Fall Food

Autumn is here in force - it's chilly, rain-swept and equinoctial winds are hustling the leaves off the trees before they have even changed colour properly. My friend Angela of Collected Yarns in Texas has been longing for rain and cooler temperatures but I would happily have a few days of her heat in the nineties. I think the poor English summer means I have a feeling of having been cheated of my rightful dues in terms of sunshine and warmth.

One of the things that is good, however, about Autumn is the change in mood of what's cooking in the kitchen. Soup again figures prominently. Savoury muffins, golden with cornmeal and with a kick of heat, seem the ideal accompaniment to soups and stews and I find myself hunting out recipes that are aromatically fragrant with head-clearing spices. Flapjack and dark, sticky gingerbread are lining up to elbow out the muffins bursting with summer fruits and the scones and sponges sandwiched with summery jam of recent months.

My shopping list no longer features pomegranates, celery, broccoli, monkey nuts, sunflower seeds and other bird food, as my parrot guest has now returned home, leaving a handful of fluffy, bright green feathers, a wall spattered with ruby-coloured pomegranate juice that won't come off, (even with the vicious application of a scouring pad,) and a gaping hole in the household. I miss him a lot.

Anyway I digress. In place of bird food on my list, is fall food - orange pumpkins, burgundy-skinned onions, bright yellow cornmeal, burnt orange cayenne pepper and paprika, smoky-red, hot chilli powder, soft ochre-coloured ground ginger, earth-toned ground cloves and dark soft brown muscovado sugar, golden syrup and pale-toast-coloured oats.

Some of these ingredients have been turned into Nigella Lawson's Guinness Gingerbread, from her book, "Kitchen".

I only ever buy Guinness to cook with, which is probably a bit of a solecism. But while I certainly wouldn't give you a thank you for a pint, or even half a pint, of the stuff to drink, my goodness, it makes great cake! (and beef casserole incidentally!) Nigella's Guinness Gingerbread is very good indeed - dark, aromatic and surprisingly light-textured. In fact, her book, "Kitchen", all told, is very good indeed - if you don't possess a copy, hie thee to Amazon and order one, or put it on your Christmas list!

Some of the other ingredients on my list have been turned into the following soup and muffins which are my own recipes. I love this kind of food - it's cheap, entirely good for you and very delicious!

Roasted Pumpkin and Tomato* Soup

I always roast pumpkin before using it, as it intensifies the flavour beautifully. Otherwise it can be a bit bland. It's also an easy way to prepare it. The tomatoes* add a welcome note of sharpness which works really well with the gentler pumpkin and they deepen the colour to something that is the essence of a Flaming Fall. Cheerful and warming for chilly autumn days, such as are now upon us.

*Edited as of 14/10/12 to add that as an alternative to the tomatoes, Anne of Life In Mud Spattered Boots has come up with an even better and more quintessentially autumn alternative - rose hip purée, which works in exactly the same way as the tomatoes do, in cutting the blandness of the pumpkin - I love this idea and have to try it if only for the sheer delight of announcing that what is on the table is Pumpkin and Rosehip Soup! Have a look at Anne's post here for her instructions.

What you need:

I small pumpkin
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large tin of chopped tomatoes
1 l vegetable stock (or boiling water)
freshly ground black pepper (and salt if you want)

What you do:

Preheat the oven to 180 - 190 C. Hack the pumpkin into about six or eight wedges. Using a small sharp knife cut away the seeds and pith from each wedge and place the wedges in a roasting tin.

Roast the wedges for about an hour. Remove and set aside to cool sufficiently to handle without burning your fingers.

Heat the olive oil in a pan and add the onion. Cook gently until well-softened. Now take your pumpkin wedges and peel away the skin which should come away nice and easily. Use a knife to scrape away any flesh stuck to the skin, so you don't miss any. Cut the now beautifully soft and melting pumpkin flesh up roughly and add to the pan along with the tomatoes, stock (or water) and seasoning. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for ten minutes or so in an ordinary pan, or pressure cook under pressure for five minutes. Allow to cool a smidgeon and then whizz to a beautiful, deep, burnt orange-coloured purée in a blender.

