Medlar Jelly

Just been making medlar jelly, having cooked, strained and filtered all my fruit in several batches. The fruit was well bletted, so I doubt that there was enough pectin left in the fruit to make a good set, so resorted to using a little pectin just to make sure. If making a butter (just pushed through a sieve, rather than a jelly bag, probably no need to add any pectin, as the thickness of the fruit pulp gives enough body to the paste

Medlars (as many as you have as they don't make a great quantity of jelly)
Stick of cinnamon (if liked)
small orange
2 lemons
pectin
Sugar

Add boiling water to medlars, just enough to cover them. Add a small orange, cut into halves or quarters and a stick of cinnamon. Bring to boil, then turn down the heat and cook for another 40 minutes.
Strain the pulp through a coarse sieve into another pan. You can boil up the remaining coarse pulp again if required, especially if you don't have a great quantity of fruit. Take the strained pulp and strain again using a jelly bag, leaving it overnight.

Measure the filtered liquor and add 700g sugar per litre. Squeeze the two lemons, and strain the juice through a tea strainer. Add pectin and bring to a boil (we used one sachet to 2 litres of liquour). When you think it has reduced enough, test it by cooling a drop of jelly on a saucer. When the cooled jelly starts to develop a skin, it is nearly ready, but leave a little bit longer to achieve a good set. (Alternatively, use a jam thermometer to the setting indicated on the scale if not familiar with jam making).

At the same time sterilise jars and lids in the oven until hot. Ladle jelly into jars, taking care to avoid any scum that inevitably forms during boiling. Fill as near the top of the jar as you can, and screw lids on tightly while jelly is still hot.

The flavour is rather like quince, but more robust, with just a hint of tannin, enough to make it dual-purpose as a desert or meat accompaniment. We've found it quite hard to get completely clear jelly, even with a jelly bag some particles seem to get through.

Baked or roast quince

I left a box of quinces outside the gate for anyone who cared to help themselves. Later we discovered who it was, when invited to house-warming drinks. Another neighbour thanked us for them, and said she'd used them all for making Nigel Slater's Roast Quince. I have to say I'm immediately suspicious of these sorts of recipes, usually fussy and over-complicated. I have to say all of these sound quite nice (unlike the hideous pear and chocolate crumble that features in Slater's Guardian column this week - what a hideous way to treat Comice pears).

This is our recipe, which differs a little.

4 quinces, peeled, quartered and cored

Large glass of quince wine (or other fragrant desert wine of your choice)

2 heaped tablespoons of brown sugar

1 tsp of powdered ginger and another of cinnamon

1. Poach quinces in sweetened wine for half an hour, or until slightly soft (we put them in the microwave for 10 minutes, turning them in the bowl occasionally.

2. Transfer to a roasting dish, reserving the fluid,

3. Add the fluid to the brown sugar and spice, stir to dissolve (over heat if necessary)

4. Spoon this syrup over the fruit and place in oven pre-heated to 170 C

3. Bake for 40 minutes, turning and basting occasionally with the syrup, until very soft and tender (we turned down the oven to 120 C and left it for a bit longer).

The result is quite unlike anything you will have tasted, the same concentrated quince flavour as Membrillo but with the a unique texture; the caramelised crust reveals a rather chewy coarse, granular, centre with just a hint of the astringency of the raw fruit.

Sloe gin

Came across a good patch of blackthorn with a good number of sloes, quite a rarity around here. Having seen branches drooping with ones in south Gloucestershire a few weeks back, at a time when we couldn't stop, I was glad of the find. There are lots of blackthorn bushes in the area, but they crop very lightly or, more often, not at all. I think the free-draining gravel soil means that there is little lime available, which stops the kernel forming properly in stone fruit.

I managed to pick about a kilo before the dogs got too bored, more than I needed for the nearly full bottle of gin that has been on the shelf for rather too long now.

Most recipes seem to agree on 1 lb of sloes to 75ml bottle of gin. I prefer to infuse the fruit without sugar, adding after the liquid has been decanted around Christmas time. I don't bother to prick or freeze the fruit, they were very squashy and the cell walls will break down with time.

Here's the recipe written properly

450 g (1 lb) sloes

75 ml gin or vodka (cheapest possible)

300-400g (12-14 oz) sugar

1. Rinse a clean demi-john with campden tablets.

2. Add fruit, sugar and gin, fasten down with a solid bung.

3. Leave for three months, checking and giving a shake once a week or so.

4. Drain fluid into clean demi-john. Taste and add more sugar if necessary, and leave to dissolve for a few days. Decant into a sterilised bottle.

