Red and Blackcurrant Jelly

The first batch

I have to confess that this is not really a 'how-to-make' redcurrant jelly post. It's a 'how-I-made' red and blackcurrant jelly, based on what was available and a bit of experience.

Redcurrants aren't in season right now. Neither are blackcurrants. But by the power of technology (freezer - gasp!) I had far, far too many redcurrants and the only way I could really think of moving them out of the freezer is to make them into jelly. Redcurrants are full of hard seeds meaning that they don't really respond very well to jam making but are great for jelly, jelly being essentially refined jam.

Boiling jelly

So I dug through my freezer drawers and located the offending (in terms of taking up space!) redcurrants and found I had 1.5kg (I think - this is a while ago now). Using the basic recipe for redcurrant jelly in Pam Corbin's very lovely little book 'Preserves' (River Cottage Handbook No. 2) - I'd recommend this to anyone interested in preserving I found I needed 400ml water for every 1kg redcurrants. The currants and water are simmered until they are tender - Pam specifies 45 minutes, but I suspect mine were done sooner because the process of freezing and thawing them starts breaking down the berries anyway.

Successful wrinkle test

At this point the berries, stalks and random bits of garden (leaf, stone... don't worry, there weren't too many leaves in there) are strained out. Long time readers may remember that last time I made redcurrant jelly I bought the jelly bag but not the strainer. I decided to go for broke this time and bought the whole set - so, so much easier. I thoroughly recommend it. 

This said 104... for setting, but I wasn't quick enough with the camera

Making the jelly then involves the addition of 450g granulated sugar to each 600ml juice - you don't want to poke the bag or you won't get a clear jelly. More on that point later... You then bring it to a rolling boil and boil for 8 minutes or until a set is reached. This will occur at 104C or when a little of the jelly placed onto a cold (freezer cold) plate wrinkles when pushed with a finger. Pour the jelly carefully into sterilised jars and then add a waxed disc and seal with a lid. The jelly keeps for 12 months according to Pam.

This represents the jelly I made with the juices that dripped through the bag (there are two jars in the background too, it's not just the jar and a bit at the front). After the redcurrant mixture had cooled a little I decided to squeeze the bag and see if I could get any more juice out. The answer was a resounding yes - there was much more juice in there and I squeezed and squeezed the jelly bag until all that remained inside were dry skins and stalks. I repeated the jelly making process again for this new lot of juice (although since the previous lot had set as I was pouring it into the jars I decided to dilute this second lot with a splash of water - unmeasured, sorry) and got as much again in yield. 

Almost double the amount - both first and second batches

Yes, this second batch is cloudier, but it seemed such a shame to waste that redcurrant goodness. My thinking is that I'll use the clear batch for tasks such as glazing fancy fruit tarts (hah, in my dreams!) and the cloudier batch for adding to casseroles for depth of flavour, or for making the traditional Cumberland sauce recipe that Pam gives in the book, where the clarity of the jelly is unimportant. So my conclusion is that since I don't intend to enter WI competitions where the clarity of my jelly is all-important I'm going to carry on squeezing that jelly bag.

Random blobby jelly - definitely set though

This wasn't a problem I had last time, but this time round there must have been so much pectin in my redcurrants that the jelly actually set as I was pouring it into the jars. You can see in this small jar that the surface isn't level because I was essentially scraping solidified jelly into the jar.... certainly no worries about a set here!!! I ought to point out that although this is called red and blackcurrant jelly, there were probably about 80-100g blackcurrants mixed in with the redcurrants when I froze them, and just those few have changed the colour significantly from a pure redcurrant jelly.

I'm entering this rather unseasonal jelly into Teatime Treats - hosted this month by Kate of What Kate Baked and co-hosted by Karen of Lavender and Lovage. The theme this month is Jams, Curds, Chutneys and Conserves. Now although jelly isn't mentioned specifically I don't think I'll get booted out for submitting this one!     