Serve with bread or these spiced cornmeal muffins which I love with soup.

The idea for these came from my friend, Victoria in Tennessee, who mentioned that her mother always made cornbread muffins "with a bit of sweet and heat" whenever she was a child and had a cold. She adjusted the amount of heat by eye, depending on how much head-clearing was required. Capsaicin, the hot substance in peppers and chillies is sometimes used in commercial cold cure preparations for its decongestant properties but I'd rather have my capsaicin in cooking than in pills, any day!

The recipe is my own - the conflation of a number of different ones, culled from my cookery books and the Internet and seasoned with Victoria's expert advice. It's a doddle to make and SO good! Thank you, Victoria, so much for the idea - it is now firmly entrenched in my autumn and winter repertoire of recipes.

I began cautiously with the amount of heat and would advise you to proceed similarly - we are after hot and spicy here, not baby furnaces to blow your socks off and the strength and heat of chilli powders do vary quite a bit from brand to brand. 1/2 tsp of ground cayenne pepper or chilli powder will give you a warm glow but not take your head off. Stay in the kitchen and use more if you can stand the heat! Like all muffins and cornbread, they are best eaten fresh and warm from the oven but they freeze beautifully so if you want to make them in advance, or have some left over, just freeze and defrost as required.

Chilli Kickin' Cornmeal Muffins

What you need:

1 cup plain white flour
1cup cornmeal / polenta
1 tsp salt*
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 - 3/4 tsp cayenne pepper or chilli powder or a mixture of both
1 cup wholemilk yoghurt
1/4 cup olive oil
2 large hens' (or 4 bantam) eggs
1 tbsp runny honey

*Cornbread, I find, really does need enough salt or it can taste rather bland so, although this is more salt than I would normally use in something like this, I think it needs it. If you normally use quite a bit of salt in your cooking you might even want a tad more.

What you do:

Preheat the oven to 190 - 200 C. Line a muffin tin with muffin papers. I find the mixture makes ten rather than twelve, reasonably-sized but not enormous, muffins, but  you can eke it out to stretch to a dozen if you want to.

Mix the flour, cornmeal / polenta, salt, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and spice in a big bowl.

Whisk the yoghurt, oil, honey and eggs together in a jug. Pour into the dry ingredients and mix.

Spoon into the waiting muffin cases and bake for about 25 minutes until well-risen and bright, golden yellow.

Enjoy! 

(And if you have a cold, let that good old capsaicin get to work and clear your head!)

And incidentally, if you love cornbread, then Angela has a delicious version for a single batch recipe rather than individual muffins, on her blog here. It is cooked in a beautiful, timeless, cast-iron skillet and has a crispy crust to die for, sizzled in bacon fat, mmmm - you have been warned!

September Muffins

If Blackberry Ice Cream was Blackberry Bliss, Blackberry and Apple Muffins are close blissful seconds. And this is their month. I adapted the recipe from my recipe for Blueberry / Blueberry and Raspberry Muffins which I devised to take out some of the stress that can accompany muffin-making. You know, that ominous thing that haunts some muffin recipes about "Not Overmixing Or Else"!

It works a treat with these September fruits. The muffins are versatile and freeze beautifully so you can make a batch when you have time and defrost them individually as required. They make quite big muffins - packed with all that fruit - so if you want smaller ones, use an additional tin and put less mixture into each wrapper.

These are American-style muffins and accordingly the measurements are in cups.

What you need:

(Makes 12 big muffins)

2 1/2 cups plain white flour;
1/2 cup soft brown muscovado sugar;
2 tsps baking powder;
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda;
2 tsps ground mixed spice (or cinnamon);

2/3 cup light, neutral-tasting vegetable oil (I use almond oil);
1 cup wholemilk yoghurt;
1/4 cup runny honey;
1 large egg;

approximately two eating apples, three if they are on the small side; (The intact bits of partially damaged, fallen apples are fine - just cut away any bruised bits and use the equivalent amount of apple you estimate you'd get from two or three perfect ones.)
about 150 - 200g blackberries, washed and dried on kitchen paper

What you do:

Preheat the oven to 190 C and line a 12 hole muffin tin with muffin papers.

