Today we went on a forage and picked some of the last remaining blackberries, been another bad year for them with most of them rotting before ripening.  As per usual next to a patch of brambles was an elder tree, or 4 in our case, ladened with a huge amount of elderberries. So we set about picking them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We Manged to pick just over 3lbs of elderberries and lucky my single induction hob works with my jam pan so I didn’t have to heat up the Rayburn, otherwise it would have made jam making an expensive pass time.

The elderberries we put on to boil for around 30 minutes with just enough water to cover them.  They were then allowed to cool and then poured into my jelly muslin to drip through over night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 After allowing the pulp to drip through the muslin over night the juice was put back into the jam pan with jam sugar added plus the recipe I am very loosely using called for vinegar, some say lemon juice, for the acidic additive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The liquid was brought back up to the boil until it reached jam setting temperature, as indicated on my jam thermometer.

 I also tested on a cold plate to see if it was at setting point, thick and formed a jelly like skin.  At this point you get a chance to taste the jelly or jam, so we did and it is delicious. It was then poured in to freshly sterilised jars. I sterilise them in the dishwasher others using a boiling method or placing them in an oven.  As a word of caution here do not put jars to be filled with a hot liquid onto a tiled kitchen surface as the cold tiles will cause the jar to break at the bottom.

3lb of fruit fill 2 largish jars.