White Chocolate, Blackcurrant and Apricot Cake

I have seen lots of posts recently featuring blackcurrants and chocolate - there seems to be a rash of late entries into We Should Cocoa so I thought it was about time I threw my hat into the ring as it were and typed up my contribution. Choclette is the host this month and has chosen blackcurrants as the ingredient to pair with chocolate. I have to confess that I was rather relieved when this announcement was made. I haven't really relished the last couple of months challenges - firstly almonds (hmm, allergy alert!) which Laura kindly let me enter with a substitute of peanuts (no allergy concerns here for me) and then coffee - ugh. I know many out there are coffee lovers but I'm not among you!

So blackcurrants was rather welcome. I know it seems to have sparked some controversy - blackcurrants are apparently nigh on impossible to come by fresh in Australia and even here in the UK, many people have been unable to find the fresh berries and have chosen instead to use jam. As a little aside, I discovered when googling (thank you Wikipedia) that Ribena (a UK blackcurrant squash drink that used to claim 95% of the fruit grown in the UK) is so-called because the Latin name for the blackcurrant is Ribes Nigrum.

Please allow me a small moment of joy here - my garden is a complete mess (this is not the moment of joy!). I could post a photo and show you just what my lawn meadow looks like at the moment and how the hedges privet trees are threatening to take over the neighbourhood, but I won't (it's embarrassing for a start). But in amongst all the mess I fought my way towards the solitary blackcurrant bush and picked my bounty (I didn't use all of my currants in this cake) for this year. In spite of being nearly overcome by the long grass I have blackcurrants this year!

I decided to make a simple cake to show off the glory of my fresh fruit to the maximum. A combination with fresh apricots and white chocolate seemed fitting for the sunny days this weekend and so that is what I made.

Ingredients ready to be added

White Chocolate, Fresh Apricot and Blackcurrant Cake
Ingredients
125g softened butter
125g caster sugar
2 eggs
140g self raising flour
1tsp vanilla extract
50g white chocolate, chopped small
95g blackcurrants
130g apricots, chopped (this was 3 apricots)

Method

- Preheat the oven to gas 4/180C. Grease and line a 7"/18cm deep tin.

- Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.

- Add the eggs, flour and vanilla and beat well to combine.

- Fold in the chopped chocolate

Bear with me here - the method may seem a little odd, but there is method to the madness....

- Spoon half of the mixture into the tin and spread it out.

- To the remaining half of the mixture in the bowl, add half of the chopped apricots and half of the blackcurrants. Mix gently until combined, but take care not to smash the blackcurrants.

- Spread this fruity cake mixture over the top of the cake mix already in the tin.

- Scatter over the remaining apricots and blackcurrants.

- Bake for 55-65 minutes - you may need to cover the cake towards the end of the cooking time if it is browning too much.

- Remove from the oven and allow to cool a little in the tin before removing to a wire rack.

I had wondered how to decorate this cake, but then didn't need to - the fruit that had stayed near the top had done a wonderful job of decorating the cake as it stood - no icing necessary. It was a delicious, fresh, fruity moist cake with little bursts of white chocolate sweetness that disappeared rapidly at work and was very popular. 

I am entering this into We Should Cocoa as mentioned previously. Hosted this month by Choclette of Choc Log Blog and co-hosted by Chele of Chocolate Teapot.

I am also entering it into this month's Alphabakes, where the letter is W (white chocolate). The host this month is Caroline of Caroline Makes and her co-host is Ros of The More than Occasional Baker.

Finally I am entering it into Ren's Simple and In Season, because those blackcurrants are right in season in my garden at the moment. This is hosted this month by Fleur.

Roast Butternut Squash and Rosemary soup - No Croutons Required

I always intend to enter No Croutons Required, the vegetarian soup/salad challenge run by Jac at Tinned Tomatoes and Lisa at Lisa's Kitchen. This month the theme is using an ingredient grown in your garden. I have to confess that really, the only thing that grows in my garden is weeds, so I'm really hoping that this soup can still be included. Aside from the weeds, the only surviving culinary plants (fruit bushes aside) are some hardy herbs. I have successfully managed to not-kill a rosemary, mint and I think even some oregano. I know that killing mint is pretty much impossible, but I'm still proud of myself.