Medlar wine

I've been meaning to try this for a few years but have never quite gotten round to it. The recipe is loosely based on my quince wine recipe, but with additional spices and some dried fruit to give it body, should the medlar flavour not quite be as mellow as expected.

2 kg (4.5 lb) medlars

enough boiling water to cover

100g sultanas

half orange, including peel

A generous knob of root ginger (2" approx)

half a stick of cinnamon

600g (1.5 lb) caster sugar

250 g (.5lb) muscovado sugar

Desert wine yeast (I'm trying sherry)

2 tsps of pectolase

1. Pick over medlars discarding any loose matter around calyx.

2. Place fruit and spice in stainless steel pan and cover with enough boiling water to cover fruit. Bring to boil and then remove from heat. Leave fruit infusion to steep for a few hours.

3. Strain off liquid through a coarse sieve into another steel vessel. Add sugar and bring to boil. Leave to cool, until luke-warm.

4. Pour more boiling water over the fruit in the first pan, and bring to the boil again. This will be used to top up the volume in the demi-john as required.

5. Make up some sterilising fluid using campden tablets, and rinse a clean demi-john, bung, funnel, fine sieve and airlock in preparation for the cooled medlar infusion.

6. Pour infusion/sugar syrup mixture into the sterilised demi-john, using a finer sieve inside a large funnel to catch any smaller bits of fruit. Remove sieve, leaving funnel. Open yeast sachet and sprinkle about half into bottom of funnel, then do the same with pectolase. Then flush the powder through as you top up the demi-john to just over 3/4 full using spare medlar infusion (or orange juice if preferred). Swirl around a couple of times to make sure the yeast/pectolase is well mixed.

7. Rinse airlock/bung in campden solution again (I like to use campden solution in the airlock) then twist into neck of demi-john as firmly as you can.

8. Place overnight in bowl in sink, or unless you have some idea how vigorous the fermentation may be (it can vary quite a bit, but generally wines with high acid/tannin content seem to be the most likely to 'boil over').

9. Place in cool, dark place for a few weeks until fermentation has ceased, keeping airlock topped up. Once you are sure it has finished, it can be decanted into a clean demi-john and aged for a few more months before bottling.

Not sure what this will be like, having never tried it before. I used firm, un-bletted medlars as an experiment but would be better/safer to use fully-ripened ones. The infusion tasted quite light, spicy and pleasant, but with a highly tannic after taste, probably because the fruit wasn't ripe eonght. I think I'll leave the rest of the crop 'ripen' a bit more before making jelly or a further batch of wine. I'm hoping for something more akin to a sweet sherry-type wine, with a rich colour and flavour. Time will tell.

Pear and Ginger Upside-down cake

This is a variation on the Eve's pudding recipe which makes a very attractive cake.

100g butter

100 g vanilla sugar

50g self-raising flour

100g ground almonds

2 bantam eggs (or one large egg)

2 tsp cinnamon

1tsp powdered ginger

half tsp salt

crystallised ginger

1 large, ripe pear (or 2 small pears)

Quince or apricot jam

1. Cream butter and sugar to a soft paste.

2. Beat eggs, and whisk gradually into butter/sugar.

3.Add salt and spices to flour and mix together. Add ground almonds and mix well, breaking up any lumps of almond.

4. Gradually introduce flour/almond mixture into the batter, and fold in until well mixed.

5. Chop up 5 or 6 cubes of crystallised ginger into small pieces and add to mixture.

6. Take a non-stick cake tin, and grease well. Half and core the pear(s), then chop into slices. Arrange these to make an attractive pattern in the tin. Arrange cubes of crystallised ginger to fill in any gaps. Spoon on the cake batter, making sure that it fills all the gaps between the fruit, without disturbing them. Try to get it so that it is fairly level across the tin, so that it cooks evenly.

7. Pre-head oven to 170° C. Place in oven and check after 20 minutes. If the top is looking browned, cover with foil and reduce the heat to 130° C.

8. After 10 minutes, try the knife test to see how well it's doing, and if it is not ready, return it to the oven and continue checking at 5 minute intervals until it is cooked through.