Stir the first five ingredients thoroughly together in a large bowl, mashing up any lumps of brown sugar as you go.

Stir or whisk together the next four ingredients in a jug. I am using my own bantam eggs here which is why there are two yolks rather than one in the jug as I find two small bantam eggs are the equivalent of one large ordinary hen's egg.

Peel, core and dice your apples and put on one side with the blackberries.

All easy peasy so far. Now for the bit which can be stressful. You are supposed not to overmix muffins as it can make them lumpy and tough which always makes me a bit nervous in case, in my efforts to avoid raw clumps of flour, I've gone past the limit and am heading for concretesville but I find this recipe and its method is pretty good-tempered so take heart if you are a nervous muffin-maker and grab your spoon without a qualm!

Pour your jug of mixed liquid ingredients into your bowl of dry ones and mix with a large spoon well enough and confidently enough so that the mixture looks cohesive and there aren't patches of flour glaring at you. As I say, this recipe is good tempered, I find, so if you want to give an extra turn or two of the spoon to make sure things are mixed properly, go ahead and don't worry about it.

Now add your fruit and fold in with your spoon. Try to be gentle here as, regardless of any issues of toughness, you don't want to bash the fruit about too much. Doing the mixing in two stages makes things easier, I find, as the muffin mixture is basically already mixed by the time you add your fruit. Alternatively you can use frozen berries which can take rougher treatment in the mixing but you will need to cook the muffins for longer in this case. May be up to another ten minutes. The only snag with using frozen fruit is that it can be a fine balance between getting the insides cooked and not over-browning the outsides!

Spoon into your waiting muffin papers, filling them two thirds to three quarters full for generous ones or if you want to make more smaller ones, just fill them half full and move onto your second muffin tin.

Sprinkle the tops with a little bit of demerara sugar, if you like, before popping them in the oven for about 20 minutes until they are well-risen and their tops golden and streaked with purple from the blackberry juice. Leave the muffins in their tins - they are quite fragile while hot and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Once cooled, enjoy them fresh or freeze them in freezer bags for some other time. Fabulous with tea or coffee, any time of day (or night).

I find they make especially good (and reasonably healthy) term-time breakfasts when time is short. They can be defrosting quickly in the microwave while I hunt down missing rugby, swimming or rowing kit and H packs the books that he was supposed to have packed in his bag the previous night. There is then time to wolf down a now-warm muffin and get out of the door for the school bus at 7.30 am. Those happy term-time days are now back upon us - in fact they no longer even feel new! Where does the time go, I wonder?

A blackberry muffin on a blackberry plate.
The plate belongs to a tea set my mother took up to university with her back in the early 1960s.
Sadly most of it has got broken over the years but I cherish this plate and what better to eat a blackberry muffin on?!

Berries

Neither my raspberry canes nor my blackcurrant bushes seem to have been deterred by the worst British summer seen in a long time. Despite the sun's conspicuous absence, berries on both have been ripening merrily. And as a result of all the rain, berries of both types are also deliciously juicy, although their high juice content also means that they don't keep for long unless eaten straight away or hustled pronto into the freezer or preserving pan. A good many of the raspberries have been eaten just as they were picked - nothing added, nothing taken away. Some have been made into raspberry ripple ice cream and a rather nice hot raspberry and lemon pudding as in the pics and I have squirrelled away some in the freezer.

The blackcurrants have posed more of a problem. They are too strong and too sharp to eat easily just as they are off the bush and they have more limitations than raspberries. Quintessentially English, easy to grow and frighteningly good for you - blackcurrants are packed with vitamin C and those bioflavonoid things that are in all intensely coloured fruit and vegetables - dare I say it, but I feel blackcurrants ought to be nicer than they are!

