Wednesday, August 27, 2008

fruity!

Inspired by the success of last year's culinary exploits, and also by a huge consignment of fruit from our visit to Hazel's parents' place at the weekend, I've started on a couple of new projects:

We had a load of blackberries, so I thought I'd do something in the sloe and damson gin vein and make some blackberry vodka. No real idea about proportions of ingredients, though I guessed that blackberries are a bit sweeter than damsons, and that therefore a fruit to sugar ratio of between 3:1 and 4:1 would be appropriate. We'll see in a couple of months. There's about 2 litres here, so that should see us through the winter months with a smile on our faces.

Secondly, we had a ridiculous quantity of apples, so, again after giving as many as possible away, I've used most of the remainder to make some apple and mint jelly. Well, we're at the juice-draining stage so far; the boiling up with sugar and putting in jars bit comes tomorrow. The last lot, though delicious, was a little reluctant to set properly, so I've got some special sugar to give this lot a helping hand.

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