Medlar Fruit Jelly

 

I have been busy making jelly again. Perhaps this is becoming more of a cookery blog than craft blog. We have a single medlar tree in the garden, and other years I have not picked the fruit. But maybe because we did not have as many apples and pears as other years, this year the medlar tree seemed full of fruit, so I decided to give them a go.

I had not heard of this fruit, but apparently they were very popular in medieval times, and because of its appearance had some quite rude names. As you can see they are rather a strange looking fruit, and really quite hard. You have to pick them, and leave them to blett, which means ripen until they look as if they are almost rotten. Some I left a bit too long, but I ended up with about a kilo of usable fruit, and used this recipe on the RHS site to make the jelly. It is a lovely colour, and tastes of apples.

 

My dog is the one who loves the medlars, and if I cannot find her she will often be under the tree snacking. 

Hawthorn Berry Jelly

 

There seem to be more than usual hawthorn berries around this year. Is that a sign it will be a cold winter? So I decided I would have a go at making some hawthorn jelly. I used this recipe from Practical Self Reliance.

I am not sure why my hawthorn berries were not particular juicy, but it took me three colanders before I thought I had enough juice to add the sugar. In the end I made this single jar of hawthorn jelly. Plenty of hawthorn berries were left for the birds.

And now I can hear the rose hips calling to me. Recipes say they will be juicier if you wait until you have had a light frost, which we haven't yet, so I am trying to be patient.