice
Boil rapidly for 10 minutes
Take a plate out of the fridge,and drip on a bit of jam, return to the fridge for 1 minute. If you can push the jam with your finger and get a ‘ripple’ then you have achieved a ‘set’.
If not return to the boil for 4 minutes.
Repeat the test and boil until you have a set…  but be warned we think this jam is better runnier than too jammy!
Leave to cool for a while and put into warm jars and seal immediately.
Label when cold… or just pop toast in the toaster straight away and enjoy … or we particularly love this as autumn jam tarts made with puff pastry.  They dont hang around!