The Preserver's Year

daska

Frugalista wrote: »

I read somewhere (probably on an American site) that you can use applesauce (puree?) instead of fat in some recipes. To that end, I was thinking of stewing some apples and putting them in hot jars to preserve them.

Bearing in mind the above quote, anyone have any idea of how little sugar I would get away with using? I was going to try using less sugar as (presumably) when using the applesauce in place of fat, you would still have to add the same amount of sugar that the recipe called for? Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Sorry, that's where my scientific knowledge ends. I can tell you how to make a wonderful strawberry jam if that helps

Hello

I wanted to double check, are these rowan berries? I did put a thread on here but it was moved to the Green Fingered board, fair enough, but more peeps on here who cook with rowan berries!!

Rowan berries?

Hello

I made elderberry cordial tonight and it is very gorgeous - I need to find me another elderberry tree!! :drool:

nopot2pin

Hello wrote: »

I wanted to double check, are these rowan berries? I did put a thread on here but it was moved to the Green Fingered board, fair enough, but more peeps on here who cook with rowan berries!!

Rowan berries?

Yup... they are rowan berries....

Interesting LINKY here


Edit... after looking at the marmalade recipe... I think I might be making some

Hello

Hooray, i've seen loads of them but thought they were poisonous, another thread said they are poisonous raw but, not poisonous cooked. Looks like I will be looking up rowan berry recipies!

ceridwen

...and if anyone ever finds any rowan berry recipes that DONT include - wait for it - sugar:D - I would be glad of them purlease. I've had rowan berry jelly - and 'tis nice - but its got that there sugar in hasnt it:rolleyes: - so its not something I'm planning on having very often at all.

Rowan berries are about the only thing there is round here in abundance that I can pick - loadsa them - not much of owt else...:mad:

hmmm....and hawthorn berries as well - plenty of them - but same thing applies - recipes without sugar....

....now goes off pondering whether people round my way pretty much do one of two things - either 1. buy loadsa junk food at supermarkets, as they cant be bothered to cook OR 2. eat healthily - either way - that would explain why theres no call for said rowan or hawthorn berries thisaway (thinking of that there sugar)...

thriftlady_2

Ceridwen I think you'll be hard pushed to make anything palatable out of rowan berries or haws without sugar.

Sugar may be bad for you but it is hard to preserve tart berries without it.

Confuzzled

ceridwen wrote: »

That sounds about it....certainly I personally can taste the "aftertaste" of artificial sweeteners (I've certainly got more "sensitive" tastebuds than many - probably because I've never used tobacco or drugs...so it comes over very strongly to me). Also - having friends with M.S. - I certainly DONT want to join in their symptoms.....I've been quite horrified and saddened to see just how much people can suffer with this illness...

i'm in the same boat with you, never smoked (well tried it twice, made me vomit, point taken never did it again! ) and i don't do drugs, barely drink at all etc so i'm very sensitive to anything salty or chemical or indeed too sugary.

i too know a few people with MS and whilst some do go into regression it inevitiably comes back and it's a truly devestating disease so i concur, not going to bring it on willingly and well quite frankly the taste is enough to put me off even if i didn't know about the side effects

someone else mentioned known side effects of too much sugar consumption

well besides the obvious dental caries and possible weight gain if you eat too much sugar is supposed to actually cause an allergic reaction in most people that....wait for it.... causes you to crave more sugar!

it also is supposed to suppress the immune system if you have too much of it in your diet. a few tablespoons of homemade jam packed full of vitamin c will more than balance out the negative effects of the sugar if it's part of a well balanced diet. i'd only be concerned about it if the rest of the diet was poor

they do make low sugar preserves so perhaps some research into how they make those last would be in order for those that don't want to go down the chemical sweeteners route but wish to limit sugar consumption

Confuzzled

Frugalista wrote: »

I read somewhere (probably on an American site) that you can use applesauce (puree?) instead of fat in some recipes. To that end, I was thinking of stewing some apples and putting them in hot jars to preserve them.

Bearing in mind the above quote, anyone have any idea of how little sugar I would get away with using? I was going to try using less sugar as (presumably) when using the applesauce in place of fat, you would still have to add the same amount of sugar that the recipe called for? Anyone have any thoughts on this?

you can use applesauce in equal amounts as a substitute for oil and sometiems butter/margerine so if it calls for 1/4 cup oil use the same amount of applesauce

however you MUST have some fat in baking or your product will end up a flat heavy block of a thing, the fat helps it to rise in conjunction with baking powder/bicarb etc etc

i use 1 heaping tablespoon of soy flour and 1 tablespoon of water as a replacement for each egg in a recipe so if i were doing this then i wouldn't want to use the applesauce for the oil because i'd be baking a brick (it would still taste ok it just wouldn't be pleasant to eat, yes i know this both from being warned and from personal experience!)

now if i were to replace oil with applesauce then i would go ahead and use a real egg and that should be enough fat to make it reasonably light

you could also do half oil half applesauce or use 1 egg and 1 egg substitute etc etc and these normally turn out well

obviously don't use egg substitutes in things like quiches or custards unless you have a specially adapted recipe, i'm referring to using them for baking

if you do a google search for universal muffin recipe you will find details on how you can adjust various parts of your recipe to accomodate more wet things, using less sugar, using alternate forms of 'grains' and how to adjust leavening agents, oil usage etc etc

Confuzzled

Hello wrote: »

I wanted to double check, are these rowan berries? I did put a thread on here but it was moved to the Green Fingered board, fair enough, but more peeps on here who cook with rowan berries!!

Rowan berries?

yep those are def rowans... best way to identify them is that they have what i think of as a fern like leaf pattern (well that's how they always struck me) once you've seen a few out and about you'll never mistake them

commonly grown in public parks but if you see them in the wild you'll usually find water near by (same thing with birch trees, they like water too)

rowan berries need to be cooked or at least frozen for a few weeks before being eaten, raw berries have something in them called parasorbic acid which is toxic however when you cook or freeze them this changes to sorbic acid which the body can handle just fine

the old wives tale said you needed to wait until after the first frost to use them, this is most likely based on them not being edible without being frozen (or cooked) if you waited until first frost this year you might not get any berries since everything has fruited so early! so don't worry about the old wives tales, we have cookers and freezers!

i prefer to freeze mine before cooking simply because it tends to sweeten them up a bit though saying that i had a bunch of particualrly juicy rowan berries this last time around and they went in as is with my elderberries and other things and i didn't have to add any more sugar than normal, in fact i added less!

one thing you can do with anything that is particularly acidic is to add a small amount of bicarbonate of soda to the batch as this helps to neutralise some of the acid, just a small amount, a tsp or two, you don't want to totally neutralise it or you won't be able to make jam and you'll ruin the flavour

if making pies in particular (with rowans you'd have to add another fruit like brambles, apples, elderberries etc) i would def recommend bicarb as it seriously reduces the amount of sugar you need to add saving money, calories and your teeth!

rowan berries are particularly high in vitamin c and pectin though i'm not sure if one could make jam without additonal pection from either preserving sugar or cooking apples, though it may be possible to just use regular apples with rowans since they are already so high in pectin...not sure though on that point so i offer that up to the more knowledgeable jam makers here