For this challenge I decided to use the rosemary, here it is in all its glory..... As autumn is approaching and chilly days and evenings are going to be upon us all too soon I have decided to embrace this change of seasons and am using butternut squash. Even though this wasn't grown in my garden, it came from my local vegetarian co-op where they source all of the produce as locally as possible, so along with the tiny red onion, my squash may have travelled further than from my back garden, but it hasn't crossed an ocean to get to me!

I decided to adapt an idea I saw in a relatively new purchase, Hungry? by the people who sell the Innocent smoothies, veggie pots and juices. I still haven't looked at this book properly, but one of their suggestions for soup is a butternut squash with cinnamon and a touch of dried chilli. I liked the idea of the cinnamon complementing the soup and a  little chilli to lift it. Instead of boiling up the butternut, I chose to roast it (at the same time as baking a cake!) to bring out the natural sweetness and allow the rosemary to impart its flavour to the squash.

Roast Butternut Squash and Rosemary Soup with Chilli and Cinnamon

Ingredients

1/2 small butternut squash

tiny red onion

1 sprig rosemary

olive oil

about 250ml vegetable stock

pinch cinnamon (or to taste)

pinch dried chilli (or to taste)

- Roast the butternut squash with onion and rosemary tossed with olive oil until tender.

- Move to a small pan, add the stock, cinnamon, chilli and blitz to a smooth soup.

- Season with salt and black pepper to taste and reheat until piping hot.

- Serve with bread.

A perfect lunch for the chilly weather that lies ahead. I think some people would laugh if you knew how much (little!) chilli I had added, but I could tell it was there! The cinnamon was more of a scent than a flavour, but overall this was a lovely soup!



Redcurrant jelly

I originally wrote this post last October but then never got round to inserting the pictures, recipe, finishing it off and posting it. However, I hope you'll forgive me, because now seems a pretty good time to post it, since redcurrants are actually in season and you'll be able to use fresh ones, preferably from the pick-your-own rather than the frozen ones I used to create some freezer space. I would have pretended that it was jelly from this year, but most of the pictures feature jars labelled 'October 2010' so I think you would have guessed....... so here is the post I wrote last October, modified only slightly!

Regular readers of this blog will know that I seem to have a perpetual freezer problem - there's never any space in there at all. In fact I would go so far to say that my freezer is like a reverse tardis - the freezer looks big enough on the outside but actually seems to hold very little. So, fed up of trying to shoehorn more stuff into it, I decided to have a go at actually using some of the things in there. When redcurrants were in season during the summer I stashed quite a few of them in the freezer with no particular plans in mind - summer fruit pudding perhaps. But months pass and summer fruit pudding no longer seems desirable. So I hunted through and found I had quite a few.

Now for my birthday (some months ago) my darling brother T was kind enough to give me two of the River Cottage Handbooks (he probably won't remember this as I actually bought them ;-)), one of which was No. 2 Preserves by Pam Corbin. I only looked in it recently and am sorry I didn't do so sooner as it's stuffed full of delicious things that I really, really want to make. I've made my own jam for a number of years and enjoy it, and J used to make redcurrant jelly when I still lived at home, so I wasn't too daunted by the prospect of a jelly bag and all the associated sterilising jars palaver that goes with preserving. Hmmm, perhaps I should have thought harder about it before I started.