9. When done, remove from oven. If the top has 'caught' in places, these can be sliced off with a knife, and any bumps levelled out so that it will sit evenly when inverted. Next place a plate or board over the tin, and turn it over. Measure 2 or 3 tablespoonfuls of jam into a mug or old jam jar, and melt in microwave. Pour jam on top of cake, and spread out gently to glaze.

Approximately 345 calories a slice, when divided into 6.

Quince Jelly

Nearly all the windfall Quinces bubbling away in a large pan. Recipe to follow.

Eve's Pudding

As we've ended up with an old cooking apple on our new patch of land, I'm having to find new ways of using the crop up other than the default 'crumble'.

Eve's pudding isn't hugely different, the crumble portion of the dish is replaced by sponge.

This is my own adaption of the plain recipe.

Filling

5 or 6 medium apples (cookers or eaters to taste)

Muscovado sugar to sweeten

Quince Jelly

Topping

100g self-raising flour

100g golden caster sugar

100g butter

2-3 tablespoons cinnamon

2 eggs, beaten

Fan oven pre-heated to 180°C

1. Peel, core and quarter the apples, cook in microwave until softened. Drain excess fluid from the fruit. Place in large glass pudding basin and put to one side. The apples should fill about half of the dish.

2. Cream together the butter and sugar into a paste. Add the beaten eggs gradually, whisking gently into butter/sugar mixture. Add a little of the flour to avoid 'curdling' at first. Add the cinnamon to the flour, and sieve into the rest of the mixture, mixing it in gradually until you have a stiff paste.

3. Depending on how sweet or sour the apples are, add between 1-3 tablespoons of muscovado sugar to taste, and then another couple of tablespoons of Quince jelly, spreading over the apples. Spread the sponge mixture over the top and shape it so it covers the apple evenly.

4. Place in the oven, cook at 180°C for 15 minutes then turn the heat down to 150°C (to help stop the top burning) and cook for a further15 minutes. Remove from oven and test with knife, as you would a sponge to see if the mixture sticks to the metal.

This is the difficult bit as, unlike a sponge cake, there is a variable amount of moisture in the apples that makes the sponge layer rather gooey. The aim is to get the top crisp, the middle spongey and the bottom still slightly gooey (a glass basin will let you see what's going on). If the mixture still seems very wet just underneath the surface put back for another 15 minutes. The top can be covered with foil to stop the top burning.

This might seem like a fiddle, but it is worth the effort as the contrast between the crisp top and soft centre is wonderful. The jam/sugar mixture should have formed a thick caramel around the apple.

We used our Grenadier apples, which by this stage are actually a good sharp desert which keep their shape when cooked, ideal for this recipe.

Once the knack of getting the sponge right is mastered, I think this is a really good basic recipe that can be varied to suit other fruits.

Pear Crumble

My patent recipe for pear crumble (in case I forget!)

topping

6 oz ( 200 g) plain wholemeal flour

3 oz (100 g) margarine or butter

3 oz (100 g) soft dark brown sugar

6 large pears

3 tablespoons soft dark brown sugar, or to taste

1 tablespoon cinnamon powder

glass of Marsala, Sherry or Madeira

Sieve flour into bowl with cinnamon; add sugar, having broken down any lumps. Rub fat into flour/sugar until 'breadcrumb' consistency is achieved.

Peel pears, core and chop coarsely. Place in quite a deep oven-proof container, preferably glass. Sprinkle on sugar and add alcohol. Cover with crumble mix. Place in pre-heated oven at about 160ºC for about 35-40 minutes, until caramelised juice can be seen bubbling around edges. Take care not to burn the dark sugar.

Photo shows a mixture of Sucrée de Montluçon, Conference, Rogue Red, plus a small amount of finely diced quince.

Using over-ripe pears

Although poorly-ripened pears are usually extremely disappointing eaten fresh (hard on the outside, brown mush on the inside), they actually cook very nicely, as long as they are not too far gone. If the centre is only slightly discoloured, just scoop out the soft bit, and will be very nice for recipes such as fruit crumbles. Even soft pears will keep some substance once cooked, rather than 'fall' to mush like a cooking apple, and the addition of a little brown sugar and a dash of Marsala will compensate for the thin flavour. Not suitable for poaching, use large, slightly under-ripe pears such as Comice or Bartlett types. Varieties with higher acidity, and a more astringent skin flavour often have the best flavour once cooked. I do grow a couple of varieties of 'culinary pear' just for the sake of having a full collection, but so far they have not yet produced fruit. My rationale is that a variety such as Catillac will keep longer than even the late desert varieties, and be ready around January.