Summer means Jam making ^_^

Making homemade jam—or chutney is a great way to preserve the best fruits of summer. Strawberries this year have been amazing, either from your patio, allotment or at the pick your own farms over the south east of England. Later in the year there are plenty of wild blackberries along the lane where I live which are best in the late summer and autumn. Its very easy to make jam and using fresh fruit with no preservatives makes it taste so delicious, you just can't beat it on scones with cream and a pot of tea ^_^ it is simply divine!

The trickiest part of jam making is how much pectin (the settling agent) is in each kind of fruit. The high sugar temperatures can be a little overwhelming aswell but this can be easily overcome. I use a cheat, jam making sugar from silver spoon which has added pectin from apples : D


For soft fruit jam follow this easy peasy recipe!

Recipe:
400g Soft fruit can included strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, peaches and blueberries etc (I use a blender and add vanilla to blueberry jam ^_^)
500g of Jam sugar
1tsp lemon juice
1tsp of butter

Method: For traditional English jam mash your soft fruit with a potato masher, or if you prefer American style jelly you can use a blender to remove lumps, although the later wont work so well with seeded fruits such as raspberries - you still get the seeds!

Using an old saucepan (incase you burn it!) on a medium heat to bring your mashed fruit to a rolling boil, not spitting but gently bubbling over - my husband calls it my cauldron ;)

Add lemon juice, butter and/or vanilla at this time. Add the jam sugar and stir constantly, you dont want any one part of the jam to get too hot and burn. Boil it for a full 3 minutes to ensure all the pectin and sugar are combined with the fruit.

Using a tea spoon take a small amount of the hot jam out of the pan, leave it to cool for a few minutes and if it sticks to the spoon when you stick it upside down then your jam is ready :)

Canning:

If you use recycled jars be sure to sterilise them first or if you prefer you can buy them on-line. Warm your jars gently on a low heat (80') in the oven or in a saucepan of boiling water and then put the hot jam into your clean jars.

Carefully screw on the lids - the hot jars with hot jam will create a natural vacuum seal that will last 9-12 months. With a printer and some adhesive paper you can easily knock up some smart labels, I'm sure friends and family will be very impressed.

For beginners domestic goddess Delia has some very handy tips.

Hamper Time

I am looking forward to putting together half a dozen Christmas hampers as gifts this year and although its a bit early to get into the spirit that is exactly what I'm doing :)

I'll get baskets and a holly fabric to line them with, filled with lots of treats like local honey, home made Christmas pud and a selection of home grown preserves. I am looking forward to trying my own mint sauce and onion chutney ^_^

I have a selection of these already maturing in the cupboard but I'll need to split them up into smaller jars to make sure everyone get something and I am saving the smallest jars I can find for the jams. I need plenty of pickle or small (baby food) jars if you want some free samples! Unfortunately I recently lost my job but on a positive note it means I have a few weeks free to get most of this done : D

Also if 2 of our hens dont start laying again soon there will be a free range chicken in there for our parents as well! EEeeekk!

Sugar Momma

I have always enjoyed making things myself; clothes, cards, artwork, accessories and gifts, but best of all I like to cook. I love baking, making fudge, jam and preserves.

Last Christmas I gave everyone a jar of jam as a gift, I also made a few dozen for a Christmas fair, which everyone loved. Now that we have hens I have been working towards putting an honesty box in the shed out the front for our excess eggs, that way they are not wasted and we get some money back towards keeping the girls.Seeing that the jam was such a hit (most people have asked for more) and I love making it (and I have the time) I have decided to try selling it out the front and going to more fairs this year. There are a couple of horticultural fairs I will be entering which I am very much looking forward to : )

I want to make it clear that my fruit is home grown or wild, that it is free from artificial ingredients and I also need a brand name to start with. I can’t think of anything new and am stuck on words/things already associated with me. I’d love to know what you think and any feed back would be greatly appreciated : )

Easter Bunny is here!

This week I've been looking up themed surprises for when my husband’s family come for dinner on Easter Sunday - we don’t get enough quality time with family so I wanted to make it special.

