Bramble Jelly

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy-bottomed preserving pan or large stockpot
• •Large square of muslin or a proper jelly bag
• •Large sieve and deep bowl
• •Sugar thermometer (optional, if you'd rather not do the saucer test)
• •4 small clean jam jars with lids
• •Wide-mouthed funnel and ladle

Instructions

1. 1

   Pick over the berries

   Tip the blackberries into a colander and rinse them gently under cold water. Pick out any stems, leaves, or bruised fruit. Don't be too precious about it. A few slightly under-ripe berries are welcome here, they bring extra pectin and help the jelly set. If you've foraged them yourself, you'll know what I mean about the small thorns still clinging to your wrists.

   Blackberries are low in pectin on their own. The cooking apple is doing quiet work in the background, lending body and helping the jelly set without needing shop-bought pectin or jam sugar.
2. 2

   Cook the fruit down

   Tip the blackberries and the chopped apple into a heavy preserving pan. Pour in the water and the lemon juice. Bring it slowly to a simmer over a medium heat, then turn it down and let it bubble gently for about forty-five minutes. Mash the fruit now and then with a wooden spoon to coax out the juices. The kitchen will start to smell like the end of summer: warm, dark, faintly winey. The berries should collapse completely into a deep purple sludge.

3. 3

   Strain through muslin

   Scald a piece of muslin in boiling water and use it to line a large sieve set over a deep bowl. Tip in the cooked fruit and let it drip. This is the part that asks for patience. Leave it overnight if you can, or at least four hours. Don't squeeze the bag, however much you want to. Squeezing forces pulp through and clouds the jelly. A clear bramble jelly is the whole point. A cloudy one tastes the same but doesn't catch the light, and catching the light is half of why you're doing this.

   Tie the corners of the muslin together and suspend the bag from the legs of an upturned stool, with the bowl underneath. It looks ridiculous and it works perfectly.
4. 4

   Measure and sweeten

   Measure the strained juice into the cleaned preserving pan. For every 600ml of juice, add 450g of granulated sugar. This isn't fussy maths, it's the ratio that gives you a jelly that sets but still tastes of fruit rather than sugar. Warm the pan gently and stir until the sugar has completely dissolved. Don't let it boil yet. Run a wooden spoon through the bottom of the pan and you shouldn't feel any grit. If you do, keep stirring.

5. 5

   Boil to setting point

   Now turn the heat up and bring the jelly to a rolling boil. A proper rolling boil, the kind that won't be stirred down. Let it bubble hard for eight to ten minutes. The colour will deepen to a dark, glossy garnet and the surface will look thicker, almost lacquered. To test for setting point, drop a teaspoon of jelly onto a cold saucer (keep a few in the freezer for this), let it sit for a minute, then push it with your finger. If the surface wrinkles, it's ready. If it slides about like syrup, give it another two minutes and try again.

   Skim off any pinkish foam that gathers on the surface with a slotted spoon. It won't hurt the jelly, but a small knob of butter stirred in at the end will dissolve most of it for you.
6. 6

   Pot up and seal

   Have your jars ready: scrubbed, rinsed, and warmed in a low oven so they don't crack when the hot jelly goes in. Ladle the jelly into the jars, filling almost to the top, and seal immediately with the lids. The jelly will look thin in the jar and you'll worry you've got it wrong. Don't. It firms as it cools. By morning it will hold its shape on a spoon. Label the jars, write the date on them, and put them somewhere dark.

Chef Tips

• •Pick the berries on a dry day if you can. Wet brambles bring extra water into the pan and dilute the flavour. If they've had rain on them, give them a few hours spread out on a tea towel before you start.
• •Forget about exact yields. Some batches give more juice than others depending on how ripe the fruit is and how patient you are with the straining. Bramble jelly is a generous, slightly unpredictable preserve. That's part of its charm.
• •Eat it on hot buttered toast. Stir a spoonful into the pan when you're roasting a duck or a pork shoulder. Push it through a strainer with a little vinegar and it becomes a sauce for cold meat. A jar lasts for months in the cupboard and gets better the longer you leave it.
• •If you find a bramble patch you love, keep it to yourself. This isn't precious advice, it's practical. Good blackberry hedges get stripped quickly and the best ones are quiet secrets shared only with people you trust.

Advance Preparation

• •The fruit can be cooked down and left to drip overnight. In fact this is the easiest way to do it: cook on Saturday evening, strain overnight, finish on Sunday morning.
• •Once potted and sealed, the jelly will keep in a cool dark cupboard for at least a year. Once opened, store in the fridge and use within a month.
• •If you can't get to the brambles all at once, freeze them as you pick. Spread them on a tray, freeze until solid, then bag them up. They'll make jelly just as well from frozen, no need to defrost.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 20g)