Elderberry and Blackberry Jam
This is a recipe to make use of the wild fruits that are free for the picking from the hedgerow that makes a lovely flavoured jam to have on piles of hot buttered toast. Ingredients: Equal weights of blackberries and elderberries washed and stalks removed (with the elderberries I use the tines of a fork to pull the berries off the very fine stalks) Preserving sugar Method Weigh the fruit and then put in a preserving pan. Using both hands squeeze all the fruit gently (the colour does stain the hands but it does wear off eventually so you might like to put on a clean pair of food hygiene gloves at this point). Slowly bring to the boil stirring the fruit constantly then keep boiling for approximately 20 minutes. Meanwhile for each 450g/1lb of fruit measure out 350g/12 oz of preserving sugar and warm briefly in the oven (this helps speed the setting process up) . Add the sugar to the pan at the end of the 20 minutes then mix thoroughly, bring back to the b...