Not only is their taste very strong and very sharp, they are very pippy and a little of them goes a long way. They are full of pectin so they make jam easily and I've done this in previous years. But it's always the jars of blackcurrant jam that linger on the larder shelf the longest, long after their lighter, gentler, more rubicund cousins, the pots of strawberry or raspberry, have been demolished. Making blackcurrant jelly, rather than jam, gets rid of the pip factor but it's such a faff straining the juice overnight in a muslin bag etc and I seem to get everything in sight covered in a remarkably tenacious, purple, pippy mess every time.

But still there are all these blackcurrants ripe and ready for picking - what to do with them? I quite like (an occasional) blackcurrant crumble or pie especially with a generous spoonful of thick, preferably clotted, cream on the side, to cut the acidic sharpness, but there are no other  takers in the household for these. And I can't bear the waste of just leaving them to rot on the bushes....

Enter what has emerged as a bit of a brainwave! While not many thanks are given here for blackcurrant jam and none for a blackcurrant crumble; blackcurrant syrup, on the other hand, diluted with fizzy mineral water is extremely popular. Why not make it oneself out of the real fruit instead of buying the commercial version?

I did a bit of research and lo and behold, there are indeed various recipes for such a thing out there on the Internet. I have adapted several recipes and come up with my own version, as detailed below, which is dead simple and the results are popular enough to mean I actually have spontaneous offers from my in-house teenager to pick the blackcurrrants required for the recipe! As this in itself is quite a laborious task, if you're talking large quantities (which we are - the bushes have gone berserk;) this is not an offer to turn down in a hurry!

What you need:

500g of blackcurrants, washed and mostly destalked but it's not too critical - another piece of good news as meticulously destalking each berry can be a task to drive you up the wall!
1 litre water
300 g sugar
a large bunch of fresh garden mint (optional, but a nice aromatic addition that I've found goes beautifully with the flavour of the blackcurrants. As my mint patch this year has also gone berserk in the rain this is a good way of using some of it up too.)

a steamer or a heatproof colander or sieve that can be set over a pan of boiling water
sterilised bottles to store the cordial in

still or fizzy water to dilute the result with (or a glass of white wine should you feel inclined to go the Kir route but don't want to splash out on a bottle of Cassis!)

Here's what you do:

Tip the blackcurrants into the top of the steamer or the colander if using. Pour a litre of cold water into the base of the steamer (or the pan over which the colander is sitting). Clap a lid on and heat until the water is boiling. Turn the heat down so that it's not boiling too fiercely but still definitely bubbling and cook for 20 minutes. Wash a large handful of fresh mint under the tap (don't bother to dry it, just shake off most of the water) and add to the blackcurrants. Carry on cooking for another 10 minutes, making sure the water is still bubbling happily. Then remove the whole thing from the heat and leave the juices to carry on dripping through for a quarter of an hour or so. Now lift off the top of the steamer or the colander which contains your spent fruit and wilted mint leaves and discard the detritus into your composter.

What you are left with in the base of the steamer or the pan, is effectively pure blackcurrant juice scented with mint. Stir in the sugar, bring to the boil and boil for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and bottle in warm sterilised bottles.  Once cool, I keep mine in the fridge. I imagine if you use plastic bottles you could freeze it, if you want to keep it for longer than a fortnight or so. If using plastic bottles let the cordial cool before bottling or you may have a meltdown!

H is so taken with this, he insisted I bought some of those old-fashioned cordial bottles with ceramic tops and swivelly metal fastenings (obtainable from Lakeland in the UK, if you're interested) but I also use (scrupulously cleaned!) old ketchup bottles which are great as they don't have too narrow a neck to pour into.

I have to say this is very popular with people of all ages, some of whom, to my certain knowledge, would not be seen dead with a blackcurrant under normal circumstances! I expect the heat does destroy some of the vitamin C but at least I know there are no additives or artificial anythings in my blackcurrant cordial and my conscience is clear because the fruit is used and enjoyed and not wasted.

