Apple and apple/strawberry jam

This time of year when fresh apples are plentiful I like to make apple jam. It's not something people tend to make which is a shame as it is the yummiest jam ever, especially when it's made with strawberries too (though people who don't like strawberries would probably disagree on that point hehe). If you like apple sauce but want something a bit more grown up then apple jam is for you! It's also very easy to make and doesn't require any special equipment.

Equipment you need: 

• Large pan (I used a 5 litre/10 pint pan but larger is probably safer)
• Wooden spoon
• Jam jars:  4 - 5 jars with a metal screw lid per kg/2 pounds of fruit
• A slotted or perforated spoon if you have one - otherwise a normal spoon will do.

See - nothing really special needed :)

Ingredients for about 4 jars of jam*:

•  1 kg / 2 pounds roughly grated apples** (on a 4 sided standing grater I used the largest one)
• 1/2  kg / 1 pound of  granulated sugar
• 1/2 kg / 1 pound of jam sugar
• A pinch of cinnamon (optional)
• A teaspoon of lemon juice (optional)

Instructions:

1. Put the grated apple into the large pan with the cinnamon, lemon juice and add the granulated sugar only.
2. Put it on a low heat and stir the apple and sugar together - it will be quite dry at first but s the sugar gets wet from the apple and starts melting it will soon become liquid.
3. Bring it to the boil slowly, stirring all the time - by doing it slowly you give the apple some time to cook which results in a better flavour later on.
4. Use the slotted/perforated spoon to remove any scum (white bubbly stuff) that floats on the top of the jam.
5. Once it's getting close to the boil add the jam sugar.
6. Stir it in carefully and keep stirring till the jam is boiling even when you stir.
7. Take the spoon out and let the jam boil for 4 minutes exactly.
8. Meanwhile wash the jam jars up in the hottest water possible - you need the jars hot when you pour the jam into the jars and carefully dry them on inside as water in the jam is a bad thing.
9. Keep the jars warm in the oven on a low setting.
10. When the time is up turn the heat off.
11. Do the next bit as quickly as you can - you need to do this while the jam is still close to the boiling point.
12. Get the jars out of the oven and place them on a tea towel to protect your work surface and avoid them shattering.
13. Fill the jars almost to the top with the jam.
14. Close the jars as tightly as you can with the lids and then turn the jars upside down.
15. This will create the vacume seal jam always has.
16. After 5 minutes turn the jam the right way round (don't leave it any longer or the jam will stick to the lid and not move down.)
17. Leave to cool while still on the tea towel, add a lable with the type of jam and the date.
18. The jam should be kept in a cool dark place when sealed and in the fridge when opened.

Enjoy!

  If you wish to make apple/strawberry jam just use half apple and half strawberry and don't use cinnamon.


* Please note that I'm using whole pounds even though a pound is less than half a kg as its easier to weigh and it doesn't make difference to the end result except there being slightly less jam. Just choose either pounds OR kg and stick with that and it will be fine.
** I used Elstar - a crisp semi sweet apple - I'd suggest using any apple you like to eat.

A little bit more fruit... or is it a lot?

As I said on my apple post:

This was made for the #stitchingpirates Sailing the fruit contest however as the rules say that there must be 2 pieces of fruit this is not my final entry - I need to add something else before it is eligible.

Well the pieces you see with the apple are the "something else" I added to make it an eligible entry. I first planned to do a 3D  strawberry which was originally mystery project B but it turned out to be too stiff to be able to make a strawberry out of it so I knew I had to make something a little bigger. So I then decided to make a tangerine to go with the apple but creating a pattern as I went along making the tangerine (as I just *knew* that people would want to make the tangerine and there was no way I'd be able to make a pattern once I'd completed the piece) was slow and I didn't think I'd be able to finish this on time. So I looked in my pattern scrapbooks to see what I could find that might work.

  It all started with the raspberry embroidery which I completed in less than a day but once it was done I didn't know what to do with it and it didn't really seem to suit the apple so I set it aside to think. The pattern I'd found in my scrapbook to make the raspberry also had some other fruit so I decided to move on to the strawberry with the initial plan of using the strawberry next to the cherry as a needle book but the strawberry turned out to be so bit that would have been a little bit too large for the needle book, and the two together would have been bigger than the bit of embroidery fabric I had left. At that point I decided to just do the strawberry and leave the cherry for something else, though I now also didn't know what to do with the strawberry either.

