Late summer village show success!

A few weekends ago I went back to my roots and entered a neighbouring village's village show. This consists of the usual raffle, tombola, dodgy second hand clothes and bric-a-brac and, what I consider to be the main event, the show.

There are various classes and this year I decided to 'go big' on the preserves. I entered apricot jam, red onion marmalade (recipe on this blog), rhubarb and vanilla vodka and whisky marmalade. 

There were around a dozen competitors and 7 different classes, and I'm thrilled to announce that I won the preserves cup! This unfortunately involved beating my mother which she was none too pleased about, but hopefully thought it was testament to her coaching. 

Due to a historic rule that the cup cannot leave the participating villages, I have unfortunately had to leave the glamorous trophy at my parent's house, however I couldn't resist boasting with a few pictures on here....

Apricot Jam

I used French Apricots for this recipe and used the usual half fruit to half sugar (by weight) method as described for other jams on this blog. 

Whisky orange marmalade

I made this quite a thick cut marmalade and added a shot of whisky (for a 5 jar yield) just before spooning the jam into jars. Makes a good Christmas present!

Red onion marmalade

See my previous post for this recipe. I have found it to be a firm favourite and very versatile. I love onions but they very rarely shine in their own right. This sweet and sticky condiment does just that. Try with sausages, cold meats, cheese or on pizza with goat's cheese!

Rhubarb, vanilla and strawberry vodka

Rhubarb and vanilla vodka

For this liqueur I took a 750ml glass bottle and chopped a medium stalk of rhubarb into half length ways and then into small chunks and put them in the bottle. I then added half a vanilla pod and a could of tablespoons of sugar. 

After infusing for a month or so I tasted the result and found it a bit heavy on the vanilla. I therefore sieved the contents to remove the rhubarb and vanilla, and then reinfused the vodka with some more rhubarb and a couple of strawberries for good measure. 

The result was rather delicious served straight, ice cold!

The next day I went foraging around the village for some late summer spoils and was well rewarded for the trouble. The resulting bounty of blackberries and apples, sloes, plums and raspberries were used in a crumble, to make gin, as a snack and to decorate fairy cakes (respectively). A very successful weekend!

For those of you who may feel moved to enter a village show. My top tips would be:

1. Don't stress about it, enter some preserves you have entered during the year that have gone well
2. Pay attention to presentation. Fill jars 1cm from the top, make sure the jars aren't sticky and use nice jars and labels
3. Enter lots of classes for the best chance of WINNING (but of course it's taking part that counts ;) )

Red onion marmalade and berry jam with liquorice

Finished jars, packaged for Christmas

It's my favourite time of year for making homemade things, with Christmas coming up and cosy evenings in being just what the doctor ordered!

I made this red onion marmalade last year and it was delicious, I kept a jar back to eat this year and after keeping it is even better!
The jam was inspired by jam I had at The Modern Pantry in London. I couldn't find a recipe for it but I gave it a go with nice results. I would never eat liquorice flavoured sweets but a hint of it in jam is quite delicious!

Red Onion Marmalade

Ingredients

1.25kg red onions

3 tbsp salt

1kg sugar

500ml apple or cider vinegar

1.5tsps cloves tied in muslin

Method

First chop your onions into fine rings, this is quite important as it will have a big impact on the texture of your marmalade.

Add all the ingredients to a large pan and cook on a low boil for a long time (depending on the heat about an hour and a half) until the onions are translucent, the marmalade is thick and reaches setting point. Don't be tempted to cook it until it is totally stiff, there may be quite a lot of caramel coloured juice still when it reaches setting point. 

If you don't have muslin it is not essential but you will have whole cloves in your preserve. That doesn't really bother me but it would probably be better to use muslin which you can then remove before you decant into jars. 

This preserve is a bit more effort than usual because of all the chopping but I promise it is delicious and improves with keeping. Try it with meat, cheese or on pizza!

Berry and liquorice jam

I had in mind to try this jam after having it on toast at the Modern Pantry in Clerkenwell in London. I didn't find liquorice until this weekend though so when I did I wanted to try it straight away!

It's not really the season for jam making in that there isn't so much fruit around but I had some frozen mixed fruit in the freezer along with some blackberries I picked in August so I used that. 

Liquorice root from the rag market in Birmingham.
Can also be used to make tea!

Ingredients

2 teaspoons chopped liquorice

300g berries

300g sugar

Juice of half a lemon

Makes one large jar (I was doing a test batch!)

Method

Infuse your liquorice root for around 10 minutes in 30ml boiling water until it makes a very strong tea.

Defrost your fruit (in the microwave if you have one) and then add the sugar, lemon juice and liquorice tea. Boil until it reaches setting point (see previous post on strawberry and rhubarb jam). It may take a little longer than usual to set due to the extra liquid added.

Pour into hot jars when still hot, place a wax disc on top and screw the lid on tightly.

 I found that this combination of fruit made a very dark purple jam and I didn't have any problems with scum on the top - perfect!

Perfect jam for tea and toast!

