I am a magpie, attracted to anything shiny and delicious, so when Nigella Lawson re-tweeted this link, I knew I just had to have a go at making my own. I do not have the patience to pick my own; well, I do and Lucy does, but after yesterday's blackberry and damson picking carnage which resulted in Harriet running out across the road, I don't think it's quite for us yet. So I bought two punnets of just on the turn strawberries from one of the greengrocers on our bit of the Uxbridge Road, and made sparkly strawberry jam.
The recipe in "How to be a Domestic Goddess" for strawberry jam is excellent, I've made it before and got good results, so I just substituted pomegranate molasses for balsamic vinegar and shoved the whole lot in the pan and boiled it up. Another slight modification; I added 2 pots of edible red glitter - possibly too much, but it is really, really sparkly, something that I'm not sure shows up in the photo.
We now have three and a half jars of Sparkleberry Jam. Wonderful.
For all I don't want to be at work, I do love September. I love going to pick blackberries and damsons, rose hips and crab apples, rowan berries and elderberries, and then turning them into jams, jellies, vodkas and syrups. Mind you, the first time I made elderberry jam it carbonised, so I'm hoping for a better result this time. Lucy, eccentric child, won't eat baked beans, but wolfs down crab apple jelly, so I'm going to have to make three or four jars so she doesn't run out. We all like crab apple jelly, it's sweet and savoury at the same time.
I've found a damson tree half strangled by brambles on a locked up building site a couple of doors up, and there's another on the way to church, so I'm going to have lots and lots for jam and jellies. I might have to give some away, I think I've still got a load from last year. This year I want to make rose hip syrup, and I will not let my husband near it - he burned it last year, the idiot.
Right, I have to cook something more suitable for supper than sparkly strawberry jam. Salmon, beans and noodles I think, and I need to wash my hands several times after handling the chillis, especially before I take my lenses out.
The recipe in "How to be a Domestic Goddess" for strawberry jam is excellent, I've made it before and got good results, so I just substituted pomegranate molasses for balsamic vinegar and shoved the whole lot in the pan and boiled it up. Another slight modification; I added 2 pots of edible red glitter - possibly too much, but it is really, really sparkly, something that I'm not sure shows up in the photo.
We now have three and a half jars of Sparkleberry Jam. Wonderful.
For all I don't want to be at work, I do love September. I love going to pick blackberries and damsons, rose hips and crab apples, rowan berries and elderberries, and then turning them into jams, jellies, vodkas and syrups. Mind you, the first time I made elderberry jam it carbonised, so I'm hoping for a better result this time. Lucy, eccentric child, won't eat baked beans, but wolfs down crab apple jelly, so I'm going to have to make three or four jars so she doesn't run out. We all like crab apple jelly, it's sweet and savoury at the same time.
I've found a damson tree half strangled by brambles on a locked up building site a couple of doors up, and there's another on the way to church, so I'm going to have lots and lots for jam and jellies. I might have to give some away, I think I've still got a load from last year. This year I want to make rose hip syrup, and I will not let my husband near it - he burned it last year, the idiot.
Right, I have to cook something more suitable for supper than sparkly strawberry jam. Salmon, beans and noodles I think, and I need to wash my hands several times after handling the chillis, especially before I take my lenses out.
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