Full of doubt as to what I was doing for this but knowing that even if I skipped the apple completely and just went with the strawberry and raspberry it would not be "enough" I decided to keep going with the embroideries thinking that at worst I'd have a set of fruit that went together as they all came from the same pattern. I looked at the scraps of  embroidery fabric I had left that was the same as what was already present in the other embroideries and had a think as to what I could do with them. I still wanted to go with a sewing kit but couldn't see how I could use the strawberry for it. I decided to make a needle book out of the raspberry and considered using the cherry for a pincushion but realised that it would just look odd. I did know that with the round shapes it would look nice on the flap of a scissors case so that's what it became.

The last pattern of the 4 for the fruits was far too big for the fabric I had left as it was a long string of berries  but I picked out a couple of the berries and used them. I didn't want to make a square our of it as I had the idea of a single dangling tassle at the bottom so sacrificed 2 of my hexagon papers to make elongated hexagons and using a bit of red fabric as the backing and a scrap of ribbon I had on my desk I made a scissors fob out of it.

By the time I'd finished all these pieces I realised that I could make a box with the strawberry if I lined pieces of cardboard with fabric, so, as I didn't have any fabric glue, I had to do it the old fashioned way: by stretching the fabric over the pieces of cardboard and then carefully sewing a second piece of fabric to the first. The piece you see above is the base which was given a piece of felt as the outer side so I had to stretch the lining first before adding the felt. For all the other pieces I stretched the outer fabric over the card and sewed down the lining. I needed more fabric around the edges of the strawberry than I had so I sewed some strips of red batik to the outside of the embroidery and placed that on 2 pieces of batting (one smaller than the other to make it dome a little) and then stretched it around the cardboard. I then sewed all the pieces together using DMC perle thread and a large needle - it was rather painful sewing this together and by the time I was finished my hands really hurt.

I wanted to be able to fully open my box so didn't sew up the sides of it As you can see I also added 2 little pockets to 2 of the sides. What isn't so visible in these photo's is that the box is covered with read and white fabrics - 2 red and 2 white for the lid and 2 red and 2 white for the box itself - swapping them round so no 2 are next to each other.

Stats for all the items:

Apple:
Colours: 11 DMC colours blended together to create 30 different colour groups.
Fabric: White 28 ct Even weave
Size: 2 1/2" wide x 1 3/4" high / 6,35 x 4.45 cm

Berry:
Colours used: 6
Fabric: White 28 ct Even weave
Size: 1/ 3/4" x 1 1/4"

Cherry:
Colours used: 6
Fabric: White 28 ct Even weave
Size: 2 7/8" x 4 1/4"

Raspberry:
Colours used: 7
Fabric: White 28 ct Even weave
Size: 2 7/8" square.

Strawberry:
Colours used: 10
Fabric: White 28 ct Even weave
Size: 5 1/4" wide x 5 1/4" deep x 3 1/4" high

Redcurrants!

I adore redcurrants almost as much as I adore peaches and nectarines. redcurrants have a short season so I like to pig out a bit when they are around however they are so sour they need a bit of work to make them taste nice. One of my favourite things is to eat them with yoghurt in some way - like in the image above - with finely grated apple (that in this image admittedly looks a bit like worms lol) Making the redcurrants ready to eat takes a lot of time as I like to leave them in the fridge overnight to "sweeten" a little.

Ingredients:

• a pound of redcurrants
• 2 - 3 oz - 50 - 75 grams of castor sugar
• 1 oz - 25 grams of brown sugar
• pint - 500 ml of yoghurt
• small apple, finely grated or chopped

To prepare redcurrant "goo":

1. Wash and take the berries from the stalks, making sure to take out any bad ones.
2. Put the redcurrants and castor sugar (not the brown sugar yet) in a largish bowl squish them with a fork.
3. When you can see no more whole berries cover the bowl with cling film and put in the fridge over night.
4. Just before serving add the brown sugar and stir - this makes it darker but also sweetens it a bit more

This goo can be used for all kinds of things :)

To prepare the yoghurt drink:

1. Put the grated apple into the bottom of a a really large glass or bowl.
2. Add a good 10 - 15 table spoons of the goo till the glass or bowl is half full.
3. Pour yoghurt over the top.

Even though if you taste the goo it's pretty sour still the yoghurt seems to stop the sourness and makes it almost sweet.

Enjoy!