Try it if you have a bush which has taken the rain and gone haywire with aromatic, shiny, black berries you don't quite know what to do with!

A Berry Happy Weekend everyone!

Victorian Country Apron Giveaway and Tutorial

As promised, here are the three extra Victorian country aprons I've made this week to float around the garden in (if it's not raining) or the kitchen (if it is!).

I've emailed the first three people who expressed interest on my last post in receiving one of these: Sonia at FabricandFlowers, Lorraine at  FourHappyBunnies,  and Mrs H at TalesofMrsH so if you'd still like one, do send me your postal address, if you haven't already done so, and your apron will be on its way!

And, if you would like to make your own, here is my design and what I did. I've gone through it step by step, which seasoned sewers won't need, but for anyone who doesn't feel so experienced, I hope my instructions and pics will be easy and clear to follow. There's nothing more frustrating, especially when you are starting out on a project in unknown territory, to find that the pattern assumes you know stuff when you don't.

You need a metre (or about a yard and a quarter) of your chosen main fabric and a scrap of something contrasting to line the pocket with. I had some Liberty lawn off-cuts from a project some years back which made good linings for the pockets. These are the two main fabrics I used. One is a Tilda fabric and the other is a Tanya Whelan one.

First you need to draw out your pattern on paper. You need a large rectangle 19" wide by 32" long (the skirt of the apron), and yes, it will be big enough because you will cut it on the fold of the fabric thereby doubling its width! You also need a rectangle 19" across by 9" wide (the waistband) and a parallelogram 5" by 19" by 4" by 19"(the ties) and a pocket piece. For this, draw a rectangle about 8" long and 6" wide and round off the base so that it's pocket shaped. Or you can simply leave it rectangular if you prefer. 

Lay out your fabric in one layer and then fold in one side of the fabric by 19". Lay your skirt pattern piece with the long side aligned on the fold of the fabric, pin and cut out through the double fabric layer so that you end up with a rectangle double the width of your pattern piece. Pin and cut out one waistband piece, two tie pieces and one pocket piece from the main fabric and a second pocket piece from your chosen lining fabric. 

Here are my pieces cut out and ready to assemble

To begin with, you need to finish the side edges of the apron skirt. You should have a selvedge on one side and this you can turn in just the once, as the edge of the fabric isn't raw. The other side will be a raw edge so you will need to turn in a 1/4" turning and then another 1/2" turning to hide the raw edge away. Press your turnings in place ready for stitching.

Machine stitch along the pressed side edges as in the pics.

Now get the pocket sorted. To do this, pin your two pocket shapes (one from your main fabric and one from your lining fabric) together, with right sides facing. Machine stitch around the outside leaving a gap at the top edge for turning. You don't need a massive seam allowance - about 1/4" is fine. Clip the corners as in the pic and clip the curves also. You can just see my scissors doing their clippy stuff on the curves in the bottom right hand corner of the pic below. 

Now turn your pocket the right way out, using a blunt knitting needle or something similar to poke out the corners. Go gently or it's easy to poke a hole instead of just a nice sharp corner! Press the turned pocket including the gap, making sure the turnings in the gap sit nice and even as you press. 

Now stitch across the top edge of the pocket, sealing the gap and making a nice crisp edge. Stitch as close to the edge as you reasonably can, as in the pic.

Now pin your pocket in position on the apron skirt. Mine is about 8" from the top and about 6" from the left hand side as you face it, but put yours where you will find it convenient. Stitch along the edges of the pocket to secure it in place, leaving the top open of course, or you'll get a patch and not a pocket!

Take your parallellogram-shaped tie pieces and fold them in half lengthways as I am doing in the pic. Press.

Starting from one end with the fold at the top, stitch down the short end and then along the long open side of the folded tie. Leave the remaining short end open.