  Packaging

 As usual I have tried to make my jars look pretty for presents. This time I used translucent gold paper and wool or twine, with some brown paper labels. I tried out my new alphabet stamps on the onion marmalade label which I think looks nice (obsessed with stamps now).

Village fayre

Cold Aston Fayre

This is a bit different from my other blog posts as it isn't really a 'how to' it's more of a general description and some photos of the village fayre we had last weekend to raise money for the village school and church. I have been going to this my whole life and my Mum is in charge of running the preserves and produce stall which is a big reason behind why I got into making things myself. 

Preparations.....

Last minute redcurrant jelly...

Bread baking the day before

 

Cutting up and old shirt to make jam jar covers...

Country grain bread and lemon and poppyseed cake (which never made it onto the stall....)

Blackboards ready...

 We bought some of these blackboards but for the others we painted old boards with blackboard paint.

On the day...

 People from the village bring over jam, fruit from their gardens, veg from their allotment, bread and other goodies like elderflower cordial and chicken and ham pies which we set out nicely on the stall.

The stall with fresh herbs, flowers and breads...

We had 200 jars of jam this year

Swiss chard, cabbages, courgettes and potatoes...

More courgettes(!) beetroot and garlic

Sweet peas, flowers cut that morning, bread, cordial and eggs

We used old picnic hampers to display the bread 

One girl made goodie baskets with flapjacks, chocolates, fudge, chutney and blackcurrant cordial - a great idea

The cake stall made over £800 this year!

I hope some of you feel inspired to bake, make and grow for a good cause this year!

Rhubarb and Strawberry Jam

Finished jam 

This is my absolute favourite jam. Even if you don't like rhubarb you will like this, as the flavour is very subtle and somehow seems to bring out the strawberry-ness of the strawberries.

Ingredients

500g strawberries (not too ripe)

600g rhubarb

1.1kg sugar

1 packet pectin

Juice of one lemon

The pectin and lemon are used here as strawberries and rhubarb are both low in pectin and acid which are needed to let the jam set. You could also substitute the sugar for jam sugar and leave out the pectin but jam sugar is quite a bit more expensive. I have got a good set before using only lemon juice but I would try with pectin first unless you don't mind your jam being a bit runny.

This recipe made me 5 jars of jam but one was a large kilner jar.

I got my fruit from a market so spent £2.50 on it overall. The best thing of course would be for you to use homegrown fruit! I would encourage you not to use supermarket strawberries and they can be very expensive and sometimes a bit tasteless. If you have kids you might want to go to a pick your own strawberry farm. I did this last year and made the jam on the day which gave it an amazing fresh flavour. If you have lots of rhubarb available but not many strawberries (which may well be the case if you grow your own rhubarb which is very prolific!) then you can reduce the ration to 1:2 strawberries to rhubarb. This still has a great strawberry flavour if you use nice strawberries. 

Method

• Chop the rhubarb into approx one inch chunks although don't bother being precise as the rhubarb will break down in cooking. Wash it. 

• Place the rhubarb and sugar in the pan which you will use to boil the jam. Don't try and use a small pan for this as it will take ages and be difficult to stir! Leave the rhubarb in the pan with the sugar while you sterilise the jars (see previous post on plum chutney if you don't know how) and chop the strawberries so it's starts releasing it's juice.

•  Chop the strawberries into quarters (these will mostly stay whole through cooking) and add to the pan.  Add the pectin and lemon juice. 

•  Turn the hob up to high and stir to stop the sugar burning. In a few minutes the sugar will melt and the jam start to bubble. Bring it to the boil and stir occasionally 

• After about 20 minutes test the set of your jam but spooning a small amount onto a cold plate. Let the jam cool and then run your finger through the circle of syrup. If the jam wrinkles when you push it it is set. This is the only difficult bit of making jam but it is worth being patient and testing a few times or your jam will be very runny (I have to admit mine was a bit runny on this go as I was inpatient but it is still delicious). 
• Once setting point is reached take your jam off the heat and leave to cool until the jam is about 90 degrees (this is hard to do exactly without a thermometer but use your best guess). 
• Spoon the jam into sterillised jars which are still warm. The jam being hot will help keep it sterilised so don't leave it too long. Put waxed discs on to of the jam and seal the jars. This time I used a kilner jar for me as I use lots of this jam and wanted to have a big jar for the summer! Kilner jars are quite expensive but if you want to give a special present you might want to use one. I got mine from a charity shop for £1 and intend to reuse it but to buy new they cost about £3. 
• As for the chutney, get creative with your labeling if you want your jars to look pretty. I think that extra 10 minutes at the end is well worth it to package your beautiful homemade preserves.

•  Try this jam simply on toast, stirred into rice pudding, on porridge, with granola and yogurt....

Variations

Of course if you are a purist strawberry jam lover you could make this with just strawberries. 

The addition of vanilla is also a nice touch but remember to use natural vanilla essence or a vanilla pod (which you should take out before spooning the jam into jars). 

Cost

This batch of jam cost me about £4 to make (for 5 jars) but depends a lot on how much you spend on fruit!