First of all I found some cute bunny napkin origami which looks adorable with my home made yellow gingham napkins^_^ I knew I wanted to paint my own eggs as its not something I've done before so when I saw these Martha Stewart Chocolate eggs I was dying to give it a go ; )

Initially the chocolate eggs were to use in a mini hunt for the VIP guest, our 22 month old niece Martha but as I went on I decided to write on them and use the chocolate eggs as place settings. If get time I might do another half dozen hollow eggs especially for her - where Martha is concerned there can never be enough chocolate, I'm sure it was her first word!

We bought a large leg of lamb which will be slow roasted for 3 hours using this recipe, and I've bought ingredients to make both lemon meringue pie and chocolate fudge cake, the latter complete with shavings and eggs. I've also got supplies to make Bunny Cupcakes with David's cousins next week. I'll let you know how that goes, I'm sure it will be messy but worth it : )

Fudging it up

This year we are pretty short on pennies (nothing new there then) so I have invested some money and time into making home made gifts. Initially I wanted to give chocolates and truffles but they don't have a very long shelf life so I would have to make them on demand which is hassle I don't need as Christmas. So I thought that fudge would be a better choice.

I bought some flat pack gift boxes and have already started assembling them. adding ribbons and labels, soon I'll start making job lots of fudge to fill them. It wont be long intill I start giving them out with as a dose of Christmas cheer :)

Here is my recipe for delicious Scottish tablet which is a crumbly fudge that melts in your mouth.

Vanilla Scottish tablet
1 400g tin of condensed milk
500 grams of granulated sugar
50 grams of butter

Put all ingrediants into a pan on the hob and mix. When it has been at a steady rolling boil for 5 minutes it should be ready. Check the temp with a confectionery thermometer or if you don't have one try the soft ball test like I do. Take a tea spoon of hot mixture and drop it into a class of cold water. if it is firm ball when you lift it out then its ready.

Place into a foil lined container to cool at room temperature. When it is firm but not hard score the fudge into cubes. Cool for a few hours (over night is best) and when stored in a sealed container it should last for weeks. That s if it doesn't all get eaten before then!

If you would like variations, once the mixture is ready you can add chopped nuts and chunky peanut butter or even dried fruit and chocolate chips without changing the recipe above. I used creamed coconut in the mix with 20grams less sugar, adding dessicated coconut on top when it is starting to set. Enjoy :)

Raising funds for our troops

Tonight 33 bombshells did the bi-annual box packing for our troops in Afghanistan. It’s a production line of shoe boxes and donated goodies consisting of magazines sweets snack foods and toiletries. Once packed they are sealed up labels and shipped of as Christmas treats for our soldiers, this year my husbands troop 49, are serving their tour of duty.

There was a great turn out this evening, with lots and lots of volunteers and we totally smashed last year’s record of 95 boxes with a total of 240! That is enough for the whole troop and more besides, I hope the lads and lasses will share out the goodies so everyone can get a little something from home this Christmas. There was a donation of 40 boxes from the Wimbish Rugby club which was greatly appreciated : ) I’m especially glad my neighbours from Wethersfield turned out, which is a great show of support considering the bad news we had on Sunday, way to go girls.

Plans to supply the Christmas fayres are going well and I have about 8 jars of jam and half a dozen boxes of fudge. If anyone is interested in buying some outside of the fayre dates just let me know, I have a dozen different home made treats that would make lovely edible gifts : )
PS I am always after small glass jars, baby food jars are ideal : ) For every 5 you give me you get a free jar of jam ♥

Time for tea!

Afternoon tea is making a comeback. Customers are flocking to tearooms and eschewing the ghastly coffee chains with their thick, foaming, sickly, jumbo-sized hugely expensive coffees.

Good. About time, too. We need an escape from the raving-mad modern world, and afternoon tea comes from less frenzied times: the tea gardens of the early 18th century, the first Lyons tea houses – all safe havens for unaccompanied ladies, when half the population wasn't waddling around weighed down by excess fat. And in the 1950s and 6

0s, we were forever asking people to tea. It saved you the bother of cooking a proper meal, and only lasted an hour or so.

My very own tea set ^_^

The career power women of the eighty's with their sharp hair cuts and strong shoulder pads have raised a generation of daughters who are more interested in enjoying the simpler things in life, like baking and tea cups. It is much more satisfying to take the time to have your tea brewed in a pot or strained over leaves, in a special cup with some sweet treat. It seems so English and so peaceful, which is really what we could all do with a little more of.