Clip the corners and turn the ties the right way out. Deploy your crafty knitting needle again to poke out the corners neatly. Don't forget to go gently! It's mighty easy to push a bit too hard and go straight through the fabric!

Now press the ties flat, using your fingers to winkle the seam flat as you go, so that you get the whole width of the tie as you press with the iron. This is what they should look like:  

Now for the waistband. You need first of all to fold and press the waist band in half lengthways. Then press under 5/8" on one of the long sides. 

Now turn the waistband piece so that the right side is facing you, with the pressed turning at the top, opening out the central fold. Take your ties and place them against the sides of the waistband, just below the central fold-line, as in the pic, with the rest of the tie facing towards the centre of the waistband. 

Fold over the top half of the waist band so that the ties are enclosed within and pin the side seams. The result should look like this:  

Stitch the sides of the waistband securing the ends of the ties within the seam. Use a 5/8" seam allowance.

Turn the waistband right side out and you should have something that looks like this:

OK, we're making progress! The end is in sight! You now need to gather the top edge of the apron. You can do this using a long stitch on your machine, which is nice and easy, or you can do it by hand. Whichever method you use, stitch long machine stitches or running stitches 5/8" in from the top edge and pull the top thread to create gathers. You want to gather enough fabric up to fit the apron skirt within the waistband and create the nice, romantic, full effect we are after. I gather using the longest stitch my machine allows and find that the fabric begins to pucker up all by itself as I go. In the pic I've pulled the fabric round a bit so you can see the beginning puckering even though I haven't yet pulled on the thread.

Pull up the thread so that the gathered fabric will fit within the waistband.

With right sides together, pin the gathered top of the apron skirt to the long edge of the waistband which has not got the turning on it. You can see the seam where I have pinned but not sewn it, with the turned in edge of the waistband folded back a bit, to keep it out of the way in the pic above. You can baste the gathers in place if you feel nervous about just pinning it. Either way, then machine stitch the apron skirt to the waistband. Make sure that you keep the long side with the turning on it free from getting caught up in the sewing. As previously minuted in these pages, I am not a great baster and didn't bother here, but purists would say you ought to and if you are inexperienced I would say, go the extra mile and save yourself potential trouble. But if you think you can wing it, go ahead! 

At this point you really are on the home straight. Fold the waistband back over the top and pin the turned edge over the seam securing the gathers, hiding all the raw edges tidily from view. You can now  try on your romantic apron in front of the mirror and admire the effect (mind the pins though)! All that remains is to hand-stitch with hem stitch the turned under edge of the waistband over the seam securing the gathers as I am in the process of doing in the pic below.

Finally make a hem at the bottom. For this, fold up 1/4" turning and then another 5/8" or so and press and stitch in place either by hand or machine. 

Cut the threads and knot them off and don your apron to go out in the garden and pick raspberries, blackcurrants, sweet peas, roses or whatever your heart desires. Or (if it's raining again) go in the kitchen and give new life to a Victorian recipe for an old-fashioned cake or scones!

Talking of which, here is my great-grandmother's recipe for the lightest scones I've ever tasted. The original recipe goes back at least to the time of the First World War and more probably the 19th C. I have tweaked the original just a fraction by substituting half live yoghurt in place of just milk to mix the dough but, if I may say, this tweak is with good effect. It's foolishly easy too, especially if you have a food processor to hand, in which to perform the first half of the operation.

8 oz self-raising white flour

2 oz unsalted butter or a pure vegetable margarine

1 tsp cream of tartar

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

1 tbsp caster sugar

c 1/4 pt milk (or half live yoghurt and half milk for best effect)

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Whizz the flour, cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda in the food processor or mix by hand. Whizz in the butter (cubed) or rub in by hand. Tip mixture into a bowl if you've been using the food processor. Using a blunt knife mix to a softish dough with the milk / milk and yoghurt mixture. Tip onto a floured work surface and press gently into a round about 3/4" thick. Cut into fluted rounds, triangles or hearts and place on a baking sheet lined with non-stick silicone paper. Brush the scones lightly with milk and bake for about ten minutes until risen and golden. Cool on a wire rack. 