I went to buy my jelly bag and stand, but discovered that the stands were really expensive, so I thought I'd save myself some money by just getting the replacement jelly bag that was sold separately. Having followed the recipe through to the stage of soft fruit hot in the pan ready to be dripped through the jelly bag I realised the error of my ways. How was I going to hold the jelly bag (complete with clever elasticated neck for holding it securely onto the jelly drip frame) open to add my (very hot) fruit and then stand and hold it while it dripped. Hmmm. So don't follow my example - if you want to make jelly, fork out for the stand too! In the end I had a bit of an elaborate palaver involving various contortionist positions to reach hot fruit on the stovetop whilst holding a bag of dripping hot fruit and pouring aforementioned hot fruit with only one hand from a large pan..... I'm sure you get the picture. Luckily I'm not all that bothered about a crystal clear jelly (which is why you let it drip through under its own weight rather than squeezing) so I cut short the dripping stage by squeezing the bag (did I already mention how hot that fruit was - I really don't recommend this stage!) - I think this also increased the yield. There are no photos of the in-process stages, for reasons outlined above - I could already have done with spare hands; there was no way a camera was being involved too.

July 2011 insertion: As you can imagine I can no longer remember exactly how closely I followed the recipe, but think I was pretty close so I'll give the recipe here:

Redcurrant Jelly

Makes 4-5 x 225g jars

1kg redcurrants

granulated sugar

You will also need sterilised jars.

-The redcurrants do not need to be top and tailed or even taken off their stalks. Simply wash them, put into a preserving pan with 400ml water then simmer until they are very soft and have released all their juice, approximately 45 minutes.

-Strain through a jelly bag - see discussion above!!! Overnight will give a clear jelly, forcing the fruit through the bag will result in a cloudy jelly.

-Measure the juice, put into a cleaned preserving pan and bring to the boil. For every 600ml juice, add 450g sugar, adding it only when the juice is boiling. Stir until the sugar has dissolved, ensuring the sides of the pan are free of undissolved sugar crystals. Boil rapidly for about 8 minutes or until setting point is reached. I can't remember how long my setting point took, but I used the wrinkle test to tell when I had a set - small plate in the freezer, jelly onto plate, push with finger and see if it forms wrinkles, if it does, it will set. 

-Remove from the heat, stir to disperse any scum, then pour into warm, sterilised jars and seal. Tap the jars to disperse any air bubbles caught in the jelly.

Use within 12 months.

In spite of all the problems I had with straining the jelly, I really enjoyed making the jelly and if you reuse jam jars with tamper proof seals hearing the little pop as they pop down must be one of the most satisfying noises I can think of in the kitchen!

Note to self - when reusing jam jars (or honey jars in my case) it's worth trying to get the label off before you sterilise them. The smell of baking label/glue is really unpleasant. However you can use magic sticky stuff remover to get rid of the label. (Available from Lakeland) I wish I'd invented this because it truly is amazing. Remove as much of the paper part of the label as you can and then use the magic sticky stuff remover to .... well, remove the sticky stuff. Bingo, clean tidy jar ready for labelling up!

Nectarine and redcurrant muffins - Random Recipes

For Dom's random recipe challenge I pulled down a few of the baking books I consider my favourites, and then tried really, really hard to decide which was my favourite. I eventually decided on 'On Baking' by Sue Lawrence which regular readers will know that I've mentioned quite a few times on the blog. It's just such a lovely book - there's always something in there that I want to make, and she gives a little background to each recipe, be it a brief historical reference or a family anecdote. This makes it a really good book to read for pleasure, as well as having delicious recipes. The random number generator indicated page 66 was the one to go for:

And on page 66 can be found the recipe for crunchy-topped raspberry and cinnamon muffins. Yum. I adapted them slightly to use the ingredients I had around, which didn't include dairy milk (I've probably mentioned before that I don't have cereal with milk and don't drink tea or coffee, which pretty much renders milk unneeded in my house) so I substituted some rice milk that is in a handy little carton, and keeps for ages rather than constantly having a pint of milk going off in my fridge. And obviously, I substituted the fruit. But I still think I'm keeping to the random recipe nature of the challenge - after all, fruit is fruit!

Rather proudly, my muffins contain homegrown redcurrants!!! They're pretty much the only thing I've managed to grow this year, so I'm particularly pleased with them! And yes, I know you can't tell they're homegrown, but I promise they are!

I also made 6 muffins, which I think you'll agree is the correct amount. The recipe specifies that these ingredients make 12. Yes, 12 for the citizens of Lilliput....

Anyway, this is what I did:

Redcurrant and nectarine muffins (dairy free)
Ingredients
140g self raising flour
55g caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
3tbsp sunflower oil
3tbsp rice milk
1 nectarine, chopped fairly small
45g redcurrants
demerara sugar for sprinkling

Method

- Preheat the oven to gas 5/190C. Line a 6 hole muffin tin (or, obviously, 6 of you usual 12 hole muffin tin!)

- Mix together the flour and sugar in a large bowl.

- Mix together the rice milk, oil and egg in a jug.

- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until no flour remains, adding the fruit near the end of mixing.

- Divide between the six cases, sprinkle with demerara sugar and bake for 20-25 minutes until risen and golden.

This was a great random challenge, because I probably wouldn't have made these otherwise and they were quick, easy and tasty, which is a winning combination in my book! The muffin was light and moist and the crunchy sugar on the top was a lovely contrast to the springy, soft muffin. The bursts of fruit were very welcome, as was the knowledge that these are low in saturated fat and relatively low in fat in general, with just under a tbsp of sunflower oil each. Very successful, and I might make them again with different fruit if I want a light textured muffin. But I really don't think I could have got 12 out of the recipe.

Sun dried tomato bread

The last time I made tomato bread was years and years ago, before I started baking bread properly. I used a recipe from 'Bread Matters' by Andrew Whitley and although very good it was undeniably complicated for a bread making novice, involving as I recall, rolling a puree of cooked onions and tomatoes into the dough (though my memory could be wrong!). This recipe on the other hand would be excellent for beginners! It's Dan Lepard's latest Guardian recipe - seen early on Saturday morning, baked by Saturday lunch and blogged by Monday, pretty good turnround for me!

I made the recipe pretty much as stated (here) bar not being able to locate sundried tomatoes in oil. Stupid supermarket! So I subbed normal dried tomatoes and soaked them for 10 minutes in boiling water to compensate for their lack of moisture. I didn't bake at gas 7 though, because when I've tried that in the past everything comes out like charcoal. I baked for 10 mins at gas 7, 30 at gas 6, then turned upside down and a further 10 at gas 6. I then ignored the timer, forgot to check the loaf and left it another 10 minutes, resulting in over-browned loaf. Not really a problem, but I did find the loaf a little dry - entirely my fault for not checking sooner. I think this will always be a well coloured loaf as the sugars in the tomatoes will caramelise quite quickly. I might bake it slighly lower next time, and obviously for less time!

I even managed to use a sprig of rosemary from my garden in there (it's the only productive thing in my jungle, sorry, garden, at the moment!). Great flavour, don't know why artisan bakers don't like sundried tomato bread, I can't be a proper baker then, because I thought it was lovely, as did J!

No Croutons Required - Festive Photo

Every month I mean to get round to entering 'No Croutons Required', the monthly vegetarian soup/salad event hosted by Jacqueline of Tinned Tomatoes and Lisa of Lisa's Kitchen, and every month I somehow fail. However, this month, Jacqueline has asked for festive photos rather than a soup or salad, given how busy everyone seems to be at this time of year, and this is my entry. It ought to be one of my new year's resolutions to take part more regularly!!! This photo was taken in my local park, just as the frost began to melt at this chilly time of year.

Keep warm everyone, and enjoy the festive season.

Spring is springing!

Well, it's spring now! The clocks have gone forward and even though it's been grey all day here (boo!) there's enough light to take photos when I get home in the evening. It's all good from now on! So I just thought I share this lovely daffy trying to flower in my front garden, having fought its way through the muck that passes for soil, and evaded drowning and repeated slug attack. It'll be even more beautiful when it opens!

Random pictures

Rainbow chard in my garden. Apparently frost doesn't kill it!

A completely random picture - I loved the way this drop was just about to fall off as the frost was melting this morning.