They are as light as a feather the day they are made but they go stale quickly so freeze any you don't need immediately and defrost as required. (They freeze beautifully.) They are wonderful with homemade jam and clotted cream or just the jam. And if you're worried about calories, make the scones on the small side and remember that scones are low in fat and sugar compared with other cakes and as I say, you don't need to load these with cream to enjoy them.

Enjoy!

E x

Rosy Jam

My post the other day was about a rosy cushion; today it is about rosy jam. Some years ago I managed to buy a small pot of rose petal jam from one of those expensive foodie delicatessen places. It was divine and made the most wonderful sponge cake filling mixed with mascarpone and fromage frais. But the expensive foodie delicatessen closed and rose petal jam seemed to be a delicacy that was unobtainable elsewhere. I expect you could have got it at Fortnum and Masons or Harrods or somewhere but these emporia were not on my doorstep and I suspect the price would have been eye-watering in any case. So the idea of rose petal jam seemed as evanescent as the fragrant perfume of the rose which it captured. But the fragrance lingered in my head as fragrances do and from time to time a slightly wistful memory of that translucent pink, scented jam floated in and out of my culinary ponderings. But last week Anne of Life in Mud Spattered Boots posted a recipe for rose petal jam here that turned that wistful memory into divine and present reality again. I don't know why I hadn't thought about making it before - even the tiny garden of my previous house in London was crammed with roses which grew rather well on the solid, London clay soil that other plants found too much to cope with and despite the damp, grey summer, the garden here is awash now with old-fashioned, scented roses.

I am not a very expert jam-maker and the vagaries of getting to the setting point without ending up with the consistency of something like concrete I've always found has been a bit of an issue. My strawberry jam-making efforts of a week or two ago, helped by using jam sugar with its added pectin, were unexpectedly good but my most recent attempt which was to make dried apricot jam was a disaster. Let's just say that the consistency of the results was reminiscent of nothing so much as half set UHU. (For non-UK readers this is a clear adhesive that is runny in the tube but which dries to a bouncy and distinctly rubbery consistency!) Not good and darned difficult to get out of the jar let alone spread on anything. Even my mother's rescue tip of adding some boiling water to the overset jam failed to make much difference. So it was with some trepidation that I embarked on another jam-making foray and an unusual one at that, with flowers rather than fruit.

But what a revelation! Anne's recipe is simple, very clear and it works brilliantly! The set is perfect - wobbly but not runny, set but not firm. The scented process of making it was both easy and enjoyable from beginning to end and the eating, well let's just say I have had to make another batch this morning because the first batch is disappearing faster than I can believe! It hasn't made it into a sponge cake filling yet but on scones with clotted cream it most certainly has.

Obviously the roses you use have to be ones that have not been sprayed and the more scent they have, the better. So my lackadaisical gardening habits have borne unexpected fruit as I haven't got round to spraying any of the roses ever, I think! You need a litre of rose petals which sounded rather a lot but in fact I filled a litre jug very quickly. I used mostly petals from my old fashioned deeply fragrant Rosa Mundi for the first batch supplemented by a few scented pale creamy pink ones from another bush whose name I don't know.

For the second batch I used the blooms of an unidentified, deep magenta, intensely scented, cultivated rose gone wild. Slightly differing in flavour but both excellent.

Slightly misshapen (but I have to say very light!) scone as bearer of rosy jam ...

... and cream! Yummmmy!

The appearance of the jam is as delightful as the taste with the fragments of petal caught in the translucent rosy jelly. If you have some unsprayed scented roses in your garden or can persuade a friend or relative to let you have some of theirs, I recommend giving this a go. Roses don't seem to be deterred by the awful British summer and this preserve will give you a taste of the summer we are not having but ought to be!

This morning's batch - slightly darker than the first but it tastes equally good!
I know, I've tried it off the ladle while it was still warm!